As my bugs and I were getting ready to decorate eggs for Easter, I embraced a teachable moment by asking them whether they thought eggs were strong or weak. With little hesitation, both M and B replied that eggs were definitely weak. They’ve helped me in the kitchen numerous times, and cracking eggs is by far their favourite culinary skill (other than tasting of course), so they thought my question was a bit bizarre. Of course they’re weak mom! We’ve broken dozens on the floor… They didn’t believe me when I told them that eggs are actually very strong, so I challenged them to try to break an egg by squeezing it between their hands.
How Strong is An Egg?
I gave each of my boys a raw egg, and told them to press the pointy ends together as hard as they could. Eager to prove me wrong, the boys accepted my challenge :).
They were pretty surprised to discover that no matter how hard they squeezed they just couldn’t crack it! Ha! Mommy for the win!
Standing on Eggs Experiment
Then I took it a step further by asking them what would happen if they stood on the raw eggs in the carton. Again, they both thought the eggs would definitely break. *When I first tried this experiment, I ended up with raw eggs between my toes because I didn’t distribute my weight evenly… yech!* This time, I made sure to have M step flat-footed onto the eggs to avoid any breakage…
and it worked!
We talked about the shape of the egg, and how it has to be very strong to protect the babies growing inside, but it also has to have weak spots so the baby birds or reptiles can break out on their own. When an egg is positioned pointy end up, any weight exerted to the top of the egg is distributed evenly throughout the rest of the egg. The dome shape is very strong because there are no corners or angles, therefore no one point is burdened with the stress of excess weight.
Click on the links for more egg experiments and science experiments!
Thanks for stopping by!
Share!
Follow!
Hi! I happened upon your blog while researching lessons for my kindergarten class. You amaze me. Your boys have such a rich and blessed life because they have such a loving Mom. What a beautiful example of a Mother you are. You make me wish my girls were little again…and are inspiring me to research fun and educational craft activities I can do with them now that they are older. I was like you when they were young, but then full time work and going back to school for me, plus they started school…all of which left us with little time. I miss those days….thank you for a glimpse back in time and a fresh perspective for the future 🙂 God Bless! ~Ann
Thank you so much for your incredibly kind words Ann! I really appreciate you taking the time to leave such a heartwarming comment, and for checking out my blog. I haven’t posted anything new in a while, but you have inspired me to go through my pictures to create future posts, so thank you :).