Fire and Fun!

On our unschoolish, eclectic side, we did some experiments with fire last week at the request of DS (10). DDs (3 and 4) looked on in awe. It was a lot of fun, but I talked a lot about safety, too. DS picked out almost all of the materials we tested. Hat tip to our friend Joe at Raw Learning, who gave us some wonderful ideas, including the very basic one that the best way to learn about fire was to light things and see what happens. Here is a photolog of our experiment.

Fabric

Fabric

DS recording results such as how fast each item ignited, the color of the flame, and what kind of material  remained

Paperboard

Hand sanitizer: It is burning, but the flame was basically colorless.

Adding salt to the sanitizer revealed the flame.

Dried leaves.

Copy paper.

Copy paper remains.

Yarn.

Fresh leaves.

Cardboard. We added tongs to create more surface area
(and thus more access to oxygen) on the items.

DS takes a turn at holding the tongs.

Newspaper.

Newspaper remains.