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Activities with Fletcher
Stuck at home with the kids because of coronavirus? I am too! My four year old son, Fletcher, and I are making the best of it with easy activities at home to help keep him entertained and learning. Many of them are using things I already have on hand in our kitchen. What I want him to remember out of this is how many cool things we created and all of the fun we had.
We wanted to share our projects that we’ve done to help give other parents ideas! Fletcher is in preschool but many of the activities can be adapted for older kids as well.
Creating Frozen Orbs with Hot Lava
We used the Smithsonian Maker Lab book for this activity. It is loaded with cool projects for kids of all ages. Making water balloons and freezing them? Yes, please! My son is obsessed with balloons and ice so it is the perfect combo project.
Even though Fletcher is 4 years old, this could definitely be done with older kids who would understand more of the science behind why the salt melts the ice. You could have an older sibling explain it to a younger sibling while they do the activity together!
**Warning – this project cannot be done in a day because the water balloons have to freeze overnight**
“Look at it go!!” – Fletcher, after started putting the food coloring on the orbs
Fill the balloons with water and put in the freezer overnight
Fill the balloons about halfway and put them in the freezer in a tray so they don’t roll around. Do not fill your balloons all the way! Water expands and will cause the balloon to tear, which could result in a mess in your freezer.
Remove the balloon from the frozen ball
Don’t cheat by taking the balloons out too early! Make sure they have had plenty of time to freeze all the way through.
Sprinkle the ice orbs with salt. Or do it like Fletcher and cake it on!
Sprinkling the salt helps create the look of lava flowing down the orbs as the salt melts the ice but I tried not to micromanage since he was having so much fun piling the salt on!
Let the salt do it's magic
Wait for a few minutes and let the salt start melting the ice where it landed. Point out the places where the salt is starting to melt the ice. They’ll be so excited!
Start dropping food coloring
Get the hot lava flowing! Start dropping food coloring onto the ice orbs and watch it flow along where there salt melted the ice.
Admire your hot lava flowing ice orbs
Sit back and take it all in! Isn’t it beautiful seeing all of the colors flow down the ice?
Book Overview
Supporting STEAM education initiatives and the Maker Movement, the National Parenting Publication Award-winner Maker Lab includes 28 kid-safe projects and crafts that will get young inventors’ wheels turning and make science pure fun. Each step-by-step activity is appropriate for kids ages 8-12, and ranked easy, medium, or hard, with an estimated time frame for completion. Requiring only household materials, young makers can build an exploding volcano, race balloon rocket cars, construct a lemon battery, make sticky slime, and more. Photographs and facts carefully detail the “why” and “how” of each experiment using real-world examples to provide context so kids can gain a deeper understanding of the scientific principles applied. With a foreword by Jack Andraka, a teen award-winning inventor, Maker Lab will help kids find their inner inventor and create winning projects for school projects, science fairs, and beyond.
Meet Alane and Fletcher
Alane Boyd
Alane has kept her 40 lb weight loss off since 2013, and created BurgerFit and Cooking with My Friends as a way to get her family eating better. Her health journey started in 2012 after being diagnosed with high blood pressure and obesity. Frustrated and determined, Alane decided to make small, sustainable changes in her diet so that it would be maintainable for a lifetime. Now Alane maintains a healthy weight range and has incorporated quick and easy recipes that keep her picky family members eating better!
Fletcher
Fletcher enjoys break dancing, cooking, sports commentary, and running really fast speed - anywhere and everywhere. He is an avid lover of music and plays harmonica, drums, and guitar. From a young age, he has loved being a part of whatever his parents, Alane and Micah, are doing. He has even started coming up with recipes of his own to test out. His dream is to own 10 coffee shops from Tennessee to Arizona to Minnesota.
Growing up together
There is no doubt that even as we get older, we don’t stop learning and that is what both Fletcher and I have done together since I had him. I’ve grown a ton raising him and watching him grow. I like to think we are both growing up together. I have tried to incorporate Fletcher in everything I do from to cooking and cleaning the kitchen, to practicing for media events, to traveling the world for speaking engagements. I try to make it fun so he keeps wanting to be a part of it. Not everything is a win but everyday is a new adventure!
