M&M Science experiment

I came across this experiment by navigating randomly some online content. There seemed to be a lot of mystery around the way m&m-s were reacting to the water. First, when the colors melt, they do not mix but rather stay in a clearly divided area. Secondly, the white m-letter printed on them does not melt! What is it made of that it will not melt with water? We wanted to find out ourselves, so we set up a little play experiment to find out more.

You Will Need:

16 m&m-s
4 small plates
water
oxygenated water

Procedure:

Label each plate with the type of water that you are going to pour in it: Hot, Warm, Cold and Oxygenated. Place 4 m&m-s in each plate.  If you are using a large plate, you can also group several m&m-s of 1 color to create 4 or more groups of different colors (i.e. Create groups of 4 red, 4 yellow, 4 blue and 4 green placed with some distance within each other.) Pour hot, warm, cold and oxygenated water in the related plates. Try to pour it in the center of the plate and slowly.
Now you can observe what happens:

Observations:

1. Which type of water melts the colors first? Which one melts them more slowly?
2. How long it takes to melt the colors?
3. What happens to the colors? Do they mix?
4. How long it takes before they start mixing?
5. Has the m on each candy melted?
6. What type of liquid cannot melt the m?
7. How long you must wait so that all the m-s melt?

Conclusion:

The clearly separated areas of colors do not last very long. The colors start mixing after some time. The warmer the water is, the quicker this process is. Why the colors do not mix straight away may due to the water stratification caused by the carnauba wax. This wax it is generally used as a glazing agent and it is coated on the candies because it makes them shiny. The m&m's that we used were bought in the cinema and came with no labels on the package, so we cannot not confirm that they had it, however carnauba wax it is listed amongst m&m ingredients on other packages (see Tesco). This wax is also placed on top of apples (increase shelf life) and it is used in shoe polishes, furniture polish, automobile wax, coating of dental floss, pills and in many cosmetic products. In low doses this substance it  is considered to be safe. And short term studies have found no particular consequences due to it's consumption.

The white m printed on the candies melts with warm water, so, whatever it is the shell made of, it reacts to hot temperatures. The cold water did not melt it (at least for the amount of time that we waited).

You can watch us do this experiment in this video:

 

We would love to know if you could replicate this at home? Did it work? What was your child more curious about?

Logopedist excercises after voice loss

These some exercises that I have to do in order to improve the sound of my voice. I must do them everyday for 10 minutes.

•  Repeat the following vowels in a not continuous sound (- stands for pause):

           A-A-A-A-A
           E-E-E-E-E
           I-I-I-I-I-I-I
           U-U-U-U-U
           O-O-O-O-O

• Repeat the vowels in a continuous sound. Hold it for as long as it is possible(no pause between them):

            Aaaaaaaaa...
            Eeeeeeeeee...
            Iiiiiiiiiiiiiii...
            Uuuuuuuu...
            Oooooooo...

• Repeat the following sound (this may be more related to French)

          AKRA - EKRE - OKRO - IKRI - UKRU

• Repeat the following for as long as possible:

           ssssssssssszzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz........
           fffffffffffffvvvvvvvvvvvvvv.........
           shhhhhhhhjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj.......... (or chhhhhhhjjjjjjjjj in French)

• Repeat the following sequence by increasing the voice volume at every new number:

         1 2 3 4 5

• Repeat the following sequence by decreasing your voice volume at every new number:

        5 4 3 2 1

• Repeat the following sequence by alternating low and high volume:

        1 2 3 4 5 6

That's all for now!
With Love, Sara

Who am I?

Here I am! A part time working mamma that wants to connect with other women that are going throw the process of being or becoming a mother. It is an amazing experience and I find myself wanting to tell everyone how much it changes you. It is challenging at times! You learn a lot about you, about relationships about people and priorities... Who knew when the journey started that it would be so intense!

Anyway...to get away from the vague....I am a mother of a beautiful daughter called Emilia. Currently she is almost 2. Only now I have more time to dedicate to other things such as blogging or vlogging. So I opened a YouTube channel and this blog to share some of the things that interest me as a person but mostly my journey into motherhood. I did a video telling to other youtubers who I am and what I want to achieve by vlogging. Here is the link if you would like to watch it. If you use youtube you may also consider subscribing.

With blogging I am expecting to be the same jut a bit more relaxing than doing videos which by the way is labor intensive. Also I find that writing conveys a lot more your message than videos, thou I still have to test this!

Cheers Sara