How Jack and the Beanstalk came to a Very Bad End

Things we learned today:

1. Steak knives do not make good multipurpose cutting tools.

2. Bean shooters are not very accurate.

3. Water and oil do not mix.

4. Kids and water and oil do not mix.

5. Tater Tot likes to eat dried beans.

6. Pipettes are all sorts of fun.

7. Using Bean Shooters in the house in front of mom are a really bad idea, and result in mom yelling and ranting at kids using words like 'sanity', 'dust buster', 'normal people', and 'excessively farting dog'.



Today we did a whole bevy of experiments. We did the standard experiments, like soaking water cress seeds in a shallow dish to germinate them and trying to mix oil and water, which the kids thought was boring until I told them to shake the mixture. This led to about twenty minutes of what looked like a cross between convulsions and breakdancing as everyone tried to out-mix and out-shake each other. Tater Tot even tried to take the lid off hers and "accidentally" shake hers on Doodle Bug to "see if that would make them mix together with each other." They finally gave it up, a little wiser about the incompatibility of oil and water, and I have a new idea for wearing kids out for bedtime.


We made a Mini Weather Station, which sounds impressive, conjuring up pictures of weather balloons, bottled lightening, and spinning weather-vane thingies. In reality, it's a bottle with a balloon stretched over the top, a straw taped to it, and set in front of a chart to indicate when the air pressure is high or low. It's a little mini barometer! I thought it was fascinating, but the kids seemed to get more of a kick out of making fart noises with the cut off ends of the balloons. No big surprise there, really.



The biggest hit of the day by a long shot was, no surprise, the daily selection from the Mini Weapons of Mass Destruction book. We made Bean Shooters for everyone who would be most likely to put out an eye with one. They're really rather cute, but when I voiced this out loud, I was met with three sets of identically outraged glares. "These are not CUTE!" Doodle Bug bellowed at me, filled with righteous indignation. "These are the weapons of the Red Squadron! Red Squadron is not CUTE!" Apparently, they had unionized on me while I was off gathering the supplies.



I highly recommend limiting them to the great outdoors. Our house now looks like Jack and his Beanstalk came to a Very Bad End. There are beans everywhere. And I mean everywhere. Let's just say that the kids went through most of a two pound bag of dried red beans. That's A LOT of beans. Thousands and thousands of beans. A veritable bean massacre. Poor Jack. He never saw it coming. And most of these beans wound up in our relatively small house before I noticed what was happening and banished them outside.

Overall, these little guys are pretty harmless (the Bean Shooters, not the kids, never the kids), they fit nicely in pockets, and they really make planting beans much more fun, if a little more erratic than any method I've ever used in the past. On the other hand, it is going to be a little awkward explaining to the landlord why there are suddenly bean plants popping up all over the property.

Oh yeah,
8. Bean Shooters make great clown noses.