Make How

How to Make Rock Salt

2009-01-18T01:36:00.000-08:00

Rock salt is just coarse-grained table salt. Many stores sell it by the pound in bags. If you can't find any, then with a little work it's not hard to make your own.

Steps

Heat some water.(But not too much water or will not work out!!!) While it's heating, dissolve as much salt in it as possible. Keep going until the water gets to the boiling stage.
When the boiling water cannot take any more salt (a saturated solution) take the mixture off the stove and let it cool. The salt will form crystals as the water evaporates.
Crush the salt crystals, and you've got rock salt.

Tips

This is exactly like making rock candy, which is crystallized sugar. But don't give the salt crystals to anyone to eat.
You may have colored rock salt by adding a couple drops of food coloring to the boiling mixture.

Things You'll Need

Salt
Water
Stove
Pot

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How to Make Ice Cubes with an Ice Tray

2009-01-18T01:08:00.000-08:00

Most refrigerators in the US come with an automatic ice cube maker. Many of the younger generation have never seen or heard of making ice cubes any other way. If by chance they happen to rent an apartment or a house that comes with an older refrigerator or visit Europe any time soon, then they may need this information.

Steps

Remove empty or half-empty ice tray from freezer. Ice cube trays generally contain 10-12 compartments (16 are pictured). The ice cubes are formed inside these compartments.
Fill a clean tray with cold water such that the water level is even with or slightly above the top of the compartments, but lower than the outer lip of the tray. If you fill the tray too high, the water may spill as you move the tray. Also, keep in mind that water expands when it freezes, so the ice cubes will be slightly larger than the original volume of liquid water placed in the tray.
Open the refrigerator door wide enough so that it will remain open and slowly place the tray inside the freezer and leave it there.
Fully close the freezer door.
Allow the water to completely freeze before removing the ice cubes. The time it takes to freeze will vary depending on the amount of ice being made, as well as the make, model and age of the freezer.
Once frozen, remove the tray from the freezer and twist the tray gently in order to loosen the cubes from their compartments. And remember: with great power comes great responsibility.

Tips

Substitute other liquids such as juice or soda instead of water to make flavorful ice cubes.
Make an ice pop by filling the ice cube tray with any flavor juice and then inserting a pop stick into the center.
Boil water first, let it cool, then make the cubes. They will come out clear.
Want cool ice cubes? in neat shapes? Purchase a novelty ice tray! These come with formed compartments like stars, circles, and diamonds. You can find them at Ikea among other places.
If you find your ice cubes often shatter when you are trying to get them out of the tray, try using warm water instead!
If you have trouble getting the cubes out of the tray, then flush the ice subes with warm water, which will make it easier to pick them out.

Warnings

Make sure to leave some extra space at the top of the compartments in the ice tray when filling it with water. Ice takes up more room than liquid water, and may overflow the compartment walls as it freezes, should there not be enough room at the top. This will cause an ice-sheet to form over the individual cubes, and will make it difficult to separate the cubes when removing the ice from the tray.

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How to Create a Positive Classroom Atmosphere

2009-01-09T16:47:00.000-08:00

A positive atmosphere can make a classroom a more pleasant place to be and, in turn, a more effective, motivating place to learn. It's simple to do, and it can have positive results on the achievement of students.

Steps

Change the way you act, talk, teach, communicate with your students. From today, communicate positively with every single one of them in a way that tells them that you have total confidence in them and their abilities(even though you might not have). Your body language and tone of voice makes up the majority your overall communication, so include it in your changes.
Encourage the students with positive feedback whenever possible. Praise for successes is a far stronger motivation than criticism.
Cover the walls of your classroom with positive messages: posters with motivational pictures and words; inspirational quotations from great people; positive paintings, drawings, prose, poems, done by your students.
Create stereo grams that have hidden positive words.
Embed more positive words in everything that you write and talk about.
Create a positive word for the day and start a discussion on it. Apply it to positive case studies, role models. For example - 'Winning' - Lance Armstrong won against cancer, won Tour de France Race 7 times, and won the hearts and minds of charities and young people with his colored rubber wrist bands.
Create a class dictionary of positive words. Start with an A - Z template and get your students to add positive words to the template. Make it big and put it on the wall.
Standard-issue furnishings. Standard-issue furnishings. Use bright, warm colors in decorations. Most classrooms begin with standard-issue furnishings, all the same. Well-placed wall decorations can make a classroom more homey and occasionally even impart knowledge to those whose attention has drifted off.
A colorful wall display.
Make wall displays educational.

Tips

Give corrections in a positive tone. Say things like "Try again" or "Do you have another idea?" instead of "no". Prompt the student if he/she is on the right track: "And what is it called when that happens?"

Warnings

Don't play favorites. If necessary, create a deck of index cards with each student's name to ensure that students get called upon an equal amount of the time. Mix them up, periodically.

How to Make Ice Cream

2009-01-09T16:44:00.000-08:00

Have you ever had a really bad craving for ice cream? Instead of running down to the store for an ice cream fix, check your cupboards. If you have access to things like salt, ice, milk, sugar, and plastic bags, consider making it yourself. This article will cover several different methods for making ice cream at home. This is also a great activity to do with children of any age and makes for an engaging classroom activity when learning about the states of matter - it shows a liquid changing to a solid by freezing, and then while they're eating it, the solid changes back to a liquid by melting.

Ingredients

Makes one serving:

* 1/2 cup milk(any type)
* 1 tablespoon of sugar
* 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla extract or chocolate syrup
* lots of ice
* rock salt
o can be purchased in nearly any grocery store
o may be labeled as "cubed sodium chloride"
o you can also make your own rock salt from regular table salt

Ingredients and supplies for the plastic bag method

Steps
Plastic Bag Method

This is good for making individual servings of ice cream to be eaten promptly after making. The video below shows a slightly different recipe but still instructs on how to make ice cream with a sandwich bag.

Mix sugar, milk or half & half, and flavoring in a bowl, then seal it in a quart-sized plastic bag.

Take roughly two quarts of ice (crushed if possible) and place it into the gallon-sized bag with rock salt. Ideally, the gallon bag will be roughly half full with the ice and salt mixture.
Place the sealed quart-sized bag with the ingredients into the gallon-sized bag. Make sure the bags stay sealed! Do not allow the contents to mix at any time. If the bags don't seal sufficiently, use duct tape to seal the top of both bags to ensure they don't open during shaking.

Gently agitate, massage, and shake the bags for about ten to fifteen minutes. In this amount of time the contents of the quart (smaller) bag should start to turn into solid ice cream.
As you agitate the two bags, it is important that you are mixing the contents of the inner bag, but you don’t want to be so aggressive that you burst the inner bag or cut it on the ice (double-bagging should prevent this).
If your hands get uncomfortably cold, use a towel or an old t-shirt to hold the bags as you massage them; they will be quite cold and might become slippery with accumulated condensation. Consider using gloves or massaging while holding onto the top seal if a towel or similar cloth is not available.
Remove the small bag from the large bag. Scoop the ice cream from it and enjoy!

SEE SOME VIDEO STEPS

Pot-Freezer Method

This is how ice cream was typically made before modern refrigeration, using ice cut from lakes and ponds. Hand-cranked ice cream machines are a variation of the sorbtierre (a covered pail with a handle attached to the lid) which is a French adaptation of the pot-freezer method.

Put the ice cream ingredients in a bowl.
Put the bowl in a tub filled with ice and salt. Make sure the ice and salt mixture doesn't spill over the edges or into the bowl.
Mix the ingredients of the bowl vigorously. The salty ice water will absorb heat from the mixture, bringing it below the freezing point of water and turning the mixture into ice cream.[1] It's important to mix as thoroughly as you can to prevent the formation of ice crystals. If you can, use a whisk or better yet, a hand-held mixer.

Freezer Method

This method works best with a custard-based recipe, because the result will be much smoother. Since it involves a good bit of waiting, however, it may not be the most immediately gratifying for kids.

Pour the ice cream mixture into a deep baking dish, or bowl made of plastic, stainless steel or something durable in the freezer.
Put it in the freezer for 45 minutes.
Check the mixture. When it starts to freeze at the edges, take it out and stir it vigorously with a spatula or whisk until all the ice crystals are broken up. If you can, use a whisk or a hand-held mixer.
Check and stir every 30 minutes until the mixture turns into ice cream. This might take 2-3 hours.

Coffee Can Method

This is very similar to the bag method, except instead of using two bags, you use two coffee cans, one bigger than the other.

Put the ice cream mixture in the smaller coffee can. Seal tightly.
Put the smaller coffee can in the big coffee can along with ice and rock salt. Seal the large can tightly.
Shake the large can vigorously for about 10 minutes. Kids can roll or throw it around, but make sure the cans are sealed well and do it outside, just in case. Check the small to see if the mixture has turned into ice cream yet. If you see ice crystals forming, stir or whisk. Continue shaking, rolling, or throwing until ice cream is formed.

Tips

For older students, have them connect the ice cream making process to colligative properties.
If you can, use larger salt crystals (e.g. rock salt). Larger salt crystals take more time to dissolve in the water around the ice, which allows for even cooling of the ice cream.
If you prefer a lower calorie ice cream that is not as rich, use milk instead of heavy cream and artificial sweetener instead of sugar. You can also experiment with other types of milk.
Flavor combinations are almost limitless. Chocolate syrup is a basic option. Don’t be afraid to add your favorite fruits or nuts! Various flavor extracts that are available in your grocery store's baking section can lead to more exotic variations. Try combining mint extract with chocolate, or adding small chocolate chips.
If you use blueberries, crush them first. Whole blueberries will become little rocks rather than mixing nicely with the ice cream.
* For large groups, mix several quarts of ice cream mix and divide it into bags, rather than having each individual child mix their own (that gets messy).

Things You'll Need

spatula, whisk, or hand-held mixer
bag method: one gallon-size zip bag and one quart-size zip bag
pot-freezer method: bowl and tub or hand-cranked ice cream maker
freezer method: deep baking dish, or bowl made of plastic, stainless steel or something durable in the freezer
coffee can method: two coffee cans, one fitting loosely into the other