101 reasons not to open a book titled "101 science experiments to do at home".

[snigger]

(1) You will attempt to grow a pineapple from the cast off head of another pineapple, and your DC's dreams of tropical fruit paradise will be replaced by a ziploc bag of mould.

(2) Water, salt, string, and a warm place make a jam jar of mildew, not diamonds.

[GeckoLovingHornedThing]

roffle

did you buy that book?
please tell me it was a present, I mean really, you know that its a bad idea surely

[snigger]

I bought the book.

Dammit.

[snigger]

Bump - refusing to believe there's no-one else out there currently suffering the creation of a baking soda rocket.

[EccentricaGallumbits]

have you made slime yet?

if not DON'T.

[Yurtgirl]

Id buy such a book too I admit

And then wonder endlessly feck where can I buy wire wool etc............?

[Portofino]

Thanks for the heads up. I'll remember NOT to buy the book!

[whomovedmychocolate]

My husband would love this book.

[GrimmaTheNome]

We grew some lovely salt crystals. But then, I did used to be a crystallographer.

more reasons:
3) finding theres no baking soda left when you next need it for a recipe

4) ditto vinegar

[PortBlacksandResident]

Homemade Volcanoes will be a disappointment and instead of ending in a "ooooh" will inevitable end in an "eh?" esp if they involve baking soda.

An do not get me started on Ant & Worm farms......

[LupusinaLlamasuit]

Ah. I was just going to - in fact I might still - post a thread selling the virtues of the New Scientist book How to fossilize your hamster because me and DS1 and his friend had brilliant fun this evening snapping spaghetti and toasting eggshells and dropping coins in coke and stuff.

But that one sounds a bit boring

[whomovedmychocolate]

I got into a lot of trouble PortBlackandResident for sending my nephew an ant farm for his birthday. He felt sorry for them being in the big plastic habitat and so invited them out for a run round in his bedroom and fed them all manner of things to see what would happen.

[EccentricaGallumbits]

now eggs in vinegar - that's a goodun.

also remember something to do with red cabbage that stained the entire kitchen but can't remember hat it was supposed to do.

[whomovedmychocolate]

what happens when you toast eggshells????

[Loshad]

snigger - you can make great rockets from alka-seltzer tablets - much easier than baking powder and they really do go whooosh
i love homemamde volcanoes -partic with red food colouring

[GrimmaTheNome]

has anyone actually managed to extract iron filings out of fortified breakfast cereal ?(I think thats in ..Hamster...). We couldn't find any in Special K.

[LupusinaLlamasuit]

We stopped short at that one as we didn't have one of these

[GrimmaTheNome]

must get round to trying coke and mentos mints....outside!

DD bought an Ant farm with some of her xmas money, but I said it has to stay outside! We've not set it up yet.

[GrimmaTheNome]

Oh, we've got all sorts of magnets including a whopping ELC horseshoe.

[Yurtgirl]

We have got the elc horseshoe as well - tis fab and huge

Go on Snigger give us a link to the book - DS needs it

[LupusinaLlamasuit]

I loved our blue space gel antfarm. Until they all died and ate each other. It was fascinating. I was quite attached to the little blighters.

Went straight to the charity shop after the first population died out though.

[LupusinaLlamasuit]

WMMC, you hold an egg in a candle flame, ideally until completely and evenly blackened. Then you put it in a bowl of water.

Hey presto. Silver egg.

And if you take it out and dunk it again, the water disperses to give a completely dry surface. Weird and visual and led to lots of interesting theories from 10yos involving microbes and chemical reactions. They were a teeny bit disappointed when I told them it was trapped air.

[whomovedmychocolate]

A whole egg or just the shell? That sounds cool!

[snigger]

here you go, lads, share my agony

[snigger]

I have to admit, this is where Mumsnet really helps - when you're sitting there, at 8pm, the only one in the family who really gives a shit whether the carnation turns yellow with dye or not - it's nice to know you're not alone.

[Yurtgirl]

Lupis that egg experiment is fab - Ds will want to have a go at that
Thankyou for the link snigger

I NEED to know where to buy science stuff, wire wool, iron fillings etc - Home Educating ds soon and he will want to do all sorts of science stuff!