We’ll teach you how to make these cute critters for the top of your pencil!

Here’s what you need:

• Red and black construction paper (one piece each)
• Small black pom-poms
• Scrap black pipe cleaner
• Tacky glue and scissors
• Black permanent marker
• One small brass fastener (optional)
• Wooden pencil (optional)

Here’s what to do:

1. Cut a circle that measures 3 inches in diameter out of the black construction paper.

2. Cut a circle out of the red construction paper that is just a little bit bigger than the black circle (maybe 3.2 inches in diameter).

3. Cut the red circle in half.

Step 3

4. Cut a small circle, about 1 inch in diameter, out of the black paper

5. If you want the wings to be able to flap, read this step. If not, follow step 6. Place the corner of one red semicircle over a corner of the other, and place this over the larger black circle. Once they are aligned, push the brass fastener through all three levels and flatten the ends against the back of the black circle. Color the top of the brass fastener black with the permanent marker. Younger children will need some help with this step.

Step 5

6. Follow this step if you don’t mind the wings being fixed. Glue the two halves of the red circle onto the larger black circle so that the corner of one semicircle is overlapping the other but some black is showing between the two semicircles. See the photograph after step 5 to get an idea.

7. Glue the pom-poms onto the red wings of the ladybug.

8. Glue the small black circle to the back of ladybug, leaving a little showing to form the head.

Step 8

9. Use two small scraps of black pipe cleaner for antennae by gluing them to the back of the ladybug’s head.

10. If you’d like to turn your ladybug into a pencil topper, simply glue or tape the top of the pencil to the back of the ladybug.

When you’re all finished, your ladybug should look something like this:

Done!

Beautiful Butterfly

Here’s what you need:

• A wooden pencil
• Construction paper
• Scissors
• Markers, craft foam, and other decorative materials
• Pom-poms
• Glue

Here’s what to do:

1. Fold the sheet of construction paper in half. Draw the outline of half of a butterfly, with the fold down the middle of the butterfly. This will ensure that your butterfly is symmetrical.

Step 1

2. Cut out the half outline you just drew, keeping the fold in the construction paper intact.

Step 2

3. Unfold the butterfly and decorate it with markers, craft foam and anything else you can think of.

Step 3

4. Glue the pencil onto the front of the butterfly, right down the middle.

Step 4

5. Glue pom-poms to the pencil to form the body of the butterfly.

Step 5

Here’s what our finished pencil toppers look like:

Done!

What other spring pencil topper ideas can you think of?

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, we wanted to find out what gives a leaf its signature green appearance.  The answer is complex, but most of it stems from its pigments, the tiny materials that give off color in paint, fur, and even our skin.  In this experiment, we will bring out the green pigments that give a leaf its color and see what other colors a leaf can hide!

What you’ll need:

• Coffee filters
• Small Drinking Glasses
• Rubbing Alcohol
• Tree leaves (preferably from trees that change colors with the seasons)
  

  Our example uses a maple leaf.

• Hot water
• Pencil or pen
• Tape
• Optional: Plastic wrap

What to do:

1. Collect several green leaves from a tree. Trees that really change color in the fall are the best, but you can use leaves from any “deciduous” tree, a tree that loses its leaves in the winter.
2. Tear the set of leaves into several pieces and place them in a small drinking glass.
3. Add just enough rubbing alcohol to barely cover all the leaf pieces.
4. Cover the container with foil or plastic wrap to keep the alcohol from evaporating into the air. (optional)
5. Put the container in a dish of hot tap water for about 30 minutes.
6. Watch for the alcohol to go from clear to green.
7. Cut a strip out of the middle of a coffee filter, about one inch wide and just long enough to dip into the alcohol from the rim of the glass, for the leaf sets that you want to test.
8. Tape one end of the filter to a pencil or stick, and suspend it across the container, with the other end just touching the alcohol and pigment mixture.
9. Allow some of the mixture to travel slowly up the filter slice.
10. Wait about 90 minutes.

Wow, a lot happened over those couple of hours! Let’s investigate…

First, why’d the rubbing alcohol turn St. Paddy’s Day-green?  Well, the alcohol turns green as the pigments from the leaves are absorbed into it; the heated water warms the alcohol, encouraging the pigments that color the leaf to rush out of the cut-up leaf pieces and spread out in the absorbing alcohol, giving it the leaf’s green color too!

After you placed the coffee filter into the resulting green mixture, did you see the green color break up into several different colors?  Out of our mixture, we saw the coffee filter slip pull out the different color pigments.  After they separated, we ended up with dark and light yellows and green pigments.  You can bet that those yellow pigments would have become more active with the arrival of fall later on, when the green pigments start to break down with the season.

The color pigments hidden in our leaf!

What kind of colors did your leaves reveal?  Apparently leaves can hide a lot of different colors, as well as leprechauns!

Enjoy this Green Experiment?  Share It!

Levitating Ice Cubes

What you will need:

• Clear cup
• Ice cube
• Salt
• Food coloring (optional)
• String

1. Fill the cup ¾’s full of water.
2. Put a drop or so of food coloring into the salt to create magical, colored salt crystals. (We used green; with the addition of food coloring, the attachment of ice to the string will become more apparent.)
   

   Pine green never looked so Halloween-appropriate!

3. Now, place the ice cube into the water.
4. Pace the string inside the water and over the ice cube. Put on display the fact that the string does not stick to the ice cube.
5. Once that idea is obvious to your child, sprinkle the colored salt onto the ice cube.
6. Quickly place the string onto the ice cube and let it sit for about 2 minutes.
7. Pull the string out of the water and show your child that the ice cube is now securely attached to the string, like magic!

Static spooks, boo-tiful bats, and now levitating ice! What's next from JumpStart?

What happened?
Salt lowers the freezing point of the water.  Therefore, when the salt hits the ice cube, the ice cube begins to melt a little bit. After this reaction has occurred, the salt begins to weaken and becomes captured by the ice, freezing the thread to the ice cube.

Where do we see this reaction in our everyday lives?
Ever wonder why oceans never freeze? Since the salt compound found so heavily in the ocean controls the ocean’s freezing point, salt lowers water’s ability to solidify. Even when the temperature is zero degrees, oceans are still filled with salty water!

Also, have you ever wondered why people salt icy roads? This experiment must have made that a little clearer! We’ve shown that salt has the ability to melt ice. This is especially helpful in cold, snowy places where people walk or drive everyday, to keep paths and roads slip-free!

Like mastering ice?  Spread the knowledge to your friends!

Original, historic rain sticks were all similarly-made from materials found in nature by many different cultures. Cacti were often used for rain sticks, but do not worry; we will not put you in a prickly situation! People would hollow a cactus out, pull off the thorns, pierce them into the cactus body, and then leave the cactus to dry out in the sun. When the cactus was dried out, it would be filled with small pebbles, and then sealed at the open end. When the cactus was turned over, the stones would tumble down, hitting the thorns to bounce against each other and the inner wall of the echoing cactus, making the sound of rain! Some rain sticks were used in periods of drought in an attempt to bring rain to a dry land. They could also be used for a subtle, musical effect! Now you can help your child become their own rain-maker!

You will need:

• A sturdy cardboard tube (you can use a mailing tube, fabric tube, etc)
• 22 gauge hobby wire (About 1 roll. Make sure each piece is cut into 30 cm lengths!)
• Dry beans and rice, or small pebbles (about 1-1.5 cups)
• Any decorations you might want to put on! (Wrapping paper, feathers, stickers, markers to draw, etc)
• Clear packing tape
• Scissors
• Ruler

How to make your rain stick:

1. Cut a few pieces of tape to layer across one end of the tube. You need to close this side of the tube up! 3 or 4 layers of tape should do it.
2. Next, roll and crumple up each 30 cm piece of the wire into a loose ball shape. Using your ruler, push each ball into the tube until the tube is full.
3. Pour your beans, rice, or pebbles into the tube.
4. Seal the open end of the tube up with tape just like you did in step 1.
5. Time to decorate! Have your artist draw, stick, glue or whatever else they want to do to make their rain stick as unique and special as possible.

Once your rain stick is all put together, just turn it upside down, and you should hear the calming sound of rain. Don’t blame us if, after all the fun you and your child have with this instrument, your rain stick brings in a real rain storm!

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Fall Wreath

What you will need:

• A few pieces of colored paper (green, yellow, orange, red, brown)
• A black marker
• Scissors
• A paper plate (any size but not too small)
• A glue stick

1. First, cut the center of your paper plate out. Don’t worry no need to be perfect!

 



2. On your colored sheets of paper, draw different shaped leaves. To get an idea of what kinds of leaves to draw, take your child on a nature walk and try to find as many leaves as you can. When you get back, try to recreate the shapes of the leaves on your colored paper.

 

3. Cut the leaves out.

 

4. With your black marker, draw the veins of the leaf on your paper cutouts. Here is what your cutouts should somewhat look like:

 



Feel free to get creative!

 

5. Now that you have your leaf cut outs, use your glue stick to put a little bit of glue on the backs of them, one at a time. Stick each leaf onto the paper plate like below:

 



 

6. Continue sticking the leaves all around the edge of the plate until it is completely covered. You have now made yourself a beautiful fall leaf wreath to hang in your house and enjoy!

We also think it makes a cool goofy hat.....haha

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These cute little crustaceans hang out in large groups, right on the shore line, in the “swash zone” or area of breaking waves. They burrow under the sand a little ways and poke their antennae out to munch on plankton… And the best thing about sand crabs (as far as summer activities go): they don’t have claws on their front legs, so you and your kids can have a great time catching them… and learning at the same time! Just remember, sand crabs need a constant fresh supply of plankton to survive, so be sure to throw them back, and don’t let them get too dry!

How to Find a Sand Crab

Since sand crab larvae drift as plankton for several months, they get carried all over the place by currents, and can be found on many beaches. To spot them, just walk along the wet sand where the waves wash up (sandy beaches are better than rocky ones), and keep your eye on the ground. As a wave recedes, you’ll see hundreds of little V shapes in the sand, made by the crabs’ antennae as they poke them out to shovel in plankton.

How to Catch a Sand Crab

Simply scoop up the wet sand around the V shapes as the water recedes. If you’ve caught some, you’ll probably feel them burrow against your hands. Then carefully wash the sand away, and you’ll see some oval-shaped little critters scuttling around in your palm. They range in size from almost as big as a thumb to smaller than a dime. Oh, and a side note when digging for sand crabs: be sure to wear a bathing suit, ‘cause you’re gonna get wet!

Learning with Sand Crabs

Sand crabs are a great lesson in the food chain and the eco-system. They play a very important role as a major source of food for many sea birds (along with those sandwiches you packed specially for the beach outing) and fish. You can show your kids how these little crabs eat microscopic plankton, and then the birds eat the sand crabs!

You can also teach your kids about camouflage. You’ll notice, sand crabs are the same color and texture as – you guessed it – sand. It’s a great way to hide from those pesky sea birds we just talked about… Too bad you can’t camouflage your sandwiches!

Other Fun Facts

Sand crabs have two sets of antennae – one main one, and another that they use to shovel plankton into their mouths.

Sand crabs, unlike most crabs, can swim by kicking their back legs. If you drop one in a clear wave near the shore, you can watch it paddle its way back to the sand.

While most crabs can move in all directions, a sand crab can only move one way… backwards!

For more information and fun facts, check out this great little article from the Monterey Bay Aquarium!

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