Monday, September 1, 2008

Finally, some wrinkles I can be proud of!

It finally happened! After 20 long days, our grapes became raisins!

Here is a before and after shot:


And here is the chart Hannah added onto every day:


Sure, to you and me they all look like green and brown blobs, but Hannah really worked very hard on her raisin chart! She examined her raisins very closely every day. First she would notice the color changes, if any. Then she would pick the grapes up and roll them around with her fingers so she could feel how wrinkly they were becoming. And finally, she would squeeze them to see how much water was still left inside of them and how dry the ends were becoming. As she drew her picture each day, she would hold the grape on the paper and trace around it. Then she would choose the crayon she felt best represented it and carefully color it in, leaving white areas to show where the wrinkles were. (I think toward the end there were so many wrinkles that she just filled the whole thing in with brown!)

It took a lot longer for them to dry out than I expected (and I think it took longer than Hannah expected, too) but it was still a very fun experiment.

2 comments:

laura said...

where did you put the grapes while they were wrinkling? in the fridge? or out in the open? were they tasty? i need some details- we LOVE grapes and raisins. love love love the chart. you're doing so great with the homeschooling. i'm glad you're enjoying it.

Jennifer said...

We kept them in the windowsill. (Wow, that word looks strange!) It took 20 days, Laura--20 DAYS--for these things to turn color and shrivel up! Anyway, we didn't eat them because the teacher's manual said not to since they weren't made under sanitary conditions. (Apparently she's seen how my kitchen can get sometimes!) But that wasn't a big deal at our house because, believe it or not, Hannah isn't a raisin eater!