Saturday, November 06, 2010

Experiments

Halloween is over. I waited a full week. Now is the time to throw out the candy so I can bake cookies and pies. But how does one convince the kids that this is necessary? Oh, I know! A Special Saturday Family Home Evening.

How would a Family Home Evening get rid of candy without putting the kids in a sugar coma? Easy. You discus the creation followed by the fact that there are rules (like gravity) that everything is subject to. Then you bring up that some things react differently like how vegetables rot when they are picked but fruit continues to ripen. Next (and this is key) you mention how some things sink and some things float. Then you ask, "Which candies do you think will sink and which will float?"

I know, you are thinking that I am a genius. Well, I am. But I must admit that the idea of experimenting with the candy was given to me by someone else.

Want to know the results? We had a fun evening destroying the Halloween candy. We tasted a few. Eli caught on to the fact that the candy was being ruined and decided that he should eat more and destroy less. Ella just wanted to throw more candy into the water.


Oh, and the scientific results: Only chocolate candy floats. And then only a few of them do...
Whoppers
Kit-Kats
3 Musketeers

While Ella unwrapped more candy to throw into the bowl I really got into the experimenting mood and decided to microwave M&Ms. Everyone knows the candy shell protects them so they "melt in your mouth, not in your hand," but how long do those shells protect the chocolate when they are microwaved? It turns out that the last one minute before they crack open and the melted chocolate escapes.

But what about Skittles?
They only last thirty seconds:



Conclusion: M&Ms are better suited for the hot desert than Skittles

Yes, I am a nerd. But also I got rid of three bags of Halloween candy without upsetting my children. When the bowl of water was full of candy and the experiments were complete I sorted through the remaining candy, selecting a few to keep for rewards, and threw everything into the garbage.


2 comments:

Chris and Annie said...

you're one smart cookie! Or M&M...or skittle!

Julia said...

bahaha I love it. I love that Eli caught on and started eating them. My question is what is your plan for next year? or the year after? I think you will find more and more objections to this, especially if Eli caught on already and minded. But I love it.