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

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