I was having a hard time keeping my students on task today. My efforts were not helped by my lack of sleep the night before. The moment that completely derailed my day came when Daniel challenged Fiona to punch him in the forehead, as hard as she could. So she did. He meant to duck, but ducked about a second too late. I saw the whole thing; it was hilarious. When Daniel came up screaming, I sent him to his room. "You told her to punch you as hard as she can! She did what you told her to do! Quit screaming!"
As soon as Heidi went down for her nap, I pulled us all up by our boot straps and got a chemistry experiment done that I've been wanting to do for years!
We added heavy whipping cream, milk, sugar, and vanilla to a small ziplock bag...
...put the well-sealed bag inside a bigger bag filled with ice and shook it up real good for about 15 minutes. After the time was up, we checked our "ice cream" and found that nothing had happened. Evie had just read that salt water freezes at a lower temperature than fresh water, so we added some:
Don't eat rock salt. The bag says it isn't for human consumption and to call poison control if ingested. I wish my boys would have read that before they tasted the salt. The salt brought the temperature down to 20 degree Fahrenheit, which was just right for freezing the cream.
They shook their bags for another ten minutes and....
...then we had ice cream for lunch! After that, everyone mellowed out nicely and got the rest of their schoolwork done.
