Mixing Acids and Bases

The experiment that we were doing was making invisible ink.  We mixed baking soda in one vial with water and in the other vial we mixed citric acid with water.  We had a special yellow paper that had a chemical in it to where once a base (which is baking soda) was mixed with it, it would turn red.  And once an acid was mixed with it (which was citric acid, obviously) well, it would turn back yellow, thus making it look like your writing vanished.  

I made a video to demonstrate.

How we made the stuff is we added four medium scoops (the scoops came with our science kit) of baking soda to water and the same amount of citric acid to water.  If you got a vial the size of ours and filled it 3/4 full of water, it would work.  The baking soda mixture will turn the paper red and the acid mixture will turn it back yellow.  

We used Q-tips dipped in each mixture to write.  You start with the base mixture and your message will appear red on the paper.  Then you go over the same message with your acid mixture and the message "disappears" because the acid turns the red back to yellow.

Usually if you mix an acid with a base (like vinegar and baking soda) it will fizz up and start bubbling.  When I went to pour the vials down the sink (after we were done with the experiment) the baking soda and the citric acid mixed and they started fizzing and bubbling right there in the sink.  That was very interesting because I had only done that experiment (mixing a base with an acid) a couple times before.  And then my mom asked me if there was any chance the RV would explode and I said, "No.  Definitely not."  Here's the video:

My Sandbox Adventure

Yesterday we went to the park with Papa David and Ms Ariel and their family. There was a sandbox so I built a sand city which was really fun. My mom used one of the pictures as the background for her computer which other people can do too.

The city is supposed to be like a city from medieval times.  Typically those big, fat lines around the place are walls.  Those little humps inside the walls are houses, which you really can't see that well.  And the lines in between the houses are small walls.  Those ditches in front are like a maze of trenches.  The huge hump in the middle with a ring on top is a castle with a wall on the top of it for archers.  The humps touching the walls are towers which guards can get up into - climb into by trap doors - so they can get up onto the walls. This is the most secure sand castle I have ever built.  I built it just so that if people attacked, it would be hard to take it.

I didn't have this finished picture in mind when I started building.  It kind of evolved.  At first I was thinking it would be like a modern day army camp with trenches in front for ammunition, guns, etc.  But then I thought, "I need to build a wall around the sides and back so people will need to attack from the front."  And then I thought of making it look more medieval and so I added the castle and started building the houses.

After the houses, I decided to put smaller walls between them so that archers could stand on those walls in case enemies were on the big walls.  As I built those walls I envisioned being an assassin in that town, jumping from wall to wall.  By the way, I  REALLY want to learn Parkour.  But not to assassinate people.  :)  My sand city took about an hour to build.

After that I played tag with some kids. One of them caught me a lot. The huge playground we played on was really like three smaller ones connected together.  There were poles in-between two of the sections and people that were "it" would hide around those poles. When people who were not "it" ran across, the people who were "it" would start climbing up the poles to catch them.

Typically, when I wasn't "it" and I climbed the poles I would escape but there was a tunnel that connected two of the three big sections and it had a small open room-thing in the middle of it.  The tunnel was so thin that when  I tried to climb out, the person would catch me.  Her name, I think, was Alaina.  She was maybe 10 or 11 years old.

There's one other very interesting thing that happened.  Two boys had a worm in a plastic cup and the worm was giving birth to a baby worm!  My mom took a video of it.  I'll try and post it right now:

  Well, I guess that is all for my Sandbox Adventure.  I kinda miss home because that's where all my friends are and at home we can run around all over the place and play.  But I'm glad that we're here to play with Morgon, Ronan, Tristan, and the friends we've made in California.

I hope you enjoyed my blog!                                                        
                  
                                                  

Four Disastrous Days Without the RV

On Tuesday we put the RV in the repair shop to get it's window repaired. Then we stayed at Ms. Ariel's that night but then we had to sleep another night at Ms. Ariel's which we didn't plan so we had to wash our clothes that day. The next day we stayed at a hotel for two nights and on the second night we finally got the RV back after four disastrous days without it.