Skip to main content

Electrifying Halloween

My kiddies have discovered the age old joy of running around in socks and then shocking each other. Fun to the kiddies, less so for the mommy. But I'm a good sport and I can get in on the static electricity fun.

I tell my kids as we're driving to school to ask around today and come home with a good definition of static electricity. I meant to ask their teachers and maybe the librarian, or look it up in a book, but they came home telling me that none of their friends knew the definition. Abby, never wanting to not know something says that she knows exactly what it is, "when you have electricity and it is static which means it doesn't move."

So I tell them that static electricity means a charge that is created by friction. Who knows what friction means? Briana says, "it is a force that stops you from doing stuff." "Like Mommy can be friction if you want to eat all the Halloween candy," adds Abby.

So when you walk around in socks on the rug and then touch your sister, what happens? Both girls answer, "you get shocked." Abby, trying to put it all together, says, "the electricity in your body zaps Briana."

The friction between your feet and the rug creates a charge of electricity that travels through your body and out to the other person. I ask them if they think you could transfer that charge to something else and, while they both look skeptical, they both say yes.

I ask them what they think would happen if we rub a balloon on our heads to create friction. Surprisingly to me, both know that their hair will stick out. We test the theory, and indeed our hair sticks out.

Then I get out a box of Puffs and tell them to make some ghosts. We have a blast crafting ghosts and running around with them saying, "wwwooohhhh."


Then I tell them to charge up their balloon by rubbing it on their heads and hold it by their ghosts.










Ahhh!!! Indeed. We use static electricity to create "ghosts that rise from the dead," as the kids put it.

Then we hypothesize what will happen with bigger or smaller balloons, longer or shorter balloons, more head rubbing time, and if we rub balloons on our heads while walking in socks on the rug, playing with the friction part of the equation. Then we hypothesize about how a larger or smaller ghost might react, finding it equally hilarious to see that the smallest ghosts jump right up to the balloon and stick and the largest ghost only waves a hand.




I hope you all have an electrifying Halloween!

<3 Pedigreed Housewife

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Helping Hands Olympics

As the school year starts to come to a close, and we prepare for next year, I’ve been going to many preparatory meetings at the kids’ school about next year.   Of all of the information I was inundated with, one alarming fact, which was actually said offhand in response to a question, stuck out.   Many kids nowadays don’t have the coordination and hand strength to tie their shoes or even to write.   Apparently when we substitute things like climbing trees for video games and written letters for emails, our kids are losing the muscles in their hands.   It was said that most kids by what I think was 3 rd grade don’t have the muscles in their hands to write a multiple page paper at one sitting.   It was also said that most Kindergarteners not only can’t tie their shoes, but have never even been presented with the opportunity to try to tie their shoes in today’s world of slip-ons and Velcro.   That’s really alarming (and sociologically interesting) to me! ...

A Breath of Fresh Air

While we were on a Look and See Adventure this week (for some reason these never seem to get old to any of us), we came across a big open field with trees lining the back of the field.   It was breathtaking and there was no traffic on the road so we pulled over to admire nature’s beauty for a few minutes.   Briana asked me why there are no trees on the field part and I told her that someone most likely chopped them down.   She wanted to know why someone would cut down a tree so I told her that we make paper and lots of things out of trees.   She followed up by asking why didn’t they cut down all the trees then and make more paper.   I told her that we didn’t want to cut down all of the trees because they give us air to breathe and they give all the little squirrels, that Abby was cooing are “so cute”, some place to live.   As we drove along, Briana kept asking about how and why we breathe trees and I explained to her that we breathe out carbon dioxide an...

Rhythm Nation

Can rhythm be taught? I hope so. Both of my kids are very excited about their competitive cheer and competitive hip hop teams, and my youngest added ballet to that recently. The kiddies want to dance; the parents lack the necessary genes. But I firmly believe that talent and ability only change your starting point; hard work, determination, passion, and not letting that starting point stop you determine the finish. If my kids want to be dancers, then dancers they shall be. So, where should a rhythm-less parent start? Googling rhythm activities for kids got me a lot of what their violin (Briana) and piano (Abigail) teachers do - read some sheet music and clap out the beat. We do that, and we do it well. The kids have been in various music classes since about 1 year old, mostly for fun and socialization, and both read music well for their ages. The problem is, the kids are like me. I am a master chair dancer. If you see me dancing in my seat, you might even think I'm quite good (...