science for tinies: dyeing eggs

Project: What Colors? with special guest saxifrage
Materials: water, white vinegar, food dye, tall plastic Indian-food containers
Explanatory details: we made red, yellow, and blue from the dyes and then poured and mixed to make orange, green, and purple.
How did it go: Great! Junie was very interested in the dye mixing and eager to put eggs in there. Using the Indian-food containers worked very well as they were tall enough (over 2x the depth of the dye) that splashes were contained when she dropped the eggs in. I had put too much red dye in the red so both the orange and purple were basically also red; we probably would have gotten better results by making each color individually from the food colors, rather than mixing the made-up primaries, but this is Science for Tinies, not Art for Tinies, so whatever.
Things we talked about: I tried to get her to guess what color would result from each mixing but she was reluctant to guess, so we just talked about what we saw, both in the liquid and in the color of the eggs that came out.
What Junie got out of it: I asked her just now what she liked about it and she said "green!" and "Trina made purple!"

science for tinies: sprouting things, part I

Project: Will It Grow?
Materials: two avocado pits, plastic tubs, toothpicks
Explanatory details: back in January I mentioned that I was trying to sprout an avocado pit and hoped to see roots in March. I added a second pit around mid-February.
How did it go: Fizzle. Neither pit ever did anything and I finally gave up and tossed them today. However! I immediately re-used the tubs and toothpicks for two shriveled, eye-sprouting potatoes we never ate. So stay tuned for "sprouting things, part II".
Things we talked about: The potatoes might grow roots and leaves to grow into plants.
What Junie got out of it: She enjoyed helping me shove the toothpicks into the potatoes.

magazine review: Animal Baby

We have now received our first issue of Animal Baby. It's cute - smaller than a normal magazine, about the size of a classic Golden Book. This month we got a four-page cover story about a tiger baby (comprising three photos and six sentences), six two-page things including a short poem with suggested hand motions, a picture of a yawning prairie dog, and one that actually taught me something (a meadowlark says "see-you! see-you!), a four-page illustrated story about some kids planting seeds, and a page in the back with a craft idea and a book review/ad (you can buy it on their website). Junie was interested to read it the first time but hasn't asked for it again (unlike new library books which we read over and over).

Also, presumably because the person who gave it to Junie has rather shaky handwriting, it's addressed to Jennifer Smiel, which just really amuses me somehow.