The Waiting Game

Waiting in a restaurant, a traffic jam, an airport or any confined space with restless children can be a challenge. The clamour is rising, your head is spinning and your precious child is letting you know in an escalating voice that he is hungry, bored, or impatient, and if you don’t fix it, he will!

Kids are wired that way. They are born to move and explore and wiggle, and when we ask them to sit tight and be quiet for long periods, well, biology is asking something else.

I learned this the hard way with our four children. My breakthrough happened one evening at a pancake house when the kids were young and bickering and the food was taking forever to arrive. I could see I had to do something fast. I grabbed a spoon and announced to my angels that only a few people had the ability to balance a spoon on their nose. That I was one of them, perhaps they were too, but I doubted it, then I rested the concave part of the spoon on the tip of my nose and held my breath. It dangled, delicately balanced. The kids were stunned. It looked impossible, and of course they all had to try. And you know what? You cannot fight or yell or wriggle when attempting to dangle a spoon from your nose; it often takes a long time. That spoon dangle saved us more than once. I discovered other activities through the years. Some take nothing more than what is found on the restaurant table, some activities require a little foresight. Place the materials for these projects in a bag and keep it handy. You’ll be feeding your child’s mind as well as her body at the restaurant table!

Density Dressing

This project may require a request or two if the ingredients are not all on the table, but it is science at its best and will fascinate kids of all ages.

What you will need:

• glass half filled with water (no ice)
• pancake syrup
• oil
• salt and pepper
• optional: a piece of rice, button, a small piece of crayon, a pea

Gently pour some syrup into the glass of water, allow it to settle without stirring, now add some oil. These layers rest upon each other because of differing density. Ask your child which fluid is the heaviest (densest)? Which is the lightest? Now shake some salt into the glass and watch what happens. Sprinkle some pepper. Try the piece of rice, crayon, a button (you can bring these with you). What happens with a Tabasco sauce lid, a tiny piece of wadded up bread?

What happens? The objects drop onto the different liquid layers, according to their density. If an object is denser than oil, it will sink to the water layer, perhaps the syrup layer. If it is less dense than oil, it will float on its surface.

Touch Test

This experiment will surprise you! Even the most sensitive individual will have a hard time distinguishing the pressure of one pencil point from three on their forearm!

What you will need:

• 3 sharpened pencils
• masking tape
• bandana used as a blindfold

Tape two of the pencils together, lining up their points evenly. Blindfold the person to be tested, and have her lay her arm palm up. Gently touch the forearm near her elbow with either one, the taped together pencils, or all three pencils at once. Ask how many pencils she feels. Change the number of pencils touched to the arm as you work your way down to the palm and fingers.
What happens? As the pencils reach the palm, the number of nerve endings increase and you will be able to distinguish the number of pencil points, particularly on the tips of the fingers. Your forearm has fewer nerve endings and it is very difficult to accurately gauge the number of pencil points.

Floating Finger

This is an optical illusion the brain has trouble reading correctly.

Touch your two index fingers together a few inches from your eyes. Move your fingers slowly apart. A floating third finger appears! Move the fingers back together and move them slowly away from your eyes and then towards them again. Close one eye.

What happens? A third finger appears in-between your index fingers. Your fingers are seen at different angles when perceived by each eye. The brain puts these two images together, and where the sight overlap is from both eyes, the floating third finger appears!

Can You Touch the Dot?

This is another optical project that demonstrates how both eyes work together to orient our perception of the world.

What you will need:

• typing paper
• felt tip pen

Make a small dot on a piece of paper. Place the paper an arm’s length away. Cover one eye and try to place the tip of the felt tip pen on top of the dot on your first try.

What happens? It is quite difficult to touch the dot on the first try because we use two eyes to find the exact position of things.

Mystery Can

Even though this can require more foresight and planning to put together, it is well worth the time. Place easy to guess items in a younger child’s can, and smaller, more difficult items in an older child’s.

What you will need:

28 oz. clean empty can or a small coffee can — take care that there are no sharp edges around the rim — an old tube sock to fit over the can. Items for the can: a bean, coins, screw, button, dried pasta, piece of gum, marble, Legos, small figures, rubber band, plastic bread clasp, metal washer, miniature doll items, small piece of sponge, etc.

Place the sock over the can. Add the items to the can. Have your child reach into the can and guess one item at a time with her fingers. Pull the item out, and guess another. This project demonstrates how sensitive our sense of touch is, particularly without visual cues guide us.