Monday, March 19, 2012

The Farmer Boy Experiment

Jake and I started reading Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder together today we stumbled upon a science experiment in it that we couldn't resist trying.  Have you read it?  The main character is Almanzo (Laura's future husband) and the book starts right before his 9th birthday and tells of his life on his fathers farm.  In the 3rd chapter you learn what they did as a family during the cold winter nights. They do something our family does too. They popped popcorn.  :)

In the book it says: "You can fill a glass full to the brim with milk, and fill another glass of the same size brim full of popcorn, and then you can put all the popcorn kernel by kernel in to the milk, and the milk will not run over.  You cannot do this with bread.  Popcorn and milk are the only two things that will go into the same place."

We read this and of course we had to try it...

And guess what?  It worked.  I had my doubts I must admit!
Jake said it even tasted good. :)
Now we just have to figure out why in the world this works!  You should read this book and do the experiment.  There are great spots in the book that you can stop reading and predict what is going to happen (when the "big boys" that only come to school in the winter term come and try to break up the school what does the teacher reach for in his desk?).  AND tomorrow we are going to do a fun art project where we design our own farm (in the book they go into detail just how the Wilder's farm looks and how big it is).  This is a great history/science/art/language art book to read with boys or girls.

(I know this has nothing to do with our March=Math month but I am sure some where in the book I can tie it in.  I just couldn't wait to read this book with Jake!...Give me some time and I will figure out how it applies to math in some way...)