Water Bonds

My knowledge of chemistry is somewhat limited. I know that water is 2 hydrogen and 1 oxygen and I know that when H2O is allowed anywhere near Z a chemical reaction occurs. The boy loves water, in the sink, in the tub, in the ocean, he is happy.

Today was a blah day. I went to Walmart early this morning, it was pouring rain. It quit for a while and we've all be lying around today. Z scooted through the classroom a few times proclaiming, "I'm bored."

So when it started to pour again I decided it was time for a positive chemical reaction. We went and played in the rain. We splashed in puddles and watched the tiny waterfall going down the driveway. Then we moved to the muddy backyard. Z was splashing in the mud and falling down. We rinsed off with the hose and then repeated. He was laughing. I asked him to explain his current mood in interpretive dance. With glee he bent down scooped up mud and proceeded to smear it on his chest and then drew a happy face on his torso.

I so wanted to take his picture, he asked me not too. Instead I etched the memory into my brain. A moment of pure splendor, chemistry in action.

Professor Z's science experiement

Science started in a normal fashion, marshmallows on a plate. We were going to make model molecules (say that three times fast!).

However, the professor had a better idea. Roasting marshmallows over an open flame in the kitchen. Seemed harmless enough, right?


No! Our molecules started to glow! There must have been something radioactive in the fuel? What should we do?



Why feed the marshmallows to an unsuspecting participant of course! We initially tried to "volunteer" Sargent Astrum here, but she was already stuffed. (Get it, already stuffed!) .....boo, hiss.

So we did what any self-respecting homeschooler would do, we fed it to the Private Daytona. See the resulting glow in her eye? The dog has since recovered and has sworn off marshmallows for a while.



Disclaimer: No actual marshmallows were harmed in the course of this experiment, no hazardous chemicals were created, and the dog didn't really glow. We did find out what happens to a marshmallow once it burns up. Crispy would be a good description.

The Science Saga Continues

I thought I had chemistry figured out, well that is what I get for thinking! I looked through the physical science book referenced in the below post and realized it was quite boring. It's a textbook, duh, which makes it very textbook like.

Z loves science, would do it every day, wants experiments every week, and looked at me strangely when I told him we were going to switch books again.

I'm in research mode again. I found one book to try, the first chapter is available free online. I printed it off and we are going to go through it today. I'll not list the name yet, until I've determined that is going to be "The One".

Tigger gave me the look when I told him I needed some more money to order more curriculum. He has not seen my amazon shopping cart. Unfortunately amazon does not carry this book or I could order it without a credit card. Coinstar does amazon gift certificates, did you know that? It's awesome!

So I'm hoping that after this go round with chemistry I'll have everything settled for the year. Because you know six weeks into the school year is the perfect time to start planning for the next one, two, or seven in our case.

Science is Such a Gas!

This year we are exploring Chemistry with God's Design for Chemistry. Our first experiment dealt with gas, so fitting for a 10-year-old. We placed yeast and hot water in 3 bottles. Bottle 1, on the left, was our control, bottle 2 we added white sugar, bottle 3 we added molasses. We needed to see how much gas each bottle produced over the period of one hour.

This is the beginning (zero hour) for our experiment.
At approximately 6 minutes the balloon with the sugar started to inflate.
At about 15 minutes both balloons were inflated.
At 30 minutes you can see molasses has more gas than sugar. The sugar was at 6.25" around and the molasses was at 9.5".
At the end of the hour the sugar was still at 6.25" and the molasses was at 13".
Professor Z had hypothesized that the molasses would produce more gas, his theory was correct.

When asked why someone would choose to use a sweetener that does not produce the most gas he simply replied, "So there would be no exploding bread." Makes sense to me. :)

Science is going to be fun this year!