The experiment explains the Water Cycle, including the terms evaporation, precipitation and condensation.
Material required
A ziplock plastic bag.
Color markers (e.g. Sharpie Permanent Markers or any non-erasable markers).
Blue coloring (optional).
Packing tape or a nail to hang.
Draw the water cycle diagram on the ziplock bag including its three stages i.e. evaporation, condensation and precipitation
.
Pour water in the bag.
Add blue food coloring in the bag and zip it up.
Hang the bag upright on the window using a packing tape or on a nail in the sunlight.
After few hours you will see vapors on the bag showing that the water in the bag warmed up and evaporated. As it cooled on rising up, it condensed at the top of the bag in form of clouds.
Human activities like deforestation, and cars and factories burning fossil fuel produce green house gases called Carbon dioxide and Methane. These gases create a barrier in the atmosphere of the earth thus preventing the energy from the sun bounce back. This causes the earth to heat up further. This increased heating of the earth have serious consequences like rising sea level and loss of some species.
Material required
Cardboard.
White paper
Colored markers and crayons
.
Cars (you can make or use a toy car)
Cotton
.
Glue
Scissors.
Instructions
Take two cardboards and cover them with a white paper. Draw sky on one and land and water on the other. (You can use markers, crayons or paints to indicate these.
)
Make trees, factory, using the cardboard and decorate it with color markers.
Stick a cotton pad
in the water to indicate glacier.
Now label the diagram as shown
in the picture.
Stick the two pieces of cardboard firmly
vertically.
Place the car on the surface of the land and your model is ready to demonstrate the process of Global Warming.
Effects of global warming
Objective
This experiment investigates the effect of global climate change and explains how the global warming causes sea level to rise and endangers certain species.
Material required
A tub or a deep pan
.
Rocks
and pebbles.
Water
.
Blue coloring
.
Sea and coastal species (you can use toys for this)
.
A block of ice
.
Ruler to measure water level.
Instructions
Place a few rocks on one side of the pan and pour some water in the pan
.
Add blue coloring in the water. This is optional just to make the water look more prominent.
Place the block of ice in the water area of the pan and drop water species into it.
Use a ruler to measure the level of water.
Leave the dish for around an hour and measure the water level again. There is an increase in the level of water which demonstrates how melting of ice owing to the global warming is causing the sea level to rise.
Unlike every year, this year Easter’s got to be different. In the wake of the ongoing pandemic, all of us are stuck indoors. But that doesn’t mean, we are going to let it fade away fun and excitement of our kids. To keep up with the spirit of the holiday, these are some of the activities that we can do indoors.
Paint Easter Eggs
If you had brought the easter egg-dyeing-kit in the previous year’s clearance, great for you; even if you don’t have the kit, there is good alternative you can do at home. Take some of the eggs from your pantry, hard-boil them and get some food coloring dyes that you already have and you are good to paint your eggs. You can also have your kids use any other artsy-crafty decorative stuff including markers, glue, glitter etc. to make their Easter eggs more attractive.
Get Easter Game Booklets
These booklets are a fun way to keep kids engaged with interesting games including word search, puzzles, mazes, scramble etc. If you don’t have these at your disposal, you can easily get similar printable activity sheet online and have some mind boggling fun at home.
Do the Bunny Hop
Get your kids moving and ready to stretch by doing an indoor bunny hop. All you need to do is play the music and get them set and go. You can also add variations to the bunny hop by making them hold spoons in their mouth with egg on it so that it doesn’t fall or even tying the feet of two of the players and see which duo finish the race first.
Bake Easter Egg Pops
Now this one is also super fun as it not only involves your kids to a good deal but also let them have a sweet treat in the end. All you need to get is a plain cake (or bake it if you don’t already have it), some butter cream, candy melts or icing mix, edible stuff to decorate and pop sticks. Crumble plain cake and mix some butter cream to it so that it is easier to set them in sticks. Make some egg shaped balls out of that cake and butter cream mix and insert them in pop sticks. Now, decorate with whatever you have at home. A good idea is to first cover it with chocolate melts and decorate with sprinkles, candies, gummies, colored icing or any other stuff you have at home.
Make Easter Art
Make some easter themed art —from flowers to bunnies to eggs. Get easter themed printable from your printer and get it coloured or let them draw and paint signs of spring or bunny cartoons. Each one of it is going to give them real fun and a true spirit of the holiday.
Do an Indoor Egg Hunt
Not going out doesn’t mean that you have to sacrifice your egg hunt. Hide easter eggs at different places in your house and let the kids get into some action. You can fill these eggs with some sweet treats or even with hilarious and fun activities just to say “Quack like a duck” or “Do 5 jumping jacks” or “Hug your pet”. This not only gets your child moving and shaking but also have an action filled Easter.
Prepare an Easter Gift Basket
Prepare an interesting gift basket for your kids. It’s completely optional for you to add anything of your choice or whatever you have at your disposal. Get some interesting goodies including games, sweets, fruits, books or coffee to make a memorable gift basket.
Play Easter Bingo
Easter Bingo is played just like the regular bingo. Just that, instead of the numbers on the bingo cards, there are Easter themed pictures (in different order for each player). Similar pictures are also cut out and on each turn a picture is announced by the caller. Buttons or pennies can be used to mark the spots. The players getting their spaces covered vertically, diagonally or horizontally win prizes.
Do Easter Crafts
Make adorable bunnies from toilet paper roll or out of paper plates or disposable cups. There are thousands of other ideas you can creatively use with your kids to make Easter crafts.
Have Easter themed Play-dough Activity or a Lego Challenge
Assign your kids activities to make Easter themed stuff including eggs, flowers, bunnies, vase, butterflies, ladybugs using play dough. You can also give the same challenge using legos if your kids are lego lovers. The idea is just to have lots and lots of fun!
Christmas is here and so it’s time to get a little gingerbready! We did a cute little ginger bread house this season. And I must say it was such an interesting project to work on.
The thumb rule that goes with doing a gingerbread house is that there is no rule except to have fun throughout. Doing it from the scratch including baking gives you the advantage of keeping the ingredients as per your taste, specially if you don’t want too much of the spice content. Decorating it is the more fun part; of course chowing it down being the most!
Ingredients:
For baking-
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons ground ginger
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened to room temperature
Preparing the shapes: First cut out paper templates for the various shapes required for the house. You will need two of each shape i.e. two rectangles 3 by 5 inches to make front and back, two rectangles 3 by 51/2 inches for the roof. Two pieces for the ends of the house; 3 inches wide at the base, 3 inches to the roof line, and slanted to a peak 5 1/2 inches from the bottom.
Make the cookie dough: Add all the dry ingredients together that is flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, allspice together in a large bowl. Set aside.
In a large bowl, beat the butter and brown sugar and molasses together on medium speed until completely smooth and creamy.
Mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until combined.
Wrap cookie tightly in plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for 2 hours. (This is super important else cookie will lose the shape and constructing the house will be difficult.)
Cutting dough into shapes: Remove the dough from the refrigerator and make two balls of it. Roll each ball between parchment paper. The dough will be a little difficult to handle; the parchment will do much of the work. Keep the rolled dough slightly thick (around ¼ inch). Using a pizza cutter or small knife, cut the dough into the gingerbread house template shapes. Re-roll dough scraps so you have enough dough for the whole house. Any extra dough can be used to create fun shapes using cookie cutters like a star or an X-mas tree or a ginger bread man.
Baking: Preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). Line 2-3 large baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats. Arrange gingerbread house shapes onto prepared baking sheets, and bake the house pieces for about 15 minutes or until edges are lightly browned. Remove from the oven and allow shapes to cool completely on the baking sheets or on the counter.
Assembling and decorating: Select a base for the gingerbread-house. Stick the front piece of the house on the base using the royal icing. Stick the remaining sides and roof using the icing glue. Hold in place for a few minutes. You will need supporting objects for pieces to stay. Wait for some time before doing the roof so that the base sets properly.
Before decorating, the icing on the entire house must completely set. Allow the entire house to set at room temperature for at least 3 hours, before decorating. Decorate with butter cream icing and all the candies and stuff of your choice. Let your beautiful creation be a candy to your eyes for a day or two and then of course it’s ready to be munched down!
Tips and tricks:
1. Cookie dough can be made 3 days in advance. Baked pieces of the house can be stored for 1 week and can frozen for upto 3 months.
2. Cool the baked gingerbread house pieces on a flat surface, else the corners will curl a bit.
3. If you are not a great fan of too much spices in the cookie, you can alter the ratio according to yourself; I did.
It always feel happy to see our children developing into individuals with creative thinking, unique ideas and ability to assertively express what they think.
But what substance these kids are made of? How and they are able to develop themselves with the ideas they have? How they are so clear in expressing themselves? And what makes them so assertive and unique about their ways and actions?
Well! They might inherit a great deal from their genes, of course we can’t do much about it. But, what we can actually do about is favorably create the surroundings and the atmosphere they grow in.
As parents, we play a tremendous role in making them become what they actually do. Well, the factors that decide on the thinking and mind-set they’r going to grow with are all around us. Just that we need to pay a little attention to smaller details relating to them.
Curiosity in kids is really good
Curiosity is something kids are naturally blessed with, more or less. If you are a parent (or even if you are not) to young children, I am sure you will be totally able to relate with such constant bombardment of questions that they can come up with. Well, the good news is that curiosity in kids makes them more intelligent, confident and outgoing. It is a natural phenomenon which lets them learn and grow. They explore a range of opportunities and possibilities much required for the growth of their brain and personality on the whole.
Positive and encouraging responses nurture it, while excessive control and regulations kill it. For this, it is extremely important that we not only answer their queries, but also encourage them with elements that spark curiosity by giving them hypothetical situations and asking open ended questions.
It’s great if kids are encouraged to make their choices
We all want our children to grow as assertive, strong and opiniated adults but at the same time we want our children to be passive, pliable and obedient as kids. The two hardly go hand in hand. The ability to give their opinions comes from their very childhood. When they are making choice of their clothes no matter how wrongly paired those are, they are expressing themselves. Allow them to exhibit their own personalities. When they refuse to get ready on time, they are learning the consequences from their mistakes. Let them learn from their inactions.
Such allowances can be messy and overwhelming. After all, we can’t allow our kids to rule the lives. But that is what parenting is all about. Guidance, gentle explanations and coaching go a long way in regulating them to the way they respond. How successful we are going to be in the same depends on how well we try to connect with them.
Talking back and disagreements are good sometimes
Well, this may sound simple but it’s really not cool when that actually happens. Imagine you asking your kid to do his homework and he says why should I? Actually it’s not easy to listen to their back talks when what we are saying is right and is for their good. We as parents want to have the last word on whatever it is.
But if we try to understand talking back is a huge part of the formation of their personality. They want to make their choices. They are not ready to accept what is dished out to them. Yelling, arguing back or supressing through powerful means is just of no help. When they disagree with us, they are displaying a strong mindset. The best way is to diverge them to a different way to reach a solution.
Allowances for being imperfect are okay
As parents we have a tendency to get our child draw, colour or write perfect. Well, in reality the expectation should be to do well rather than be perfect. Over guiding children to colour with all the colours in boundaries or write spellings without mistakes restricts their thinking. Those little imperfections help them discover creative and their own approach to doing a particular thing. It’s very important that we guide them to the extent and in a way that doesn’t hamper their creativity
The power of appreciation can never be underestimated
As adults, we all like to be appreciated and so goes for out kids. It’s one of the greatest ways of enforcing positive behavior.
Praising or appreciating here doesn’t mean praising them for giving the best result or for some accomplishment or for some innate trait they have like their smartness, intelligence or talent. It’s got to get wider with praising for their efforts, gestures, and strategies. It’s more about trying and not getting distressed even if they are not the best. It’s more about getting better even if they do well. It’s more about attempting something even though they were not confident about it. It’s more about trying hard to reach the goal they decide for themselves.
So let’s appreciate for listening, appreciate for understanding, appreciate for being responsible, and appreciate for being thoughtful!
It’s a great practice to communicate by narrating stories
How often we notice that kids pay special attention if we tell some present or past incidence or narration or practices about our own selves or someone they know . This means, it can be a great way to diverge their thought process to meaningful inferences and conclusions through stories. That can be anything from being true or concocted as far as they are going to leave some good impression on our children.
Even kids can be made to narrate through simple practices; narrating about a particular place they went to, drawing an event or function they attended, correlating an object with something using their own thoughts and ideas or anything.
If we try to understand it, parenting is more about growing ourselves in raising children than anything else and they are completely a reflection of how well we are able to bring it in our practice.
This one comes as my all time favorite super saver dessert. The reason I like it so much is that it not only looks fancy but can also be made with minimum effort. Plus, this trifle recipe gives a superb blend of cake and custard and cream along with fruits. What a combo!
This recipe is a perfect fit for any occasion. With its mild flavors and melt in mouth consistency, this is a sure shot favorite of kids and grown ups equally.
Dissolve 3 tbsp of custard powder in 3 tbsp of cold milk so that no lumps are formed and keep it aside.
Now in a separate pan, take 1 1/2 cups milk; add 4 tbsp sugar and bring it to a boil.
Add the custard powder paste and stir quickly, keeping the stove on medium flame so that no lumps are formed. Keep on stirring till the custard thickens. Since it’s for a trifle recipe, I prefer it slightly thicker.
Allow the custard to cool at room temperature.
For whipped cream
In another bowl, take 2 cups of chilled cream.
With an electric beater or in a stand mixer, whip the cream till you get soft peaks.
Add 1/2 cup sugar and 1/4 tsp vanilla extract, give it a stir and your cream is ready.
Prepping fruits and cake for the trifle
Slice and chop fruits of your choice; just avoid citrus fruits and melons. I used apples, grapes, strawberries and pomegranate.
Now slice 250 grams or a small block of plain vanilla cake or pound cake into cubes. I used homemade pound cake.
Arranging the trifle
Line half a portion of the sponge cubes in a serving bowl. You can also make individual portions of the trifles in bowls or dessert glasses.
Brush the cake with any juice of your choice; don’t overuse it.
Now layer half of the chopped mixed fruits.
Spread half of the custard in a layer.
Add a layer of whipped cream.
Repeat all the layers.
Even out the topmost layer with a spatula and top it with chocolate shavings and cherry. You can also use fruits, berries or anything of your choice.
Chill it in refrigerator and your trifle is ready to be served.
Mom's Diary 