More Science: Bouncing Eggs

 

Sometimes when you have two girls obsessed with painting their toe nails (and entire foot, in some cases) you just have to allow science to save you.

 We had another book from the library calling out to us to get experimenting!  This one does take some patience, Natalie : )  But not because it's hard or really messy.  It takes three days of waiting--which is torture on the kids' part.

 First of all you need to gather up one egg per child, one container per egg--we used small jam size mason jars, white vinegar and a separate pouring container if you'd like. 

 The title of this book is The Bouncing Egg, which is quite intriguing to young minds, as you might guess.  They were convinced that these eggs would turn into bouncy balls. 

 Placing the egg into the jar without breaking it presented the first challenge.  I had to intervene. 

 Next, add your vinegar.  So that the kids could pour their own vinegar, I poured it into a Pyrex liquid  measuring cup.  Pour in enough vinegar to cover the egg.  It took just over a third of a cup in the container we used.

 The hardest part was leaving them on the counter for three days.  I wasn't sure if it was kosher to put the lids on the jars--but I didn't want the jars to tip and spill, and I didn't really want all of Tadd's various coffee roasts to fall into our experiments.  So, I took the lids off at night and left them on during the day.  We felt the eggs each day and within a few hours we could already feel the vinegar beginning to break down the shell.  It started to feel leathery.  And there was a thick white foam on the top of the liquid.  The eggs were starting to float and looking bloated two days in. 

 Three and a half days after leaving our eggs, we reached in to take them out....

 and Ezra's leathery egg skin broke when he touched it.  His  heart broke along with it.

 I tried dumping out the vinegar and then the egg with Caroline's. 

 Nora had to cry because Ezra was crying.  And she seemed really upset about the whole experiment. 

 Caroline was thrilled to make her egg bounce.  And bounce it did--from low heights. 

 She let Ezra take a turn too.

 But raise it up a little and....splat!

I'm not sure whether this experiment was more fun or traumatic.  I had two crying and one happy at the end.  That's science, folks!  Sometimes you cry and sometimes you have a break through that makes you a millionaire.  I would recommend doing this experiment in conjuncture with a snake unit if you can--the eggs feel exactly what I imagine a snake egg would feel like.  I will never know  because you couldn't pay me the a fore mentioned million dollars to touch a snake or her egg.  Happy weekend--and happy experimenting!