My Garden

"In my garden, the flowers could change color just by my thinking about it - pink, blue, green, purple.  Even patterns."

Make some color changing flowers!  I can remember doing this experiment in grade school, and I thought it would be fun to try again with my son.  I bought a small bunch of mini white carnations from the store, but I've read other white flowers will work, also.  I filled up several glasses with water and let my son add the food coloring of his choosing.  20-30 drops per cup of water should work, but the more the better!  I trimmed the flower stems fairly short so the water would have less distance to travel, and we put a few blooms in each of the glasses.  After a few hours you could see some color seeping into the petals, but it was much nicer the next day!   Our flowers never got as bright as what I remembered (and the purple never worked!) but it was still pretty magical!

"If I planted seashells, I'd grow seashells.  If I planted jelly beans, I'd grow a great big jelly bean bush."

Plant a special object and watch it "bloom!"  This is an activity that needs to be done in two parts, with a break in between.  My son wanted to try and grow a "truck bush," so he selected one of his matchbox trucks to be the "seed."  We dug a small hole outside, dropped the truck in it, and covered it up with dirt.  My son even watered it a bit for good measure.  Later that day while he was napping, I curled some green pipe cleaners around a few more of his cars and "planted" them by his other truck so that it looked like a plant had sprouted.  When my son woke up and checked on his seed, he was thrilled with the magical plant.  So, of course we had to plant more!