Magical Egg Writing

A couple of weeks ago we got a book from the library called Kid Concoctions & Contraptions.  It's basically a bunch of ideas/experiments We immediately dug into it to see what we could make or build.  There were a handful of things we could do right away with the stuff we had around the house, and we did a few of those (growing construction paper flowers in water, making a loopy flyer with a straw and strips of paper, making a popper by folding paper a specific way, layering oil & colored water & alcohol).  We were moving so fast that first day that I didn't think to get any pictures of the fun we were having.

Over the next week or so I went through the book, made a note of the ones I thought we'd enjoy, made a list of the things we'd need to do some of them.

Last Sunday got the book out and tried a few more ideas.  The first one was pretty simple - put raisins in a class of club soda or ginger ale and they'll sink, then rise to the top, and go back down.  It was actually pretty cool.  The kids liked waiting to see which ones would surface next.

The next one we did was Magical Egg Writing .... mix alum and vinegar, paint that on the shell of an egg, boil the egg .... and voila! you won't see anything on the shell, but when you peel the boiled egg your writing will show up on the white of the egg inside!

Well, here are our results:

Painted, boiled egg:

Peeled egg ... no writing!

But they sure were good to eat!


So for some reason the experiment didn't work the way it was supposed to, but it didn't matter.  The kids and I had a blast, and we had fun screaming "Bummer!" every time we peeled an egg and there was no writing on the inside.

We also did some salt/water painting, and just this past weekend we made a water cyclone out of 2 two-liter bottles.  Taipan thinks that one is pretty cool. 

There are a five or six more of these that I think we'd have fun with .... I've got supplies now, so when the mood strikes us we're ready.