365 Things to Know

This is a book I've had since I was at primary school.

My parents saved it and brought it out to Australia from the UK a few years ago, so that I could share it with our girls.

When they brought it out a few years ago, I tried to read it with our girls, but I think they were a little young and it didn't hold their interest.


At the beginning of this year, I decided to get it out again, and found that they are now the perfect age for it. (They are currently 8 and 10 years old)

The facts in the book are about all sorts of subject and topics, and
they are split up into one fact for each day of the year, and dated as such.

Some facts are more interesting than others, some provoke more discussion and research, others get read and forgotten.

Both our girls are enjoying reading this book, and we have to take turns reading the facts.  Some days we forget - but just catch up the next day, or the day after.

My copy of this book was published in 1984, 30 years ago!  So I wonder as we read through it, what facts we'll find that have since been 'updated' to reflect new discoveries! As far as I can find from searching, this book is no longer published.

It's a neat book to read as a family - just a snippet each day, and a way of getting our girls to read something other than the endless story books they love so much!

What do your kids read? Just story books? How to you encourage them to read other texts and topics?




Purple Cabbage pH Science Experiment


I've read about this experiment in several places and really wanted to try it with my girls. A few days ago, we finally did it and had lots of fun!


What is the Purple Cabbage Experiment?

The basic idea is that purple cabbage juice can be used as a pH indicator. The girls are aware of the pH scale from their weekly testing of the fish tank water, so at least that made the concept easy for them to understand. It's always good to have something in their day to day life to relate things to - it makes things more easily understandable.


How to make purple cabbage pH indicator

The experiment involved first of all extracting the juice from the cabbage.  We found 3 different recommendations on how to do this

1. Put cabbage leaves in cold water, bring to the boil and boil for 10 minutes then strain off the juice.
2. Chop cabbage, pour over boiling water and leave to soak for 10 minutes, then strain off the juice.
3. Put chopped cabbage and water into a blender and whizz up!  Then strain off the juice.

We decided on what I thought was the simplest method - number 2.







We checked a colour chart we found online as to what colour the purple juice should turn to indicate acid or alkali:



Then we collected some medicine cups and a dropper and chose what substances to test the pH of.


What did we test?

First we tested our own saliva, which should be a healthy alkali.
Both my daughters ones were alkali, mine was neutral. From what I found when researching this online - that would be about right. Kids saliva tends to be more alkaline and adults neutral to acidic.

So success for our first test!

We then went on to test several other things:


Here's the colours after adding the purple cabbage juice indicator..



And some more..


Once again - after adding the purple cabbage juice:
The girls were learning that citrus fruits - like lemon and orange are acidic, and bicarb of soda was a good example of an alkali.

And finally:


It was good to include the fish tank water in there - and for it to come out as a neutral, just as it had when the girls had tested it with the bought pH test kit earlier that day! Demonstrating again that our experiment did work!


This was a fun and simple experiment to do with the girls.
I think the colours you get do depend somewhat on the concentration of your cabbage juice. 
You could spend a little more time to do a more accurate experiment perhaps with older kids - making your own colour scale, and recording the results in a table.

However for my girls - aged 8 and 10, this was just a quick, fun experiment to do in the holidays.

Have you ever tried this?
Do you have any other simple and fun science experiments to recommend?


Kids Fishing



After a few years of thought and another few of growing up and getting taller and more mature, we took the punt.

I enjoyed fly fishing for trout as a kid back in Scotland, and have fond members of early morning starts and driving up to a dam. We waited patiently for a bite.

In contrast, here in Cairns, people usually go out to sea fishing or head up to lake Tinaroo in the Tablelands for Barramundi fishing.  We heard of Tarzali Lakes and thought we could camp and try our luck fishing.  A great chance to share the love of fishing with the girls.

When we arrived it was a very hot, 30 degree plus afternoon but still people were fishing.  I thought it was odd to be fishing in the middle of the day but, who knows?  We were greeted by the owner and founder of Tarzali lakes, Peter who was friendly and fun.  He asked us if we knew what we were doing and I kinda bluffed my way through. The theory is fine, the knots another!  Peter asked us if we thought we could beat the record of 16 fish caught in one session?  Crazy I thought, I remember as a kid, sitting for hours waiting for a bite.

Then I realised just how stocked the lake was.  Jade Perch was the fish and the pool was teeming with them!  When we started fishing, I realised this would be a fun and great experience for the girls, and they would certainly be catching fish.

Once we got set up and threw some burley in, the fish were chomping it.  We were ready to go and after getting the routine sorted, bait on, up to the bank, hold the line, flip the spinner, cast out, flip the spinner back and reel in.  Within a second or two, either you had a bite or you lost the bait!!

When the perch struck, you usually kept it on the line, it would fight a little and then quit, the girls could land them fine.  The look on the girls faces as each of them when they caught their first fish was priceless.  Shock, exuberation and excitement as well as the thrill of the fight all kicked in.  The girls just kept reeling them in.
Their faces were a picture when they caught one and they went from no knowledge into great little fisher girls in no time.  It was all catch and release so as long as the hooks could effortlessly be removed from the mouths of the fish, all was good.
Easier said than done.

Between Jill and I we unhooked about 40 or 50 of the fish over the two days.  We all got an understanding on how important it is not to hurt the fish and we learned how to take the hook out of the mouth without hurting the fish.  Some of the fish were caught nicely through the mouth, others were hooked in all sorts of places, and it was an effort to quickly remove the hook and return them to the pond.

We caught so many, my hands were raw with moving hooks, and the girls had definitely got the fishing bug.
In retrospect, I need to thank my dad for getting me in the fishing game and unhooking my fish!
It was not my memory of fishing with the hour long waits for a bite, this was all action!


Going home with some smoked fish was an unexpected bonus and a great thank you has to go out to Peter, Dylan and the Tarzali Lakes team.

What a trip!

Euan