Melting ice with magnifying glass

We did a little experiment during a homework-free-day.  To see how light is intensified through a magnifying glass and check if it is melted faster than the other ice cubes.  Materials need :-

 

• direct sunlight
• magnifying glass
• ice cubes direct from freezer

It was pretty cloudy and not in our favour.  Sun was partially covered by clouds that day.  We got some direct sunlight and the next moment, it disappeared. It went on and on like this dramatically :-

 

"Yay, there's sunlight! Quick, beam on the ice!!"

"Ohhhhh, no more light.  It's gone...."

 

 



 

We had fun really!

It has been a month since he started to school.  The boy's most exciting period in his Primary school are Physical Education (PE) and recess time.  His annoying and boring subject is Chinese.  Overall, he managed well with his English spelling making a few careless mistakes here and there.  Apart from his academic, I was so concerned over whether he could buy food from the school canteen on his own.  Probably over concerned and I had forgotten to really listen to what he wish to tell me and wanted me to know. Until I realised much later when we had a few conversations that he gradually revealed the 'things' he bought from the canteen's bookshop which I disapproved.  For some reasons, during the recess time, kids loves to buy things from the canteen's bookshop and they sell all sorts ranging from stationery, stickers, musical instruments..etc.  Since he had amassed so many stationery,  I become very uptight when he asked permission to buy things like ruler, pencil, etc from the canteen's bookshop.  Of course, I gave an affirmative 'No'.  At that moment, my boy kept quiet.  The truth was that he had already bought a ruler and a pencil from the bookshop.  He was just merely sounding me out.  Clever!

He also generously gave 50cents from his pocket money to help his friend, Shawn, to buy a whistle with a lanyard.  Reason being, his friend did not have enough money, so he wanted to help. Since he did not understand the meaning of 'lend' or 'borrow', the idea of returning the money was alien to him too.  This was the second incident.  Another time, he bought a 30 cents ruler for the same boy.

The next item he wanted to buy was tennis ball.  To satisfying his desire to buy from the bookshop, I agreed to it for once mainly because firstly we could work on some science experiment with it and secondly, he sought my permission first.  Unfortunately, he told his father.  The latter, however, (like me in the first place) said 'NO' to my son.  He was too afraid to disobey his father.  So until today, he still has not buy the tennis ball from the bookshop without his father's permission.  But my son kept reminding Papa to buy for him since he could not buy with his pocket money.

Oh well, so much happenings in school....