"There are no lines in nature, only areas of colour, one against another."

It's science time again and we've been making water walk! No! we're not crazy but like myself, my little lab partner is very inquisitive and when we stumbled across this experiment online we knew we had to give it a try. When looking for experiments for a 5-year-old it can be difficult to find the right level of interest. I don't want to set up an experiment that is too simple so his attention sways but I also don't want something that he can't fully understand or get involved in. Walking water is the perfect experiment for a 5-year-old. 

You start off with an odd number of cups, preferably the same size. We used 7 but the experiment could work perfectly with 5, even 3 cups depending on the amount of food colourings you have to hand. We filled every other cup with water (around 2/3) and then mixed different food colours to the cups with water in (Red - Empty - Yellow - Empty - Blue - Empty - Red).

We then took 6 squares of disposable kitchen towel and folded them up, placing one end in the coloured water and the other in the empty cup, forming a chain along the 7. All that was left to do then was to wait, which was probably the most difficult task for Opeie as he wanted the magic to happen there and then. I knew that this was going to be annoying for Opeie so I set up another experiment while we waited, to teach Opeie how to test density (which I will write about very soon).

Well... I'm sure you can imagine what happened, no need for me to explain. The experiment turned out amazing! and was another great activity explaining the basics of colour theory!  Most importantly though the experiment was a fun and stimulating activity for my ever curious mini lab partner.

"The true secret of happiness lies in taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life."

A month or so back me and my little sidekick took Mrs M to a business meeting in Stroud, I'd never been before and had no idea what was there so the prospect of heading in to unchartered territory as always was exciting. We love just wandering around places we don't know and taking everything in. When we arrived Mrs M went off to do what she needed to do and we went adventuring. I thought it would be fun to get Opeie to point out all the things he could see that interested him and I'd take pictures. I'm not sure why but the post never got written but a few days back we had to go to Stroud again so we played the same game and well, here's some of the pictures from both trips.

It was nice to see that a lot of the things that interested Opeie were from nature, trees, berries etc...

We stumbled in to a little toy shop and found a little fox to come home with us. The Gruffalo and little brown mouse were very happy about the new addition to our family and 'foxey' as we're calling him now has become a 'book fox' and reads with us every afternoon...

Opeie seemed quite amused by the 'lady with an iPad head' in one of the bank windows, So she was added to Opeie's items of interest. It was so much fun listening to Opeie get excited about things and then say 'Daddy take a picture!'.

"Wow daddy look! a big number 1!" i love how excited he gets about everything...

Fox!!!!

Opeie was really missing mommy and we thought it was cute when we found this book in a charity shop to read while we were having snacks...

More Foxes!!!

Opeie was really excited when we found a book with his friends name on the front.

yeah, you guessed it... Fox!!!

And there you have it, the things that grab a 3 year olds attention. It would be lovely to have his innocence for the day and only see the beautiful things that are in our eye line. As a dad (although i did pick up on the many things Opeie did), i was concentrating more on a cyclist that almost hit us, Selfish smokers blowing smoke our way and an array of people effing and jeffing as they walked by with no consideration that there were young ears present. Never lose that innocence Opeie in many ways i crave it daily for myself.