Saliva Experiment #1: No Saliva, No Taste!
Stick your tongue out and dry it with a paper towel and then put on a few grains of salt or sugar on it. Can you taste it? You should not be able to.
Now put your tongue back inside your mouth and let your saliva cover it. Can you taste it now? You should be able to taste it as soon as it gets wet with saliva.
Saliva Experiment #2: Sweet Bread
You'll need a piece of white bread, the cheaper the better. Rip a piece off and start chewing. What does it taste like after 1 minute? What about after 3 minutes? What about after 5?
It should start to taste sweet.
What does this tell us about saliva?
Saliva fulfils 2 functions. Firstly it helps the food molecules dissolve so that we can taste them. We cannot taste without the food dissolving into the saliva first, and we need to taste our food because taste tells us important things about whether the food is good for us, or poisonous.
Secondly, saliva contains enzymes which start the process of breaking down the complex bonds in the foods so that it can be digested. This is what starts to happen with the bread after it has been chewed for a few minutes. The saliva starts to break down the complex starchy molecules into simple sugars which taste sweet.
Thursday, 18 July 2013
taste and other senses
Here's a couple of really easy experiments you can do to show how taste is linked to your other senses of smell and sight.
Taste and Smell #1: Parma Violets
Have the kids pinch their nose and pop a couple of parma violets in their mouth. What do they taste like? Now tell them to unpinch their nose... how does the taste change with the added sense of smell?
Taste and Smell #2: Blind Taste Testing
Cut some apple, pear and potato into cubes of the same size.
Have the kids work in pairs. One of them puts on a blindfold and the other feeds them one cube each of apple, pear and potato. Ask them which cube was which. According to the websites I consulted before trying this experiment out they should be unable to tell as the texture of the 3 are very similar, but the smell differentiates them. In reality, the taste of the potato is different enough that you can reliably tell which one it is. However, the pear and apple are quite difficult to tell apart, as long as you buys ones that don't have very different textures.
You can also do this experiment with different flavours of yogurt; for example chocolate, vanilla and natural yogurt.
What does this tell us about taste and smell?
When eating, some of the molecules travel into your nasal cavity and react with your olfactory nerves (smell receptors), and that is transmitted to your brain. So both the signals from our taste buds as well as the signals from our noses that combine to tell us what flavour a food or drink is. When your nose is blocked or pinched it is more difficult to tell what the flavour of something is because smell is a stronger sense than taste.
Taste and Sight #1: Sweetie Guess
You will need sweets which are different colours and flavours, and where the flavour corresponds with the colour of the sweet. You can try jelly beans, or skittles.
Have the kids work in pairs. Put a blindfold on one of them and have them try the different flavours of sweet and guess what the flavours are. Write down their answers. The second person tries the flavours without the blindfold. Who had the most correct guesses?
Taste and Sight #2: What Flavour is my Pop?
You will need a variety of flavoured fizzy pops, plus one clear pop. We used: cherry, lemon-lime, orange, and club soda for the unflavoured one. Add some food colouring to the unflavoured pop. We used red food colouring.
Have the children taste all of the fizzy pops, and write down what they think the flavour is. How many of them wrote down blackcurrant/cherry for the unflavoured one?
What does this tell us about taste and sight?
When blindfolded we sometimes get the flavours wrong. A lot of the kids today got the Skittles flavours wrong when they could not see the colours. We use sight to help us determine what flavour something might be. People tend to prefer their food to be the colour they expect.
Taste and Smell #1: Parma Violets
Have the kids pinch their nose and pop a couple of parma violets in their mouth. What do they taste like? Now tell them to unpinch their nose... how does the taste change with the added sense of smell?
Taste and Smell #2: Blind Taste Testing
Cut some apple, pear and potato into cubes of the same size.
Have the kids work in pairs. One of them puts on a blindfold and the other feeds them one cube each of apple, pear and potato. Ask them which cube was which. According to the websites I consulted before trying this experiment out they should be unable to tell as the texture of the 3 are very similar, but the smell differentiates them. In reality, the taste of the potato is different enough that you can reliably tell which one it is. However, the pear and apple are quite difficult to tell apart, as long as you buys ones that don't have very different textures.
You can also do this experiment with different flavours of yogurt; for example chocolate, vanilla and natural yogurt.
What does this tell us about taste and smell?
When eating, some of the molecules travel into your nasal cavity and react with your olfactory nerves (smell receptors), and that is transmitted to your brain. So both the signals from our taste buds as well as the signals from our noses that combine to tell us what flavour a food or drink is. When your nose is blocked or pinched it is more difficult to tell what the flavour of something is because smell is a stronger sense than taste.
Taste and Sight #1: Sweetie Guess
You will need sweets which are different colours and flavours, and where the flavour corresponds with the colour of the sweet. You can try jelly beans, or skittles.
Have the kids work in pairs. Put a blindfold on one of them and have them try the different flavours of sweet and guess what the flavours are. Write down their answers. The second person tries the flavours without the blindfold. Who had the most correct guesses?
Taste and Sight #2: What Flavour is my Pop?
You will need a variety of flavoured fizzy pops, plus one clear pop. We used: cherry, lemon-lime, orange, and club soda for the unflavoured one. Add some food colouring to the unflavoured pop. We used red food colouring.
Have the children taste all of the fizzy pops, and write down what they think the flavour is. How many of them wrote down blackcurrant/cherry for the unflavoured one?
What does this tell us about taste and sight?
When blindfolded we sometimes get the flavours wrong. A lot of the kids today got the Skittles flavours wrong when they could not see the colours. We use sight to help us determine what flavour something might be. People tend to prefer their food to be the colour they expect.
tongue mapping: fact or fiction?
What you'll need
cotton buds
salt water
sugar water
lemon juice
tonic water
paper to draw your map on
one coloured pen/pencil for each taste
The tongue mapping theory
Tongue mapping first came about when a German paper was translated incorrectly into American by a psychologist called Edwin Boring, and was misunderstood. The theory suggests that specific areas of the tongue are associated with sensing specific tastes:
How to test the tongue mapping theory
1. Take a clean cotton bud and dip it in the sugar water.
2. Touch it onto the tip of your tongue and see if you can taste it. Then try some different areas of your tongue.
3. Use a coloured pen or pencil to draw where you can taste the sweet taste on your tongue map.
4. Swill your mouth out with water to get rid of the sweet taste. Repeat this process with the other solutions: salt water, lemon juice and tonic water.
5. Compare your tongue map to other people's maps and see where they are similar and different. Then compare it to the map above.
Debunking the theory
Tongue mapping is a myth. The theory is not supported by scientific evidence, as you should have discovered (and as we discovered at science group today). The whole tongue is covered in tiny bumps called papillae, or taste buds. Inside the papillae are a variety of receptors which are sensitive to a whole range of different tastes. So, the whole tongue is responsible for tasting everything, all of the time. Sometimes though, some areas of the tongue are more sensitive to a particular taste due to there being more of that kind of receptor in that particular area.
cotton buds
salt water
sugar water
lemon juice
tonic water
paper to draw your map on
one coloured pen/pencil for each taste
The tongue mapping theory
Tongue mapping first came about when a German paper was translated incorrectly into American by a psychologist called Edwin Boring, and was misunderstood. The theory suggests that specific areas of the tongue are associated with sensing specific tastes:
 |
| 1 = bitter, 2 = sour, 3 = salty, 4 = sweet |
How to test the tongue mapping theory
1. Take a clean cotton bud and dip it in the sugar water.
2. Touch it onto the tip of your tongue and see if you can taste it. Then try some different areas of your tongue.
3. Use a coloured pen or pencil to draw where you can taste the sweet taste on your tongue map.
4. Swill your mouth out with water to get rid of the sweet taste. Repeat this process with the other solutions: salt water, lemon juice and tonic water.
5. Compare your tongue map to other people's maps and see where they are similar and different. Then compare it to the map above.
Debunking the theory
Tongue mapping is a myth. The theory is not supported by scientific evidence, as you should have discovered (and as we discovered at science group today). The whole tongue is covered in tiny bumps called papillae, or taste buds. Inside the papillae are a variety of receptors which are sensitive to a whole range of different tastes. So, the whole tongue is responsible for tasting everything, all of the time. Sometimes though, some areas of the tongue are more sensitive to a particular taste due to there being more of that kind of receptor in that particular area.
Tuesday, 16 July 2013
egg carton daffodils
This is another post that I started writing, but never actually got around to finishing. I'm a bit fed up of having them sat around in the back end so am making the effort to get some of them finished (read, procrastinating about something else that I really should be doing instead!).
One of the things we bought when we went to Scrap Magic in the spring was a giant bit of egg carton to make cardboard daffodils with:
Little, Small and I cut it up into lots of bits to use as the daffodils trumpets (which I apparently failed to take a picture of), and then painted them all yellow:
I cut out some cardboard templates for the petals...
...and we all made petals for our daffs:
We also used some green card to make stems, leaves and grass:
We stuck our trumpets on the petals and left them to dry:
Here are our finished daffodils :)
One of the things we bought when we went to Scrap Magic in the spring was a giant bit of egg carton to make cardboard daffodils with:
Little, Small and I cut it up into lots of bits to use as the daffodils trumpets (which I apparently failed to take a picture of), and then painted them all yellow:
I cut out some cardboard templates for the petals...
...and we all made petals for our daffs:
We also used some green card to make stems, leaves and grass:
We stuck our trumpets on the petals and left them to dry:
Here are our finished daffodils :)
a very late post on lifecycle wheels
This is one of the posts that has sat half finished in the back end of the blog for months, so I thought I'd finally get on with finishing it (along with a bunch of other posts).
What you'll need
- A4 card
- a saucer, small plate or bowl
- pencil
- scissors
- a ruler
- a set of compasses
- a paper fastener
How to make them
Draw around your bowl/plate/saucer on your card. We (just!) managed to fit both circles on one piece of card but you may not.
Cut out your circles.
Use a ruler to measure across the circle, and then divide this number by two. Measure that amount on your ruler and set your compasses to that length. Using the compasses, set the pointy end on the edge of the circle and use the pencil to make a cross to mark the centre of the circle, and then from this mark draw two lines out to the edge. This is the section that you cut out, remember to leave a bit near the centre for your paper fastener.
Draw your life stages (however you choose to do this - print them out or do them by hand - we did ours by hand), and stick them on.
Attach your two layers together with the paper fastener. Voila!
What you'll need
- A4 card
- a saucer, small plate or bowl
- pencil
- scissors
- a ruler
- a set of compasses
- a paper fastener
How to make them
Draw around your bowl/plate/saucer on your card. We (just!) managed to fit both circles on one piece of card but you may not.
 |
| As you can see, we had an overlap in the middle. |
Cut out your circles.
Use a ruler to measure across the circle, and then divide this number by two. Measure that amount on your ruler and set your compasses to that length. Using the compasses, set the pointy end on the edge of the circle and use the pencil to make a cross to mark the centre of the circle, and then from this mark draw two lines out to the edge. This is the section that you cut out, remember to leave a bit near the centre for your paper fastener.
Draw your life stages (however you choose to do this - print them out or do them by hand - we did ours by hand), and stick them on.
Attach your two layers together with the paper fastener. Voila!
to read is to fly
The sprogs have been doing a lot of Reading Eggs/Eggspress over the past week or so.
Little has made good progress on her comprehension gym lessons. She spent a long time on level 3.1, as that was where she started, and then she got discouraged because she got a few questions wrong on a couple of lessons and felt she wasn't able to do them at all. However, once she managed to get those lessons done, she has spend through level 3.2 in about 3 weeks, and is now on level 3.3. She's also been exploring the Quote Quests, which she refused to do before because they have games on that are timed, and she panics when she has a limited time to do something, even something that is supposed to be fun. We've been slowly working on her doing the games calmly rather than panicking and then becoming upset when she doesn't manage to do it.
We also signed her up with an email address. We were reluctant to do so as technically she is not supposed to have one until she is 13. However, she really wanted to be able to keep in touch with various friends via email, so we created her an account and added some contacts and she has been emailing them about every other day. As part of this progression she has also been doing the Dance Mat Touch Typing which she's enjoyed in the past.
Small has also made good progress on Reading Eggs. He is much more confident now with the idea of sounding out words and is starting to recognise some of the common words, but we still have a lot of work to do on that front. Even simple words like 'in' and 'is' he sounds out before realising what they are. I'm really pleased he is at home and not at school... I dread to think what he would have been like had they been forcing him to learn faster than he is comfortable. I've mentioned before what he thought when he left school - that he couldn't read, it was too hard and made his head hurt. He has not made any progress since then in terms of what he can read, but his self-confidence is much higher, and he no longer believes that reading is the worst thing ever, and I think that is more important. I don't actually care when he starts to read "properly", as long as he is comfortable with what he can do, and feels good about reading as an option. It's also has no impact upon his ability to learn - he just does it all by watching and listening rather than reading.
Tiny has been dabbling in the very early Reading Eggs lessons. We have now covered m, s and t, along with the sounds 'am' and 'at'. A while back we did a little letter M lapbook, and I think we may do another two for S and T, with the intention that eventually we'll have a whole alphabet. I'm not pressuring her - it's all self-directed. Yesterday she requested to have a go on Reading Eggs, and then did 2 lessons with very little help from me.
Little has made good progress on her comprehension gym lessons. She spent a long time on level 3.1, as that was where she started, and then she got discouraged because she got a few questions wrong on a couple of lessons and felt she wasn't able to do them at all. However, once she managed to get those lessons done, she has spend through level 3.2 in about 3 weeks, and is now on level 3.3. She's also been exploring the Quote Quests, which she refused to do before because they have games on that are timed, and she panics when she has a limited time to do something, even something that is supposed to be fun. We've been slowly working on her doing the games calmly rather than panicking and then becoming upset when she doesn't manage to do it.
We also signed her up with an email address. We were reluctant to do so as technically she is not supposed to have one until she is 13. However, she really wanted to be able to keep in touch with various friends via email, so we created her an account and added some contacts and she has been emailing them about every other day. As part of this progression she has also been doing the Dance Mat Touch Typing which she's enjoyed in the past.
Small has also made good progress on Reading Eggs. He is much more confident now with the idea of sounding out words and is starting to recognise some of the common words, but we still have a lot of work to do on that front. Even simple words like 'in' and 'is' he sounds out before realising what they are. I'm really pleased he is at home and not at school... I dread to think what he would have been like had they been forcing him to learn faster than he is comfortable. I've mentioned before what he thought when he left school - that he couldn't read, it was too hard and made his head hurt. He has not made any progress since then in terms of what he can read, but his self-confidence is much higher, and he no longer believes that reading is the worst thing ever, and I think that is more important. I don't actually care when he starts to read "properly", as long as he is comfortable with what he can do, and feels good about reading as an option. It's also has no impact upon his ability to learn - he just does it all by watching and listening rather than reading.
Tiny has been dabbling in the very early Reading Eggs lessons. We have now covered m, s and t, along with the sounds 'am' and 'at'. A while back we did a little letter M lapbook, and I think we may do another two for S and T, with the intention that eventually we'll have a whole alphabet. I'm not pressuring her - it's all self-directed. Yesterday she requested to have a go on Reading Eggs, and then did 2 lessons with very little help from me.
having a hectic month
Hmmph. Blogger fail. I wrote out a blog post last week, attached all the various labels and added pictures, and then saved it and hit publish. It registered as published on the post list in the back end and I shut it down and went on with my day. Then I came back to write some more on a draft post that I started a while back and discovered that not only did it not publish the post but it's actually lost half of it and reverted back to a previously saved draft! Not impressed Blogger!! Not impressed at all!! >:( will attempt to recreate the post from my memory :/
It's been a while since I last posted. This is partly because we've been very busy for it seems like the whole of July; partly because Podd had a bike accident a couple of weeks ago; and partly because I've been putting some work into my new blog: starting from scratch :: living simply. I started the new blog because I wanted a place to ramble about my efforts with growing more of our own food, and generally becoming more self-sufficient but I didn't want to put it on here because it's not home ed. Please feel to check it out if you wish.. or don't!
Two weeks ago, Monday was the usual busy day of gymnastics, lunch and swimming. On Tuesday Little went to Bazingas, a new over 8 group that has started to run locally, while Small, Tiny and I went into town and went to the butchers, and fishmongers, and finished our afternoon by having some cake from Starbucks, before going to pick Little up again. After that we dropped Little off to stay overnight with my sister and Small, Tiny and I went to Homebase and bought some exterior wood paint. I shall explain why in another post. On Wednesday we had a day off and spent the day at home pottering about the garden and house. On Thursday I had a study day/workshop for work and my sister had agreed to look after the sprogs while I went to that so I dropped Small and Tiny off with her (Little was already there) and then caught the bus to the business centre where the workshop was. On Friday we collected ML, Little's friend, and went to Forest School. The sprogs had lots of fun making and then doing a treasure hunt, while the parents caught up and chatted.
Last week was the sprogs final swimming lesson before breaking up for the summer holidays. They have been booked onto an intensive course at the beginning of August, which will be interesting. On Tuesday we had a play date with some home ed friends, and then the rest of the week seemed to fly by without a great deal to show for it? Saturday was Little's birthday party (she is 9 this week), so there was some preparation for that in the form of cake baking and food buying. We also have our science group this week which I have been preparing for quite a bit. I've also been making arrangements for this weekend as I am attending a training course near London so have been sorting out travel and accomodation, plus some other online training I need to have completed asap.
Saturday was a fabulous day. We had a garden party - blew up a small bouncy castle, had giant dominoes along with our usual garden toys, and bought BBQ food. We invited a few family friends and some home ed friends. Our guests started showing up at about 12 and the last one didn't leave until around 7. All in all it was a wonderful afternoon. I think spending time with friends like that, enjoying some food and generally milling about, chatting, laughing and playing with the kids, is pretty much my favourite thing to do, ever!
I must say, I am feeling really quite overwhelmed by everything this month, what with this training, the fact that I am covering some on call time for a client of a fellow doula, plus with it being Little's birthday and preparing for the science group. It doesn't sound like much when I write it down, but it's been enough to mean that I don't really feel able to do anything else. As a result there hasn't been much active home educating going on at the moment. I am trying to decide whether what we have been doing counts as radical unschooling or whether it simply counts as a holiday from home ed. There has still been plenty of life learning going on, and the sprogs are still doing Reading Eggs/Eggspress several times a week, so perhaps I need to relax and just go with it. Things will ease up soon.
It's been a while since I last posted. This is partly because we've been very busy for it seems like the whole of July; partly because Podd had a bike accident a couple of weeks ago; and partly because I've been putting some work into my new blog: starting from scratch :: living simply. I started the new blog because I wanted a place to ramble about my efforts with growing more of our own food, and generally becoming more self-sufficient but I didn't want to put it on here because it's not home ed. Please feel to check it out if you wish.. or don't!
Two weeks ago, Monday was the usual busy day of gymnastics, lunch and swimming. On Tuesday Little went to Bazingas, a new over 8 group that has started to run locally, while Small, Tiny and I went into town and went to the butchers, and fishmongers, and finished our afternoon by having some cake from Starbucks, before going to pick Little up again. After that we dropped Little off to stay overnight with my sister and Small, Tiny and I went to Homebase and bought some exterior wood paint. I shall explain why in another post. On Wednesday we had a day off and spent the day at home pottering about the garden and house. On Thursday I had a study day/workshop for work and my sister had agreed to look after the sprogs while I went to that so I dropped Small and Tiny off with her (Little was already there) and then caught the bus to the business centre where the workshop was. On Friday we collected ML, Little's friend, and went to Forest School. The sprogs had lots of fun making and then doing a treasure hunt, while the parents caught up and chatted.
Last week was the sprogs final swimming lesson before breaking up for the summer holidays. They have been booked onto an intensive course at the beginning of August, which will be interesting. On Tuesday we had a play date with some home ed friends, and then the rest of the week seemed to fly by without a great deal to show for it? Saturday was Little's birthday party (she is 9 this week), so there was some preparation for that in the form of cake baking and food buying. We also have our science group this week which I have been preparing for quite a bit. I've also been making arrangements for this weekend as I am attending a training course near London so have been sorting out travel and accomodation, plus some other online training I need to have completed asap.
Saturday was a fabulous day. We had a garden party - blew up a small bouncy castle, had giant dominoes along with our usual garden toys, and bought BBQ food. We invited a few family friends and some home ed friends. Our guests started showing up at about 12 and the last one didn't leave until around 7. All in all it was a wonderful afternoon. I think spending time with friends like that, enjoying some food and generally milling about, chatting, laughing and playing with the kids, is pretty much my favourite thing to do, ever!
I must say, I am feeling really quite overwhelmed by everything this month, what with this training, the fact that I am covering some on call time for a client of a fellow doula, plus with it being Little's birthday and preparing for the science group. It doesn't sound like much when I write it down, but it's been enough to mean that I don't really feel able to do anything else. As a result there hasn't been much active home educating going on at the moment. I am trying to decide whether what we have been doing counts as radical unschooling or whether it simply counts as a holiday from home ed. There has still been plenty of life learning going on, and the sprogs are still doing Reading Eggs/Eggspress several times a week, so perhaps I need to relax and just go with it. Things will ease up soon.
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