Great Eggspectations

One of the benefits of our new adventure in homeschooling is that we can do crazy stuff that no sane teacher with 25 students would attempt. 

This past week, we walked on eggs.  

I have to admit, I was skeptical.  I saw the pictures and heard the report of this post by Noirin at Playdough to Plato, but I thought maybe she had somehow “magicked” her eggs, as Isaac would say.  I was prepared for much cracking and oozing, but thankfully, I was proved wrong. 

The architectural genius of the arch stands.  We looked at some pictures of bridges that use arches to support themselves, and we talked about how the arch evenly distributes the force put on it. 

We noticed the arches on eggs and I had the kids each squeeze an egg in their hand to show that they couldn’t crack it when the force was spread throughout their whole hand.  I also held my breath and hoped they couldn’t crack it, because they are strong little buggers (the kids, that is).  Then they each cracked an egg on the side of a bowl, concentrating all the force in one small spot. 

We talked about how a hen can sit on an egg without cracking it, but the baby chick’s beak can poke through the egg from the inside when the chick pecks at one small spot.  Isaac asked if he could sit on an egg like a hen, but I wasn’t willing to take the experiment that far. 

So we established that evenly distributed force on an arch = good bridge and contained egg, while too much force concentrated on one spot = bad bridge and egg mess. 

At that point, I couldn’t put the actual standing on eggs part off anymore, so we set up a couple dozen eggs (pointier side down and inspected for hairline fractures) on a tablecloth on the floor, and hopped to it.  Well, we didn’t actually hop.  I lifted Eden up and set her gently down on the eggs, no hopping allowed.  

And, it worked!  Eden was so excited to find that she could stand on eggs without cracking them!  She made sure not to put all of her weight on her heels or toes, and none of the eggs cracked even a little bit. 

It was a fun little experiment, and the bonus is now we have tons of eggs to eat.  I admit, I bought the cheap eggs from the sad little factory farm hens because I thought for sure they’d get cracked.  But if you can convince your inner doubting Thomas to try this speggtacular experiment (see what I did there??), get the good eggs from the happy hens because they really will survive!