Temperature Experiment

So to continue with are heat theme I wanted to do some temperature experiments.
I fond a cool one online, it's where you freeze oil & water together.
First we poured some water into some clear plastic containers, after that I had my kids add some cooking oil. Then you have to leave it for a few minutes.
After a few minutes the oil will have risen to the top of the container (kids thought this was neat). I explained how the oil becomes lighter than the water. Then all you have to do is put the container into the freezer for a few hours.
After it has frozen you, of course, remove from freezer.
Now this is the really cool part; the oil is now underneath the water!!!
Apparently water becomes a solid when it freezes. The water expands when it freezes and becomes less dense that the oil. This causes the water to rise to the top.
In my opinion, this was almost more like a magic trick than a science experiment, just saying ;)

Heat

With the hot month of August what better time then to learn about Heat.
So I was washing a load of clothes the other day and I thought "Huh', let's take advantage of this lil' house hold chore."
So I called my kids into the laundry room and went on to explain to them that even though the clothes were wet from the washer that when hung out on a clothes line the heat from the sun helps to dry clothes quickly. I went on to also say that our dryer does the same thing the sun does only it uses electric heat instead of the sun but that when heat is applied, no matter what the source, it makes the water evaporate.
I then got my hair dryer and wet a piece of cloth and let the kids watch how the heat of the dryer dried the material quickly. They really thought this was cool! ;)