Your kid brings a 50ml conical tube to Show and Tell.
Mabel showing off her tube.
Last week Mac and the littles came to visit me at work. Mac and I got our free flu shots, compliments of the company, and then we had lunch in the cafe (I even nursed Nemo right there in the cafeteria and surprised myself that I wasn’t more self-conscious about it).
After lunch, we took a walk past my office and lab space so Mabel could see everything. She potty trained herself a few weeks ago after I told her she could come to my company’s Kids Day next year and do science, but only if she did all her pee pee and poo poo in the potty. It was apparently a strong motivator because a few days later she announced she wanted to wear panties and that was that.
I didn’t take her into the actual lab, but because everything it very open with lots of windows, she could see in. I showed her “where the scientists do their experiments” and “all the equipment for doing science.”
We visited with lots of my coworkers, and one offered her a Falcon tube as a souvenir. Mabel was into it. So into it that she wanted to bring it for Show and Tell the next day.
For Show and Tell they ask the students three questions: 1) What is it? 2) Where did you get it? 3) Why is it special?
Mabel’s answers: 1) A tube. 2) At mommy’s work. 3) For scientists!
Another coworker had put some Trypan Blue in it for her- which seemed innocuous enough given that we all use it without gloves and it can’t even kill cells in suspension, but when I looked at the MSDS I figured it wasn’t appropriate for preschool.
Mabel didn’t want to leave her ‘solution’ home, but I promised her that I would put it back in the tube when she got home and replaced it with water, per her request. When I got a Sharpie out to label the tube, she asked me what I was doing. I told her, “I’m writing “WATER” on the tube, because a good scientist always labels her tubes.”
I also gave the teacher the head’s up. I didn’t want anyone freaking that the scientist’s kid showed up with some kind of liquid in a tube.
Well, I feel it’s more authentically lab-like if it’s sitting in the hood unlabelled, full of a clear liquid, with Parafilm over the top… but your way probably avoided a call to the fire department’s Hazmat team. And was GOOD science.