Month: September 2016

Have fun and eggsperiment!

Sibo and eggs

Sometime last year we found out how good eggs were for us. Not only are they very nutritious but they are also good for our eyesight and for memory (maybe we should all chomp down eggs for breakfast when we are writing exams in future. (Here’s the blog link in case you missed it.

The other day I read about a cool trick that you can do with eggs. It’s really simple. All you need are two eggs. One you have to hard boil (make it 15 minutes to make sure) and once it’s been boiled, put it in the fridge so that it becomes the same temperature as the raw egg.

Now you have two eggs that look and feel the same. Nobody knows that there really is a difference.

This is what you do…

Spin the eggs and watch what happens.

One egg should spin while the other egg wobbles.

You can also lightly tough each of the eggs while they are spinning. One should stop quickly while the other keeps moving after you have touched it.

Ask your audience why they think this is happening.

And why is it happening…. the raw egg’s centre of gravity changes as the white and yolk move around inside the shell, causing the wobbling motion. Even after you touch the shell it continues moving. This is because of inertia – the same type of force you feel when you change direction or stop suddenly in a car – your body wants to move one way while the car wants you to do something different. Inertia causes the raw egg to spin even after you have stopped it, this contrasts with the solid white and yolk of the hard-boiled egg. It responds much quicker if you touch it.

This is a good eggsperiment to test a friend or someone in your family with – see if they can figure out how to tell the difference between the eggs (without smashing them of course) before showing them how your nifty trick actually works.

Then you can have a nice hardboiled egg sandwich!

Have an eggsellent week!

Sibo

Get off that darn cell phone please!

sibo-having-fun-at-the-wimpy-2Sjoe – some adults are really a bit less than the best!

Mum and I were at the Wimpy having a milkshake.

We chose to sit outside so that I could investigate all the fun stuff to do – and let me tell you – there is plenty of fun stuff to do at the Wimpy in Petersfield. Mum likes to watch me whilst I play. But we have a rule that I have to come back every now and then and talk. I also have to eat all my food.

Actually I quite like having my mum all to myself – so I spend more time at the table than I do in the playground.

I was slurping down my shake, chatting away, when I noticed a little kid who came in with her parental agent. They sat down inside – far away from the play area.

The little girl looked at the slide longingly but sat down, good as gold. A few minutes later the man took out his cell phone and kept it glued to his ear for quite a long time.

After a while the girl ventured outside and had a look around the play area – rather apprehensively.  Then she went back inside. The man was on his phone again. She fiddled with the sauce and stuff. He carried on talking. Their food came and he still chatted.

Part of the treat of going out somewhere is having the person talk to you – not someone else!

I see this quite a lot. People go out and they spend more time looking at their cell phones than they do talking to the person that they are with.

Adults are the worst!  They order their kids food and seem to feel that is all that’s expected of them. Their job is done,  they can sit back and withdraw into their cellular worlds. They don’t need to interact with their children other than to help them cut up their food.

Sometimes the kids spend the whole time in the play area and don’t even eat much of their food.

Most of us want you to watch us, we want to talk to you and we want to you listen to us – with your eyes and your ears. You can’t do that if you are attached to your cell phone.

Put it away people!

Sibo

Sweat is cool!

Sibo 5

Sjoe! Seems like one day it was the middle of winter and then all of a sudden –kapow!  It’s summertime.  What happened to Spring?

The rest of the country still seems to be having all up and down weather – but Gauteng is just plain hot already.

When it’s hot we get sweaty.  If we’ve run around the place or had a workout at the gym or even sometimes just sitting in the sun makes a person dampish. Sweat cools us off when our body temperature rises. It’s very necessary – otherwise we would overheat.

Here’s a little experiment you can do to see how sweat makes us feel cooler… all you need is 1 pair of socks and a fan.

Wet one sock with warm water and then wring it out so that it is damp but not dripping wet.

Put the socks on – with one foot in a wet sock and one foot in a dry sock (yes – really – do it).

Sit for about 5 minutes with the bottoms of your feet facing the blowing fan – do not get your toes caught in the whirling fan blades either please!

Does the foot with the wet sock feel different from the foot with the dry sock?

What happens is this… As the fan blows, the water in the damp sock evaporates. The heat from your foot gives the liquid molecules a little energy and they change from slow moving liquid to fast moving gas molecules. As the water in the sock evaporates into the air, it carries heat energy with it. The heat comes from your foot – so obviously your foot cools down. Sweat works the same way – the heat energy from your body gets transferred to your sweat and then into the air as the water in your sweat evaporates.

See! Sweat really is cool.

Here are some skinny facts…

The thickest skin is on the soles of your feet – 3mm.

The thinnest skin is on your eyelid – only 1mm

We all shed a complete layer of skin every month. The top layer consists of hard, horny dead cells and they flake off all the time. Most of the dust in your house is actually dead skin. Errgh gross! New skin is forming all the time below the old skin – that’s why we never run out of skin. Bodies are clever things hey?

Stay cool everybody!

Sibo

Being polite when using public transport

sibo-event-post-2

Remember last week I told you that it was International Literacy Day on the 8th of September! Well, I am super stoked. My latest book – Sibo on the Move – which is all about the Gautrain and how you should behave when you travel on public transport – is being launched on this very day in the Rosebank Gautrain Station.

How cool is that!

Wait! I hear you say… how on earth did you, Sibo, get to write a book about the Gautrain?

Actually it’s quite a funny story. We were busy with the road safety book – Sibo Looks Right. Not sure if you remember but actually we crowdfunded for this book so that we could share it with as many kids as possible.  Sadly we did not get enough money to print thousands of copies to distribute – but we did print a few and share them around the place. Plus of course the e-book is on my website for anybody to freely read.

Magically (there was a bit more to it than that – but we’ll leave it there) Gautrain got to hear about my road safety book and asked us all to a meeting. We thought that maybe they wanted to donate some money towards this book but it turned out, in fact, that they wanted their own Sibo book.

This is the book that is going to be launched on the 8th of September.  Actually it is also going to be used for transport month. This happens in October every year.  There is a serious drive in Jozi to minimize traffic on the roads and everybody is encouraged to use public transport as much as possible.

In fact – to make sure that people actually do this, some of the roads are closed off – so that people have to use public transport to get where they want to go – or walk!

This is part of the reason that Sibo on the Move was written – to help people remember that there is some etiquette to be adhered to when travelling on trains and buses.

Simple things like…

  • don’t listen to loud music
  • don’t put your feet on the seats
  • don’t sit in the seats that are allocated for the disabled or elderly
  • wait until people get off the train or bus before you jump on… and
  • eergghhhh – never ever stick chewing gum under the seat – that is beyond gross.

Travel safely people!

Sibo

PS – If you want to read this book – it’s also freely available on www.sibo.co.za – just click on the cover of the book.

International Literacy Day

Sibo studying

For more than 40 years UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) has been celebrating International Literacy Day on the 8th of September to remind everybody in the world that “literacy is a human right and it is the foundation of all learning”.

So true – if you can read you can just about do anything.  Reading sets you free!

Many of us take reading for granted and forget that there are still millions of people in this world who cannot read. I’m not talking about babies or young kids either. I’m talking about adults who just never had the chance to learn.

The sad thing today is that many kids have plenty of opportunities but just can’t be bothered to read. My friend Ginny had a stand selling books at the mall last year and some kids sauntered over to check them out. One dude picked up a book and leafed through it. His friend took it out of his hand and said “No ways! It’s a chapter book. We don’t like chapter books.”  Then they ran away laughing before Ginny had a chance to ask them what they meant by not liking chapter books?

Books are great. They open up so many different worlds. You can get lost in them and imagine that you are the heroine or the villain in the story. You can learn about new places and different countries. You can find out about different animals and how they live – ones that you will maybe never see in real life either (except in a zoo).

Of course the more you read the cleverer you get too!

Kindles and electronic readers are all the range these days  – they are useful if you are going away because then you can take plenty of books with you in one neat little package instead of lugging a suitcase!

Reading makes me happy when I feel sad. If I’m bored, I grab a book to read.

Even if I don’t really feel like reading a story – I can still read something that shows me how to make things – like the nifty beads I told you about last week.

Of course it’s not just books that we read; there are newspapers, magazines and comics as well. You can watch subtitles on the TV too.

If you’ve got a computer you can go to www.sibo.co.za and read some books on-line free.

Read more!

Sibo