Exploring Heat

We spent yesterday morning exploring heat and cold. I used the ideas and question (only a page) from the Playful Learning book that LLL puts out. We talked about heat not being visible, and a little about conductivity. I put a potato in the oven and pennies in the freezer. I mentioned that people used to use warm potatoes to keep their hands warm. We noticed that the penny got warm in our hands and our hands got cold. We held ice cubes with a mittened hand and a bare hand. One of the more interesting (at least, to me) activities was wrapping up a container of ice in a blanket, and leaving another container next to it not wrapped up, and observing the results an hour or so later. My seven year-old thought a blanket could only keep things warm. We talked about friction. And lastly, we put food coloring in cold and warm water -- I thought this would be cool, but in fact we saw very little difference between the behavior in different temperatures. But my kids sure liked the colored water! And just for kicks, I demonstrated siphoning for my seven year-old.