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My wife made a whole YouTube series on fun experiments you can do with young kids. This one creates beautiful art by utilizing syphoning and chromatography on t

My wife made a whole YouTube series on fun experiments you can do with young kids. This one creates beautiful art by utilizing syphoning and chromatography on toilet roll using normal colored pens! https://youtu.be/U41HIDxertg?t=149 https://youtu.be/U41HIDxertg?t=149 The USP of the videos is to create something the kids want to watch in parallel to the adult learning the experiment. It tries to avoid the split attention and bored kids you get when following experiment notes. Also she avoids difficult ingredients

gus_massa 6y ago
I watched the video about the hot and cold water https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGpKH0Sobcs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGpKH0Sobcs When she puts the cold water at the top and the hot water at the bottom (around 2:18) I was surprised they mix so fast. I was expecting to see some movement like in a lava lamp and a total mix after some time. Have she tried with some more viscous fluid like oil? (It would be more difficult to clean, and the parents will hate her.) Also I didn't see any experiment about non Newtonian fluids with strach+water. It cause a huge mess, but it is worth. Are you helping her? Do you have some interesting anecdotes? Perhaps you both can write a blog post and post it here.
- tlarkworthy 6y ago
  Yeah that's a cool one. I help a little with the apparatus for some of them but it's definitely her gig. She started this before lockdown so now it's a struggle shooting them and looking after the twins fulltime, so our bandwidth is a bit limited at the moment. Starch water mixing is a great idea if we can do it with simple flour. We will write a blog soon as we have a ton of tech/sci teaching things that worked out well. Our 4 year olds recently learnt to type/write from using the search bar in Minecraft! They were so desperate to dress their horses they learn to type horse from a paper prompt to get the horse accessories! Lol
  - gus_massa 6y ago
    Normal flour is not useful, I'm not sure why[1]. But you can buy starch for cooking in most supermarkets[2]. [1] My guess is that normal flour has gluten that makes it sticky and traps the small CO2 bubbles that are produced by the yeast to make bread. I always wondered this. [2] At least here in Argentina.
MikeTheGreat 6y ago
"something the kids want to watch in parallel to the adult learning the experiment" This is brilliant, and exactly what I'm looking for. There's so much good stuff out there, but I need to figure it out first and then walk my (young) kids through it. Much thanks to your wife for making these, and you for posting it here! I skimmed the video so I've got an idea of what/how to pitch it to my kids and I'm hoping we can do this later today. Wish me luck! :)
- tlarkworthy 6y ago
  Good luck! Let us know how it goes!
  - MikeTheGreat 6y ago
    The good news: The video was awesome. It got their attention, it was easy to follow, and I could also see what needed to happen after. The bad news: I did a bad job pitching it. In retrospect I should have waited until they were bored. What I did was excitedly show it to them even though they were hoping to do other things. D'oh!!!!!! I might give it another shot, but I think I missed the window :(
    - tlarkworthy 6y ago
      Maybe try a different video. The paper cutting one is popular too, and u only need scissors, pens and paper: https://youtu.be/-_QgA767lvw https://youtu.be/-_QgA767lvw

gus_massa 6y ago

I watched the video about the hot and cold water https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGpKH0Sobcs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGpKH0Sobcs When she puts the cold water at the top and the hot water at the bottom (around 2:18) I was surprised they mix so fast. I was expecting to see some movement like in a lava lamp and a total mix after some time. Have she tried with some more viscous fluid like oil? (It would be more difficult to clean, and the parents will hate her.) Also I didn't see any experiment about non Newtonian fluids with strach+water. It cause a huge mess, but it is worth. Are you helping her? Do you have some interesting anecdotes? Perhaps you both can write a blog post and post it here.

tlarkworthy 6y ago
Yeah that's a cool one. I help a little with the apparatus for some of them but it's definitely her gig. She started this before lockdown so now it's a struggle shooting them and looking after the twins fulltime, so our bandwidth is a bit limited at the moment. Starch water mixing is a great idea if we can do it with simple flour. We will write a blog soon as we have a ton of tech/sci teaching things that worked out well. Our 4 year olds recently learnt to type/write from using the search bar in Minecraft! They were so desperate to dress their horses they learn to type horse from a paper prompt to get the horse accessories! Lol
- gus_massa 6y ago
  Normal flour is not useful, I'm not sure why[1]. But you can buy starch for cooking in most supermarkets[2]. [1] My guess is that normal flour has gluten that makes it sticky and traps the small CO2 bubbles that are produced by the yeast to make bread. I always wondered this. [2] At least here in Argentina.

MikeTheGreat 6y ago

"something the kids want to watch in parallel to the adult learning the experiment" This is brilliant, and exactly what I'm looking for. There's so much good stuff out there, but I need to figure it out first and then walk my (young) kids through it. Much thanks to your wife for making these, and you for posting it here! I skimmed the video so I've got an idea of what/how to pitch it to my kids and I'm hoping we can do this later today. Wish me luck! :)

tlarkworthy 6y ago
Good luck! Let us know how it goes!
- MikeTheGreat 6y ago
  The good news: The video was awesome. It got their attention, it was easy to follow, and I could also see what needed to happen after. The bad news: I did a bad job pitching it. In retrospect I should have waited until they were bored. What I did was excitedly show it to them even though they were hoping to do other things. D'oh!!!!!! I might give it another shot, but I think I missed the window :(
  - tlarkworthy 6y ago
    Maybe try a different video. The paper cutting one is popular too, and u only need scissors, pens and paper: https://youtu.be/-_QgA767lvw https://youtu.be/-_QgA767lvw