Came up with a really fun idea Saturday afternoon. We decided that since the kids are on break for Thanksgiving, we’d do one science activity a day. I suspect that some of the idea came from reading this post at The Mother’s Handbook: To Science, or Not to Science, at least subconsciously.

My kids still love science, because we’ve always kept it fun. Sometimes they come up with their own experiments; other times my husband and I help them or we pull out one of several science activity books we have around the house.

Science geeks? Us? Could it be?

Pretty much runs in the family.

Our first experiment was to get a few types of dirt from the garden, then mix them up with some water in a jar and see how it settled out. I’ve been saving spaghetti sauce jars lately because they’re such a good size for random uses.

The kids were quite impressed first by how the layers settled out, and then by how long it takes for the really fine stuff to settle. They’re still checking it each morning.

Yesterday we went for the cornstarch and water experiment. There are plenty of great YouTube videos of this one, but my kids didn’t care because I didn’t pull up any videos until they were actually playing with the cornstarch and water suspension. About a cup of cornstarch to somewhere near a half cup of water, for those who are interested.

They had quite a bit of fun with it, and particularly enjoyed that when they spilled it was pretty easy to clean up. It becomes so firm when you do anything to it that it’s really not much of a problem.

They played with it for about a half hour. Would’ve been longer if I didn’t need them to get cleaned up for dinner.

I haven’t picked today’s project yet. My daughter has asked for something more challenging. Time to really dig into the books.

Some of the titles we use:
How to Make an Egg Swim, Grow Mold, Eat
730 Easy Science Experiments: With Everyday Materials

And if you really want to get into trouble, try SciPlus.com. They’re a science surplus store and I hardly trust myself to go there. Too dangerous to the budget. My husband only dares go there when he’s looking for fun Christmas gifts for the kids and I’m always talking him down on the list of things he wants to buy. Not easy, I want them too! And that’s not even an affiliate link. SciPlus is just that much fun.

I really love keeping science fun for my kids. Even if they don’t choose it as a career path I consider a good scientific education to be of tremendous value. Doing little projects at home and talking about some of the principles keeps them interested.

Twitter has turned into quite the phenomenon. It’s easy to get started, if somewhat challenging sometimes to think of things to say. It’s used by people from all walks of life.

Then there are the people who advertise on their Twitter streams. There are several services that place ads in your Twitter stream or allow you to do so. But there’s a lot of controversy about placing ads in your Twitter stream. It even made the New York Times (may require log in or search Google News).

I have to admit, the earnings they quote for people with big follower lists are pretty impressive. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have misgivings about Twitter stream advertising.

On the one hand, tweeting for me is about building my business. If advertising brings in money and isn’t excessive, is it really a problem? I advertise here, after all. Properly disclosed, such as with the #ad hashtag, it’s not that objectionable.

Is it?

Robert Scoble has some good points about the problems with advertising in your Twitter stream. Just on a personal level of not wanting to offend too many followers, Twitter advertising has issues. Disclosure helps, but is it enough? Value to advertisers, as Scoble points out, is another issue.

One important consideration if you do want to advertise in your Twitter stream is whether or not you tweet enough other things. Even if you only post an ad once a day is that made up for by what you say the rest of the time? In quality and in quantity?

And then there’s the simple fact that if you want to advertise it’s your business, so long as you disclose properly. You may be gambling on your followers, but that’s a choice you can make.

There are options to being paid by an ad network, of course. You can write your own ads for products you like. I would expect a relevant product could generate a sale or so. You have to think about why it is people are subscribe to your stream to have a chance of such ads paying off, and disclosure is still an issue.

Always, always, always, be sure that you’re providing value to your Twitter stream. If you’re not providing something people want, whether you advertise or not, people aren’t going to pay attention to your tweets.

Edited to add: Just came across this post from Andy Beal in my Twitter stream: Poll: Will You UnFollow Those That Place Ads in Their Tweets? – so far 44% say yes!

Ever watch a young child dance? It’s fun. They’re just so unashamed.

Why not join in?

Put on some fun music and get the whole family dancing. It’s fun and can be good exercise. Don’t worry about what your kids think. You can even have a silly dance contest to see who can be the funniest while dancing.

Or you can teach your kids whatever you know about dancing. If you’re like me, that’s not a lot, but if you’re a good dancer they might appreciate the practice later on.

Oh wait, it’s that the media can only see one side of it when they write articles about mom bloggers.

Amy Bellgardt of Mom Spark pointed this one out, and from what I’ve seen it certainly appears to be true. She was interviewed for an article that was supposed to be about the backlash on Twitter over an event at Nestle. That’s not how the article turned out, though. It focused far more on the swag, hotel rooms and meals the moms got at the event.

That seems to be pretty routine for traditional treatment of moms who blog. We’re the focus when they talk about the new FTC rules about disclosure. Never mind that when it comes down to it all blogs will have to consider the FTC rules when accepting any form of compensation for posting.

Apparently mom blogs are an easy target.

It’s hard to know just why this is. I think there’s an image of the bored stay at home mom posting excessively personal stuff about her family and selling out for whatever stuff comes their way. It’s not a particularly accurate image in my experience, but the image sticks.

Blogging is easy to start, it’s true, but success takes rather more. Selling out and being dishonest doesn’t get you all that far. That a successful business can be built from home so easily (relative to a brick and mortar business) should be a source of inspiration.

I came across this on Discovery News and it was too cute to resist sharing here. The cat is just too sweet and demanding of attention, making it incredibly difficult for the officer to do his job.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1l7prksbcDo&feature=player_embedded]

I know a cat almost that sweet in my neighborhood, except she doesn’t climb people. But she doescome running for attention every time she sees people walking, even across the street. Drives her owners nuts because she’s not so bright about cars.