Hands on Chemistry

During the school holidays I attended one of Nathalie Thomas' (Science for Home Educators) Chemistry courses at Wintec (Waikato Institute of Technology). We did 80% of the experiments that you do in years 9 and 10 if you went to school.

On the first day we learnt about laboratory rules and more specifically how to use a Bunsen burner correctly. We had to wear laboratory coats and goggles at all times and completed some experiments in pairs using the Bunsen burner. We also learnt the correct names for lots of other items you use in a lab.

The next day we observed a chemical reaction by burning Mercury metal which made a really bright flash which stayed for about a minute and then turned to ash.  That was fun! Another few experiments was making and testing for Hydrogen, Oxygen and Carbon Dioxide.

We also had the challenge to separate sawdust, sand and salt from each other. We had five different processes we could choose to complete this and it was left to us to decide how to do it. My partner and I decanted to get the sawdust, then we filtered the salt from the sand and finally evaporated the saltwater.  

 

Another test we did was where you blew through a straw into lime water and the oxygen turns it cloudy. Nathalie joked that this test proved you weren't an alien if it went cloudy. My water went cloudy so this proved I am not an alien, although my parents are still not entirely convinced. I even had my mum take a picture to prove to my dad who likes to joke I am an alien ... Dads!

Our final tasks covered the pH table and we did some Acid-Based tests. We used a lot of chemicals we wouldn't have at home.  

I really enjoyed the course. Nathalie is a really good teacher and so friendly and cheerful. She makes science so easy to understand and you can tell she likes science which makes you like it too. I learnt a lot and the fact that we could do all the experiments ourselves instead of just watching was pretty awesome.
 

I just love getting a certificate at the end too!

Hana

Loving Logic Books

Because I am so super organised (NOT!) I ran out of printer ink this week and therefore The Fashionista could not photocopy her maths pages. She just photocopies the ones she needs as she's ready for them, as there's 6 pages in each section and we often find she only needs to do one before she's saying just give me the test to do. I threw out over half a book once after I'd ripped out the unused pages so have learnt better now. 

So as I was racking my brain for what to do instead, I remembered that a few years back I purchased some logic type books from Blackboard Jungle, in NZ, so I went and pulled those out.

 

The first books I gave the girls to work on were Logic Links made by Mindware (educational games and toys in the US). There are different levels (age groups) for this book and we have a couple of them so they had different books/levels to work on.

 

"Logic Links helps kids build thinking skills as they reason and work out sequencing puzzles, using 48 coloured chips (included) to help them visually organise their thinking. This book includes 100 puzzles."

 

For instance how this book works is like this

1. take a green, orange and yellow chip.

2. the orange and yellow chip don't touch.

3. the green chip is to the left of the orange chip.

The child lines the chips up how they think is correct. They of course get longer with more chips as they progress.

 

Agent Smelly just LOVED these and did these for a lot longer than her sister. In fact she has finished a third of the puzzles in her book already - I should point out that she is actually doing a book that is deemed for younger children than her age.  The harder puzzles that The Fashionista worked on had two lines with up to 8 discs. I had to help on occasion and between us I had to refer to the answers in the back a couple of times ... and I am a lot older than the proposed age guide!

 

 

 

 

Once they had enough of the Logic Links I gave them some Noodlers books (I also have a green one) which were also produced by Mindware. I see on their website that they now have them as a game with cards to work on. This would be far better than the books as the crease in the middle means the sticks sometimes roll off the page which is a little frustrating. The books can still be ordered from Blackboard Jungle who are run by just the most lovely and helpful people. They stock a lot of other schooling supplies also.

"Each puzzle contains a field of shapes; your job is to separate each icon into its own area using the wooden sticks. The catch? The instructions tell you how many - or how few sticks you get to use. These books each includes 44 spatial-reasoning puzzles and 8 sticks."

They are for 8 - adult. TF really loved these books but AS found them a little hard until she got the hang of them with some help from big sister.

Even though I thought they'd do a few in each book and that would be that, they spent over two hours on these books, and they didn't even stop to eat lunch just kept working and eating at the same time. It was ever so peaceful and what went from a "oh no what will they do now" became a magical learning afternoon.

So if you have children like mine who love puzzles, then these books are a great addition to the home library or games cupboard. These would even be great at the bach (holiday home).

My Butterflies Take Flight

As part of our biology curriculum, the children needed to watch and make observations on the metamorphosis of a butterfly and learn about the life cycle. Now we are off on holidays shortly so we don't really have the time to wait for some butterflies to hatch and we did study the life cycle of the butterfly when they were kiddlings (doesn't everyone) so I suggested they each do something simple like a poster on the butterfly to cover these areas. Now one of the things I am aiming for as they get older is more independent learning so I didn't provide them with any exact requirements, just asked that they include things about the life cycle amongst other information and I left them to it.
 
Unfortunately in order to make sure they finished it today and not next year (they had gotten as far as writing Butterfly 30 minutes later when I popped in on them to see how they were doing!), I said I would be checking their presentations later that day. Yes I used the word "presentation" ... always a mistake with my two.
 
Now the little darlings did their posters with lots of information on them on the same day ... a great feat in itself! I should stop here and wallow in the glow of them completing a task without any nagging or moaning ... from me! But there was more ...

Was I allowed to view them? Oh no that would have been too simple, remember I had used the word presentation. So the school room was decorated with flowers and butterfly wings, there was even a sign stuck to the door "Butterfly presentation". Then the Papa and I were invited to sit on the couch in the school room, after dinner, where we were cordially welcomed and offered a refreshment of water or lemonade before they started on "the presentation". Our presenters both had on fairy/butterfly wings!
 
They displayed their posters and took it in turns to explain the information on there and thankfully they summarised some of the more interesting points, which is better than in the past when they have read what they have written word for word. The Papa and I actually learnt some knew and interesting things too. They taught themselves some news words in their investigations; the word excrement caused a lot giggling. Seriously the Papa needs to pull himself together sometimes ... kidding!
 
 

 
Agent Smelly also included The Butterfly poem by Christina G Rossetti on her poster (which had the obligatory glitter) which she recited and performed. The death scene in itself was impressive. Then she performed a song about a butterfly, with dancing and all. They even had the sense to go and photocopy some pictures from their books to put on their posters. On the little table there were some extra pictures to be passed around so that we could look closer at the butterflies.
 
 

After The Fashionista did her presentation she popped on a Hillary Duff CD. The Papa and I were a little perplexed ... turns out the CD is called Metamorphosis. Aha! Well played Fashionista, well played!
 
Then we had to have a dance party ... I kid you not! Anytime these two plan something it has to turn into a dance party ... much to the Papa's horror, who has not been blessed with a dancing gene and somehow managed to escape!

Well this little poster I was expecting turned into an impressive learning experience and the girls have already asked for another one to do. A successful learning moment ... mine not theirs!

 

GOT-IT!

Last year I purchased a pile of second-hand games from a South African, come New Zealander homeschooler. Her children had all grown up and she was moving and downsizing. Bless her heart she gave us a really good deal on a lot of games and puzzled and showered the girls with lots of lovely bits and bobs that she didn't want or need.

I came home with my giant haul, looked at it all, we played the easiest ones and then they were all popped into the games cupboard. Well this week I decided to pull out one of the board games and have a look at it and WOW, WOW, WOW... talk about maths in action!

Now before I go on I must warn you that I have been trying to see where you an obtain the game from and can't seem to locate it. It is possibly an old game but I have emailed the supplier that I found on the box and will see what I can find out because peeps it is so worth having this game in the games cupboard!

The Game is called GOT-IT! and appears to have been made by Toy and Puzzle World in South Africa and is for ages 6 - 99. It is a great game for practicing numeracy skills and challenges you in addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

There are three levels of difficulty, 6 and up (blue challenge cards), 9 and up (pink challenge cards) and 11 and up (green challenge cards).

Basically you move around the board collecting number cards  (IE land on a 7 pick up a 7 card) and  the first player to get the exact number required on the challenge card, or be the closest to it wins. For instance the blue cards are only addition or subtraction and might say, "Add your numbers together to get to: 21" ... you move around the board and try and get as close to 21 as you can. You can call stay if you are quite close and don't want to chance blowing it by landing on another big number. Bit like 21 really and it's a bit of a laugh watching your competition deciding whether to chance throwing again.

The pink challenge cards (which give you a combination of two out of the four methods to use) might say "By subtracting or dividing your numbers from 120 or by using a combination of subtraction and division to get to 20". At this level you will need a piece of paper to work out different combinations of the numbers that you pick up, in order to get the answer. When you yell GOT-IT you have to prove how you came to the answer. IE. if I picked up a 5 and then a 4, I could say 120 / 5 = 24 - 4 = 20. If I picked up a 6 I could say 120 / 6 = 20 and so on.

With the green cards you have the choice of using the whole four methods (+, -, /, x) ... heaven help me, you have to think with that one so I have been dodging that level. Makes my head hurt just to think about it! They even suggest other mathematical processes could be incorporated at this advanced level, IE square roots. This level might be good for teams which they do recommend too. Apparently these people must be a hoot at parties as they suggest party challenges, IE battle of the sexes or family against family; they obviously need to get out more. "Seriously, you'd like us to come over for a math game? Well yeah sure, that just sounds dandy!"

Anyway I though I would share this "choice" (an old Kiwi word meaning awesome) math game that you may never ever find because, I want you all to be "totes jealous", but seriously if you can ever get your hands on one, it is a really good living math resource.

Science Love

In the New Year I was sitting here having a peruse on Pinterest (as you do) and saw some math tables (the type where a table is set up with lots of stuff for math, not multiplication tables) and thought how cool they looked and how children would just love to get in there and "do stuff". They looked like they would be perfect for younger children and it might be a bit too young for us ... which seriously disappointed me.

Now my little madams just love science (don't all kids who actually get to do hands on stuff rather than just all that yukky bookwork) which got me to thinking how cool it would be if we had an area set up where they could just go and do science stuff whenever the urge struck.

So immediately I was immediately off scouring for a suitable table. Now my MIL very generously gave me an old writing desk many years ago. I have a big old desk in the study and simply keep this little one for it's ornamental value and because I suppose I am a bit of a hoarder and sentimentalist, which is not a good combo! We just had wrapping paper, and basic stationery in it and it was in the lounge/dining area. This stuff could easily be in the study with the rest of the stuff so I emptied it the stuff over the floor, as you do ... and here she is in her new spot in the school room. Doesn't she have lovely legs? I think it's more of a science bureau ... how very posh ey?
 

In the top drop down section I have placed our microscopes, beakers, test tubes, plastic gloves, magnets, filters, chemicals (stored at the top in little Chinese food containers) and a few other things.

Underneath in the first drawer I have some of the Papa's old white uniform shirts, safety goggles and a tray for them to put out to use when they are mixing experiments. In the second drawer, there are some other science gear, electrical experiments, and sets that they have been given to make up.

I still have some things to add to it like some measuring spoons and some scales and most importantly a tie back for those nearby drapes ...  ;)  If anyone can think of anything that a science table should have then please let me know in the comments. I am holding off on a bunsen burner til they are both a bit older.

The girls have called it a success although they haven't used it much yet ... apparently it is too nice to mess up.

Agent Smelly in the Kitchen

Agent Smelly hasn't spent as much time in the kitchen as her older sister and it's because of this that I think her fractions are not so great. She doesn't always recognise what 1/4, etc is. She can match the correct cup to measure out the flour, etc but she doesn't pronounce or read them correctly. I just assumed she knew them but we hadn't actually gotten to the fraction book of her maths program til recently. Her sister basically flew through her fractions book quite confidently and often didn't even need to be explained how to work things out in the first place and I am quite sure that is from spending so much time baking whenever she could.

Don't you love our cookbook, i.e. the lap top!

Agent Smelly is more of an outdoors girl but recently has become more confident in getting in the kitchen and making things. She spent a couple of days over the school break following some recipes and reading out the measurements to me (just so I knew she knew how to say them), then one morning I wrote up all kinds of fractions on the whiteboard and we went through them all and by the end of our two week break she seems to have a very good understanding of what is what now.

I am sure using math books it would have taken her a lot longer to get the hang of it, mostly because it wasn't interesting, not because she struggles in math - quite the opposite. The other bonus is that she makes the most beautiful crepes now!


 

Math Riddles

I read this riddle on Highhill Homeschool latest blog posting Multiplying Fractions and thought it seemed like fun, so I called my girls over and had them each, using a pen and paper, work it out. Surprisingly, my youngest (and that's because she hasn't really worked on fractions yet) worked out the answer before her older sister (who has).

One time a mom made a pie for her four children. The first child came to her and asked for some pie. The mom said "you can have 1/4 of the pie." Then the second child came to her and asked for some pie. The mom said "of course, you can have 1/3 of the pie." Then the third child came to ask for some pie. The mom said "yes, you can have 1/2 of the pie." When the last child asked for some pie the mom said "you can have it all." Who got the most pie?

Answer: They all got the same amount.


They enjoyed it so much that they asked for me so I searched and found some more Math Riddles for them to do.

No. 1  --  Two fathers and two sons sat down to eat eggs for breakfast. They ate exactly three eggs, each person had an egg. The riddle is for you to explain how.

How to Explain the Riddle

Answer: One of the 'fathers' is also a grandfather. Therefore the other father is both a son and a father to the grandson. In other words, the one father is both a son and a father.

 

No. 2  --  How can you add eight 8's to get the number 1,000? (only use addition)

 

Answer: 8 + 8 + 8 + 88 + 888 = 1,000

 

 

No. 3  --  If there are 4 apples and you take away 3, how many do you have?

 

Answer: You took 3 apples, so obviously you have 3.

They just loved doing these so much so that I have been asked to find more riddles to give them.

 

 

How is Temperature controlled in Spacecraft?

For today's chemistry experiment the children used polystyrene to investigate how good it is at shielding materials from outside heat.

Great photography skills there by the Mama ... ;)

They took some polystyrene and cut a whole in it big enough to take an ice cube. They also cut a piece to work as a lid to close the ice cube inside.

They then noted the time they place an ice cube inside their polystyrene pack and another in a glass nearby.

They then had to keep checking to see how long the ice cube in the open took to melt in comparison to the one in the polystyrene and recorded the details.

There was a moment of much hilarity when Scruffie decided to drink part of the melted experiment and then proceeded to lick the ice cube til we stopped him.

The girls were totally astonished to find the ice cube in the polystyrene still not fully melted the very next day. It took around 24 hours for it to melt!

We then looked into polystyrene's properties and why it is such a good insulator. Also the impact it is having on the environment.

I love that these days I can hand the girls an experiment and after discussing it with them to make sure they have things in control, I can walk away and leave them to it. I find without my assistance their records are actually more detailed and better kept. They take much more ownership of things and thankfully they do make sure that the jobs are shared between them.

Astronomy ... Completed!

Well we finished Astronomy on time ... YEAH! It was a bit rushed we ended up doing a few sessions the last week of term 2 to make sure we did though, as I didn't want to have to complete the last few chapters during term 3.

These are some pictures from the girls Astronomy workbooks ... 



The Sun



Mercury




Venus



Earth



The Moon



Mars



Asteroids and Meteorites



Jupiter

Saturn

Uranus and Neptune

Pluto



Stars



Zodiac Constellations

Space Stations and becoming an Astronaut

My Perfect Planet descriptions

Oreo Moon Project



Are there spaces between Liquid Particles?

Not sure Agent Smelly needed the plastic glasses but they do so like the theatrics of science!

Today for chemistry one of the things we did, after discussing what an atom was, was a quick experiment to determine whether there were spaces between liquid particles.

Equipment

• two 100ml glass beakers (or similar) - one needs to be seal able (we used one of those beakers with the thin neck and simply placed a thumb over the hole in the top
• water
• methylated spirits

Method

• Measure out EXACTLY 50ml water into one beaker and EXACTLY 50 mls methylated spirits into the other that can be sealed.
• Add the water to the methylated spirits. Then place your hand/thumb over the top and give it a shake to mix the liquids.
• Measure the combined volume. 50ml liquid plus 50 mls liquid = ?????

Well the girls were quite surprised to learn that it didn't add up to 100mls (I was a bit surprised at the volume difference too if I am honest) but what a great experiment to show that there must be space between those atoms ... it just differs dependent on whether it is solid, liquid or gas.


Best thing about this experiment, well I then used the mixture to clean down the windows right behind them ... hehe

Bar Charts

Bar charts now have a very good name in our house and this is why...

I handed each of the girls a small container of Smarties (they were on sale) and had them sort them into colours and provide me with a bar chart. They really got stuck into this and quite enjoyed what they were doing.

After they had completed their bar charts, they compared their totals, there was only 1 Smartie different, so of course I generously helped them even them out.

I then told them that they could each remove 1/4 of their stock (see what I did there ... clever ey!) and eat them whenever they wished to. Surprisingly The Fashionista ate hers straight away (this kid still has lollies that she has been given over 12 months ago from party bags she has received!) unsurprisingly Agent Smelly inhaled hers immediately!

Decision Tree

I recently introduced the girls to decision trees in one of our living math sessions. Decision trees are used to sort and classify things, so the simplest way to learn about one seemed to be to perform an experiment which we did.

 

 

From the book; Understanding Math - Graphs and Charts

You will need:

• 3 tsp flour, 3 tsp salt, 3 tsp bicarbonate of soda and 3 tsp icing sugar in four identical containers and not marked so you don't know which container contains which.
• vinegar
• water
• ice cube tray
• plate to mix substances on
• tsp to measure

Then follow the decision tree (pictured above) to work out what each substance is.

First of all mix one teaspoon of each of the four powders with some vinegar.

Secondly, you need to mix 1 teaspoon of the remaining three substances with some water,

Thirdly you will need to dissolve one teaspoonful of the last two substances in five teaspoonfuls of water. Pour the two mixtures into separate ice cube trays (we simply used one end for each in one tray)  and put them in the freezer for one hour.

The girls had a ball and declared it their best math class ever!

Studying Jupiter

There is a Great Red Spot on Jupiter which is basically like a massive hurricane on earth. We made a "hurricane in a bottle" as an example of what a hurricane on Jupiter might look like.

We got 2 plastic soda bottles and a plastic bottle joiner. If you don't have a plastic bottle joiner lying around like I did, place a washer between the two bottles and then use duct or electrical tape to seal the bottles together.

They absolutely love doing experiments but always look so serious when doing them.
Cracks me up!

The Fashionista filled one bottle with 500mls of water and then Agent Smelly connected the bottles with the connector.

Just like an egg timer you flip the bottles over BUT you must move them in a circular motion, to get the water swirling in order to form the hurricane-shaped funnel.

The little madams played with this for ages. They added some glitter and watched the glitter move through it but that wasn't enough so The Fashionista suggested adding food dye, so it ended up blue! That looked kind of cool actually. Then they added another 500mls to see if it went better with more water. I was a little surprised by how something so simple kept them amused for so long.

Said giant timer currently is residing in their bathroom and they give it a flip each time they go in there.

We were supposed to do this experiment ages ago but I had to go buy cheap soda especially so we had some bottles to use. Then someone who shall remain nameless, but puts the rubbish out, put them out with the recycling bin so I had to go through it all over again. It ended up taking us about 3 weeks to simply get 2 bottles to use!
 

"Who Dunnit?" - Chromatography

This was one of the "experiments that the girls did in the forensic workshop. The Fashionista just loved doing this one and determining who the culprit was. She worked with Agent Smelly and they did get it tight ... yeah!

Chromatography is the process of separating small amounts of substances from a mixture by the rates by the rates at which they travel through a medium. Ink is a mixture of coloured dyes, so chromatography can be used to separate the mixture of dyes. 

The tutor pretended that she had just received a call from the police saying that they had received a bomb threat at the local supermarket and that they needed the children's help to work out "who dunnit?"

She held up the note with the threat on it and the bomber had used a black marker to fix one of the words on their typed bomb threat ... did my heart warm to know that we had a grammar conscious bomber.

Apparently 5 suspects had been detained with black markers, which were all different. It was up to the kids to determine which black marker wrote that letter so they could determine the culprit and stop the bomb going off. They had 30 minutes!

Each group of two children were given a test tube rack with 5 test tubes, 5 long strips of paper, some methylated spirits and water and a strip of paper, that had already been tested and matched the marker used on the note (similar to one of those pictured below).

There were 5 different markers, all numbered. The children placed one dot from each marker on each of their strips, about 2cm from the bottom, and wrote the corresponding number on the top of the strip.

The Girls Samples
(Should have written down what type of marker 140 was, it didn't run at all!)

They then placed 10 drops of the methylated spirits and 10 drops of the water in each test tube and then placed one strip of paper in each of them. Then they waited ... and waited ... and waited ... they worked on something else in the meantime.

The strips absorbed the liquid and slowly the dots started to change and in most cases run. The children then matched their strips to the strips of evidence they had been given and (well most of them) determined that it was marker 131 ... IE the supermarket butcher was the culprit.

Apparently said butcher had gone vegetarian a few weeks back and now hated his job so much that he wanted to blow the place up!

Forensic Science for Kids

One of the things I LOVE about homeschooling is attending science workshops, the girls do too ... thankfully. This week we had the opportunity to attend a 2 1/2 hour Forensic Science workshop taken by a former science teacher, now homeschooling parent. 

Before we went along the teacher kindly emailed out a handout for the children to look at and could complete if they wanted to. The first part read "WHAT IS A FORENSIC SCIENTIST" and this was the reply which really amused we three gals ...


"A forensic scientist is a scientific super sleuth who single-handedly, in about an hour and using the tiniest smidgen of evidence, can solve a seemingly insolvable crime and once they get out of their lab coat look like they have a modelling contract with a major fashion house."

The hand out then went on to explain that that's just on TV, in real life a forensic scientist is NOT multi-skilled and usually highly specialised in just one particular area or discipline. I am afraid this news has ruined all those CSI shows for me forever.


The girls then had to look up some of the types of forensic scientists listed and write what these experts specialised in.


There were forensic entomologists, forensic musicologists, forensic vets, forensic knot specialists (how cool is that for your title), forensic polynologists, forensic podiatry, forensic engineers. Forensic dactyloscopy is the study of finger prints ... who knew? There are loads of areas and if you are interested in looking up more check this site. Your kids will love you for it. I read the titles and the kids had to guess what they were ... we weren't even close!


In another post I'll let you know all the wonderful things we did at the actual event. Right now it's late and I hear biscuits beckoning to me from the pantry.

Agent Smelly goes Solo at the Fonterra Science Roadshow

Last month we had the option to join some other homeschoolers in attending the Fonterra Science Roadshow.

For those of though who don't know The Fonterra Science Roadshow is a nationally travelling programme to schools and their communities. Approximately every week they set up at a "host" school and groups from other schools (and homeschoolers are welcomed too; yes there is even an option to select homeschool as name of school which always makes one feel welcome) come along and watch presentations, there's a 10 minute one at the beginning and also at the end and the rest of the time they are given the opportunity to explore various science and technology concepts by ‘touch and feel’.

Agent Smelly does not have good photography skills!

Unfortunately The Fashionista, who simply loves science was struck down by a stomach bug and had spent the night with her head in the toilet (or decorating the walls!) so wasn't going to be able to attend. Fortunately it was one of the Papa's days off so he stayed with her and I set off with Agent Smelly.

She chatted constantly the whole way there (over 30 mins each way) and admitted to me that she was really excited to be going somewhere without The Fashionista. Sometimes The Fashionista attends things without her because she is not quite old (or mature) enough for them but rarely is it the other way around. I think she felt really special and grown up going somewhere by herself.

Another smashing example of AS's photography!

Now parents are more than welcome to stay (even school children's parents are welcomed along) but as we already had 4 parents attending with our little group I had thought I would take the opportunity to let the girls go it alone and so hadn't planned to stay. I confess I was a little worried about Agent Smelly, who is the shyer of my girls being left alone, but she reassured me that she would be fine and didn't need me to stay so when I got there I placed her in the tender care of a couple of slightly older girls that she has done art and swimming classes with. Later she told me that she stayed with them throughout the 90 minute session.

After the show and during the trip home she chatted about the event with comments here and there about how she hoped she could go back again and this time with her sister (which was sweet I thought) as she just knew how much she'd love it too.

I can't really explain what she saw and learnt as she was very excited and not making a whole lot of sense, well that I could understand anyway. All I picked up was how much she had enjoyed all the things she had gotten to do and see.

She did say that at one station they could have their blood pressure tested and she was told that she had the most perfect blood pressure of all the children tested that week. The other homeschooled girl was the next closest. My mother and I discussed this later and wondered if homeshooling had anything to do with the kids having such a relaxed blood pressure ... lol I will definitely take her and her sister to another one.

  
She must have really had an exciting day, as this was her about an hour before her bedtime ... out like a light!