Experimenting with Water Absorbing Crystals (The powder inside nappies!) for Home-made Fake Snow

This was a very cool experiment.  I had found a Pinterest Pin a few months before which lead here and I think I forgot the bit about it not actually being the powder from inside nappies. So when we did it, ours went a little something like this:

Home-Made Fake Snow

1. Get about 3 or 4 baby nappies you won't need and prepare to shred them.

 

2. Tear the inner lining of the nappy rather forcefully (or cut with scissors!)  You will be met by many layers of cotton wool, but what we want is the grains of powdery crystals which will immediately start to come out. We found shaking and patting the nappy over a large bowl got quite a good yield of crystal powder.  This powder is the hydrogel or water absorbing crystals which usually soak up all of baby's... wetness. 

3. Cotton wool will also fall into the bowl, just pick out the worst bits, give the bowl a good swirl around and the crystals will sink to the bottom and you can try to pick out the rest of the wool. If some remains it will not affect the outcome.

Our collection taken from 4 nappies.

4. Now to add water. We started out with a 1ml dropper

But after 13 drops the gel was still sucking up the water and the kids were getting impatient and looking forward to playing with it!

 So we started again:

• 90mls water + 1 teaspoon powder.

• Wait a little bit and watch those little crystals sucking up all that water.

Jenny was amazed as we realised it has changed from a liquid state to a solid.

•  This is how much "snow" we got from one teaspoon of powder and it would have gone further if we had given it the water and some time.

It is completely safe to handle and hold. But I would say don't eat it. 

 

Play time!  Spoons, bowls and bare hands squashed, scooped, sprinkled and squeezed away about 30 minutes of focussed (semi-messy) fun.

The crystals have a lovely soft texture.

 

You just can't squeeze the water out of there.

Then Clever Daughter looked around the kitchen and said "What happens if we add salt?"  Now I must say that I think she said this because she isn't allowed to play with the salt shaker and thought this might be her chance. But I thought Salt Does Do Weird Things To Water, Let's try!

Yippeee! Happy to add some salt.

 The salt transforms the "snow" back into a liquid!

Left: No Salt; Right: Salt Added.

So I thought I would do one last change up with this fabulous stuff, threw a random amount in a baby food jar with some blue food colouring. Closed the lid and shook it up.

Like an iceberg sucking up the sea...

The kids had a great afternoon, and it was definitely worth the nappy sacrifices.

 

 

Some Crafty Kids give Home-made Fake Snow:

 

Fun: 8/10

 

Educational: 9/10

 

Show & Tell-worthiness: 7/10

Rocking Out in Show and Tell

I've never enjoyed public speaking. I loathe it. It makes me shake and sweat and bite my nails, I stammer, I drop my cue cards and basically look like every nervous cartoon character you've ever seen. 

So when my Clever Daughter started Reception and they said she had to do a Show and Tell presentation every Monday I thought it was an opportunity to really get her used to speaking in front of a group from a young age.

What we all do for Show and Tell is send our child in with a toy and say "Tell them about it" then wheelspin it out of there reassuring ourselves that it doesn't really matter anyway. 

If I said to you "Tell me about your teacup?"  You COULD launch into a very interesting speech about where it came from, how it was made and the labour costs vs the store price, but you will probably say something like "I got it on Mothers Day 3 years ago. It came with a small bear too."

My point is that it's not easy to have much to say about an object even for an adult.  A child has a lot less to say usually. You may have tried to pry information out a child before, "Where did you get that screwdriver from?" "How did you get your pasta on TOP of the TV?" but they can be quite cagey when they aren't sure of details.

So began the Show and Tell Weekend Project.

Every weekend we do one interesting thing together and I take photos.  Usually these projects are ideas from Pinterest, sometimes science sites sometimes we just ice cupcakes. Then on a Sunday evening I put the best of those photos onto an A4 or two, and Clever Daughter takes them to class AND KNOCKS THEIR SOCKS OFF.

At least that's what I am picturing.

But my visions are not unfounded, if a little overzealous: the teacher keeps telling me how they look forward to Jenny's Show and Tell presentations, and that she can talk for quite a while, referring to the photos and remembering the information as she goes.  She also answers questions at the end with intelligence and accuracy. 

That's my girl. 

She's 4, turning 5 in a month, and she's preparing to be Awesome in the big bad world right now.

So it's all worthwhile, you see?  Invest in your children's education and with faith, trust and pixie dust they'll find their way.