What Now America

The first order was to go to the computer lab to learn about our activities for the day, as we had an ambitious plan to build volcanoes out of water bottles, glue, and sand.  There were videos on activitytv.com which helped give everyone an idea about what we were going to attempt.  We had no idea if it would actually work, but we thought if the kids on the internet could do it, so could we.

The kids worked up an appetite learning, and so we had turkey sandwiches with our usual fare of breads, fruits and vegetables, and salad. Next, we went to get some physical activity at the gym, with a variety of activities from jumping rope to basketball.  Everyone got involved, laughed and played together.

Finally, it was time to start our science activities.  The first was called "Ghost Writer," wherein we took a blank piece of paper, wrote a secret message, and then revealed it using grape juice.  We used small paintbrushes to write, and large ones to brush across the grape juice.  The "ink" we used was a mixture of baking soda and water, and we had to wait some time for the wetness to dry.  But the paper really looked blank when it did dry!  You couldn't know there was anything there!

After we cleaned up, we went on to set up our volcanoes.  This consisted of a tray, a plastic water bottle (we drank the water), glue, and sand.  We first glued the bottle to the tray, and then covered the rest of the bottle in glue with our hands (very messy). Then, we sprinkled sand over the gluey bottled and it stuck!  So, it looked like a real mountain, although a bit of an odd shape.

It was arguably everyone's favorite part of the day to erupt their volcanoes.  The moment came with so much anticipation and so much work that when it finally came, it was definitely time for pictures to record the moment as one of the program's highlights.  So, we lined everyone up, set them off one after another, with full video and photography of the proud creators.