the colorful forest and never-ending side

The Artist and Nature Man use Teaching Textbooks for math, and love it, but we still like to supplement with other activities now and then.

Today I had the kids make a Möbius strip.

To make one, cut a long rectangular piece of paper and draw an X and an O in alternate corners on the side facing up. Now twist the paper until the two sides are facing. Tape or staple together, to make a sort of circle. Try to color one side red and the other yellow (you can't because it only has one side.) This makes an easy elementary intro to topology (or M.C. Escher!)

As I mentioned before, we just started a plant unit for science. Yesterday and today we studied about osmosis & cohesion, and used celery stalks and food coloring to demonstrate.

Put celery in a glass of water (we decided to do three different colors, to make a Color Forest.)Before shot (taken as soon as we set the celery into the water)

Within an hour, the celery has absorbed enough to change the color of its leaves...

Close-up (click for an even closer view)...

Voila! Blue and red celery!
The purple one didn't turn out as well.
Happy learning!