The Magic of Summer

School is out for the summer and to kick off the fun, I decide spend time encouraging the kids to use their imaginations a bit.  The kids, however, have their own plans for the first day of summer.  Abby dons her new dress (for the second day in a row) and Briana decides that she wants to spend the whole day in pajamas (a huge surprise for a morning outfit from my little fashionista).  Regardless of outfit choice, both agree that they want to spend the first day of summer vacation “doing science experiments”.

Not to worry.  We’re not at an impasse.  I have been saving our crystal making supplies for just such a merger between imagination and science (or for a rainy day, whichever came first).

The kids are ecstatic and can’t wait to start!

I tell them that we are going to make magic crystals.  I even say “magic” with a mystical sounding, wavy voice to emphasize how cool it was.  My practical kids were not fooled, but just wait.  Magic gets even the biggest skeptics at this age.

We first toss bath fizzies in water and watch them dissolve.  We’ve done this enough times now that no one is impressed.  We talk about how the fizzies are dissolving, how if we add more water the color will be lighter, and how yellow and blue make green.  Now I introduce a new activity.  I have a small test tube holder and we are going to pipette the colored water into each small tunnel, mixing to make as many different colors as we can.  “We’ve never pipetted into that before.” The kids squeal.

 

We love to pipette liquid!  Don't let the serious expressions fool you, they beg to pipette something pretty much every day.

When the holder is full of differently colored liquids I pull out the cross-linked polyacrylamide crystals.  It sounds scarier to parents reading this, the kids didn’t care, than it really is.  The crystals are fine for the kids to handle with supervision (as long as no one eats them or sticks one in their nose).

We add 2 or 3 tiny crystals to each hole.  I explain that the crystals will soak up the water and go from clear crystals to colored magic crystals.  Abby astutely asks, “Are those crystals going to drink up the water to stay hydrated?”  As we spend more time outside we talk a lot about staying hydrated.

As we wait an hour for the crystals to become magic crystals, the kids ask if they can keep “pipetting stuff”.  I have a flash of inspiration and tell the girls that we are going to make magic potions actually.

I get disposable kid cups for each of us, put large test tubes in, and tell the kids that each of the 3 colored waters contain something magical.  The pink is eye of newt.  The blue is what kind of magical ingredient?  “Is pixie dust magical?” Briana asks.  Yes.  Perfect.  The blue is pixie dust.  The yellow is “the sun?” Abby asks.  Sure.  The yellow is the power of the sun.  I tell the kids that I am making a super fast potion so I need 5 drops of eye of newt, 3 drops of pixie dust, and 10 drops of the power of the sun and I’m going to mix it together and say the magic rhyme and it’s going to make me super fast. 

Briana tells Abby under her breath, “Abby, this is just pretend you know.”  I continue undeterred.  We count out the drops and I stir the mixture with my pipette saying, “Boil and toil/ Turn a blast/ Make me a person/ Who is really really fast”.

The skeptics are intrigued.  I put a drop of the water on my hand and then I ask them as fast as I can, “Do I sound like I’m talking really really really fast or am I still talking slow.  I feel like it’s fast but what do you think.”  I have them.  I get up and run around the kitchen and back to the table.  I don’t think I fooled them, but they realize how fun it could be to pretend.

Briana immediately starts making a potion to turn her into a fairy and Abby wants to turn into a big, big, BIG girl.

  

They drop a few drops on their hands and Bree flaps her arms “flying” around while Abby stomps around screaming that she is the biggest girl in the house now and laughing.

I add the potions to things we can use to make more and I use some fairy potion and some big potion, and of course eye of newt to make a deer elixir that makes deer come and we go out onto the deck pouring deer elixir on the grass.  We have deer all of the time in the yard and I thought that it might be cool if by chance they walk through the yard in the next hour or so, but they didn’t.  Boo.

For the next round I insist that we need our rhymes to make it really work.

Bree then turns into a pony, singing “boil and toil and a little bit bony/ mix and make me into a pony.”  She drops it on her legs and then starts walking on all fours. 

Abby turns into a baby with the rhyme “Baby baby maybe maybe/ Then into a Baby!”  I’m happy that she found real words that rhyme.

We end up making potions for the whole hour and in no time our magic crystals are ready.

Now the kids are ready for all kids of magic gameplay.  The princess dolls eat magic crystals and it makes them ready for the Olympics.  Briana suggests that the blue ones are for swimming Olympic games and the orange ones are for gymnastics, etc.  Later, we hide magic crystals as buried treasure to find as pirates.  We just have good old-fashioned imaginative playtime.

Summer is a great time to relax and let your creativity reign.  Or do some extra science experiments, or both.  Don’t forget in all of the barbecues, pool time, and playdates that you should still read and reinforce all that the kids have learned throughout the school year.  Make it fun.

Have a magical day!

<3 Pedigreed Housewife