VBS & the Imagination Station

Click on "May 15" (on the side bar) to see updated garden pix as the summer goes on you can see how our garden is growing!   

In Progress:

 

 VBS --our science experiments and activities.  This was called the:

Imagination Station

 

We had 4 different groups come through our 'station' for 35 minutes.  The age range was Pre-K to 6th grade.  Each science experiment had a corresponding bible verse and bible message.  Many of the kids we had come to our VBS were from the town of our church; but they don't attend church and knew practically nothing about church/God/Jesus/ etc.  I am not sure how I would have planned this differently if I had known that before I planned the activities.  I *assumed* the kids would be fairly familiar with God & the bible.  One little girl asked "what's that?" when another little girl said she was going to get baptised.  She didn't even know the word.  By the end of the week they might not have learned a ton about the bible; but I certainly told them many times how much the Lord and Jesus love them and is with them every moment of their lives wanting to be involved with them.

Since the kids were VERY wild and unruly I had to be focused and organized.  I tried to keep things moving quickly and not linger on things very long.  Also, I would let the best behaved kids help us add water to this or baking soda to that...emphasizing that God rewards good behavior and so we what to reward good behavior in our experiments too!

We used the book: Super Fun Science by Heno Head, Jr. and had success with every experiment we tried.  The bible tie-in's were really good--in my opinion.   Our church bought this for our church to use, so I got to use it for the VBS.  I had never heard of this book before.

Super Fun Science: Multisensory Object Talks from the Psalms by Heno Head Jr. and Rusty Fletcher 

 

 

Monday--Hoover balls

We took 2 hairdryers and my partner and I stood up and held up 2 small ping pong balls and asked the class what they thought would happen.  Then we had two kids come up to each one of us and put the balls above our dryer vent and say: "Ready, Set, Go!"  Then we would turn on the dryer and the ball would hover.  Then I would turn the dryer to high and see if go higher.

Then they would sit down and we would introduce a new ball, after new ball, after new ball, after new ball:

here are some of the items we tested: plastic Easter egg-small and large, styrofoam ball, plastic balls of various sized, then we had some small blow-up balls, and balloons with 1 penny, 2 pennies, 3 pennies, 4-5-6 pennies.

Then we also had a floor fan that we tried all those items on it as well.  

Tuesday--Eruptions

Set up:  In a kiddie pool we had some different containers, 2 jugs of vinegar, 5 boxes of baking soda, 6 whole Mentos candy units,  2 liters of Diet Coke, various funnels, plastic spoons, water bottles with water in them.

Then we asked the kids what they thought would happen if we added this with this, what about this with that?  Raise your hand if you think it will make the liquid get bubbly and active...Raise your hand if you think it won't do anything...Raise your hand if you think it will explode?...

Before the classes started my friend tried the soda and Mentos experiment in our room and it didn't do anything--dud.  So, tried it with the Pre-K kids and don't cha know it started to fully erupt and I quickly put the palm of my hand over the mouth of the soda bottle and slowly let it decompress!  For the older kids, we took them outside to do that experiment!  But, it didn't explode nearly as well as it was with the younger kids.

Wednesday-
***Lettuce Be Stong

I did this experiment first b/c it needs time for the lettuce to react.  So I set it up and then went on to another experiment, and then came back to this one to see the results.  I told them ahead of time that we were going to do that.

Set up--you will need lettuce leaves-we had iceburg, and swiss chard--you could use Romaine too- Salt, bowls, and water.  The salt bowls get 5 Tablespoons of salt in each bowl.

***Colored water in jars experiments:
You will need various jars, vases,clear bottles, small blue colored bottles(if you have any),and containers; water, blue and yellow food coloring

This was a great experiment to let the kids really try things out themselves.  The "directions" say to have a blue water in a glass or vase and yellow water in a glass bowl.  Then put the glass inside the bowl and see how it makes the water look like it turned green.

*Note: the kids immediately always wanted to POUR the water together --that isn't what this experiment is about.  We are putting containers together.  A bowl of yellow (not filled high; maybe 1/3 of the way with water) and then the blue vase or glass is placed into the middle of the bowl to stand there.  Then lift the two objects apart and put back together to see the colors blend is a lot of fun.

We had fun by adding blue bottoms with yellow glasses added in; or we added a blue glass (not water-just an old blue glass jar I had) into a yellow water glass.  We tried this with that and that with this and had a lot of fun with swapping things around.  Then at the end of the class, I let the kids mix the water samples together to make different shades of green for fun.


***Egg Explosion:
Finale--*IF* the kids behaved really well, I promised to do a really cool 'egg exploding' experiment...and don't you know--they all behaved so good that each group got to see this experiment!!
Egg Explosion:  
You will need a few hard boiled eggs, a glass jar with a mouth that is slightly smalled than the width of an egg (this is the hardes thing about the experiment--finding the 'right' jar- think of an old fashioned glass milk container, that the milkman would deliver to your grandmother's door.)  You will also need matches or a lighter, a few scrapes of a piece of paper.

Light a 4-5 inch piece of paper and drop it into the jar without putting the flame out, quickly put the egg in the mouth of the jar--small end down, into the hole--and wait about 1 second and POP! the egg will be pushed down into the jar by the air pressure outside the jar!  It is a big "Ta-Da!"
We've done this experiment before and the egg realy exploded inside the jar; but this time it didn't really explode very much.  The only thing I could figure that was different was that we had refrigerated the eggs overnight and kept them cold before we did the experiment with the kids.

Thursday:

***Currents Experiment:
You will need an ice cube tray, food coloring, water, a fairly large clear/see-through container(s) and some days prep time.  Set Up: This one took the longest prep work b/c I only have one ice cube tray, and needed multiple blue ice cubes (our frig has a built in ice cube maker).  I needed food coloring (blue) and and ice tray to make the blue ice cubes.  My first batch of blue ice cubes were not blue enough so I the next day I made another batch of really blue ice cubes.  The instructions say to put the food coloring drops into the little squares and then add water; but I just mixed up 1 1/2 cups of water with a LOT of blue coloring and then poured it into the tray.   


For the demonstration you have some various sized clear containers, fill them with warm water and then add the blue ice cubes.  The ice cubes will melt and the blue dye will drizzle down to the bottom of the containers.


FOR FUN: I also made super yellow ice cubes and then added them to the blue containers (after the kids had got the point of the lesson).  They really enjoyed watching the water turn green.  I repeated the theme 'blue plus yellow equals green' almost every night, just for fun in most of our vbs activities!


Friday  --   Dry-Ice!

***The “Put Out the Candles” experiment:

Ingredients: one tub or container with candle in a stabilizing clay holder, a second tub or container or tray with 3,4, 5, or 6 candles with clay base.  Then have an EMPTY pitcher with a small glass of dry-ice and water placed inside the empty pitcher.  The pitcher will fill up with carbon dioxide.  The carbon dioxide will be poured over the ‘party’ grouping of candles, which will put their fires out.

The point of this lesson is that as Christians we sometimes have to stand alone or apart from the crowds of people that choose to live in a more wild, party lifestyle.  We choose the narrow is the way type of lifestyle that brings us closer to His way; and in the process our ‘light’ stays on!

***Balloon Blast:
A dry-ice experiment that didn’t work on Friday night; was probably a good thing b/c it was really a LOUD blast!  I didn't have enough small pieces of dry-ice to put inside the bottle, so it only made the balloons get big - which actually was even better b/c it didn't scare the kids!!!

Ingredients: plastic water bottle, water, dry-ice –broken up into small bits, and a balloon.

Put the water, then LOTS & LOTS of dry-ice into the bottle, then seal with the balloon and wait.  The balloon will get bigger and bigger and will eventually POP! With a super, loud bang---seriously loud!

***The Big Bubble Experiment:

Ingredients: a metal bowl, water, Dawn dish soap, kitchen towl,  and dry-ice

I didn’t get this one to work either.  I only had about 3-4 minutes to try to get it to work; but I bet this would be cool.  You fill up the bowl with dawn dish soap, water, dry-ice, and then wet and lather a hand towel.  Flatten/Roll the towel and try to seal the top of the bowl with the towl.  This is hard to explain—you can do what I did and go to youtube (with an adult) and type in “Dry-Ice Experiments” and look for “big bubble”.

 

***"Big Hit" Bubbles:

Ingredients: Jars, Pitchers, bowls, warm water, dry-ice, Dawn dish soap

I put the jars, etc. in a small kiddie pool, on a table in the room where our class was held.  Then I put the ingredients together and let the bubbles build up and then showed them how when you pop the bubbles, smoke comes out.  They LOVED playing with this!!!  Wow!  Was this a huge hit!  Then I took it to a second step—fun, colorful bubbles:

***Fun, Colorful Bubbles:

Ingredients: Clear glass jars or glasses, food coloring, dry-ice, and Dawn dish soap

I just added food coloring to the clear jars, glasses and turned the white, gray smoke and bubbles into fun colors. Since we had worked on mixing blue and yellow to make green earlier in the week; I thought it would be fun to do that with dry ice too. 

***Turn white Queen Anne's Lace blue, red, and yellow:

Day 1

Day 2

Okay-- so I was planning on doing this experiment with VBS; but I didn't want to shop around for the Carnation flower that the book told me to us.  I was mentioning this to some of the women who were serving dinner and they said to try a Queen Anne's Lace flower and so I have.....drum roll......ta da!  it works great!  I can see how a Carnation would be very pretty too; but you would have to pay extra for that and this flower was *free*!!!  Fun, Free, and Fantastic!