Potions

• home education

[minor pseudonymising edits during Drupal to hugo migration for all the good that will do now]

Week has been flat tack.

But today they made potions. Supervised from a distance as today is a work day. Ingredients included a small tub of yoghurt, jellybeans, cordial (even though I told them no food items they could consume directly when they asked if they could make potions ie before they’d had a chance to gather ingredients, they tried to claim they had somehow assembled these things before I’d told them no food items), citric acid, bicarb, vinegar, hippie lice shampoo (contains only eucalyptus and melaleuca oils) and hippie plant-based detergent.

8yo made a big potion in a “cauldron” (big tin bucket with two handles, it’s supposed to be a drink holder) which smelled nice and bubbled lots when you stir it. We had a brief chat about what makes the bubbles when he dragged me out to see.

6yo assisted and then went to have a picnic on the cubby house.

4yo made a few more potions in his sand bucket and a couple of jars he found laying around. One lot of potion got dumped on Angus, who had to be brought in and rinsed off.

8yo observed that one of 4yo’s potions (which involved jellybeans) got really hot when 4yo added something to it (he couldn’t remember what, just remember it got hot to touch for a bit) and the jellybeans melted a little.

Science lessons for the day.

Then 4yo decided to sample one of his potions.

He’s fine, but what followed was a long winded health and safety lecture on my part about why you shouldn’t consume your science experiments.

And pro-tip: don’t distantly supervise a 4yo with the science experiments. Sigh. At least they were pretty safe ingredients :|

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