A chemical reaction is when one or more substances become one or more different substances.

A physical reaction is when you change the appearance of a substance and can return it to its original state.

Now to do some experiments that demonstrates these two reactions. I choose to use a rusty piece of metal, Diet Coke and Mentos, and smoke bombs.

First I placed the rusty metal on the ground and then set up the Mentos to drop into the Diet Coke. Even through my kids have seen the Mentos reaction before, they did not mind doing it again.

Which one is a physical reaction? Which one is the chemical reaction? My main question was, “which one is going to give me a new substance?” (Now I am trying to trick them some by using a physical reaction that looks like a chemical reaction)
Since I cannot make the rust return to being a metal, I have a chemical reaction. If I could catch the CO2, I could return it to the soda, and only a physical reaction has happened.

Now since my chemical reaction is a little boring, watching metal rust, I decided to make smoke bombs. You need stump removal and sugar to make the smoke bomb. Stump removal can be found in the lawn and garden section near the pesticides.

Taking 1 1/2 cups of stump remover to 1 cup of sugar and in a pan over low heat you want to caramelize the sugar. Once you have the dark brown liquid pour it into a blob on aluminum foil to cool. Once it cools, it will harden and then can be removed from the foil.

We placed ours on a stepping-stone and made sure no flammable items (leaves/grass) were near the smoke bomb. We lit it with a lighter and watched the reaction. It was awesome! I got to be the cool mom for the day.

Now you have a good reason to make smoke in Chemistry!  (Here is a little youtube clip of a bigger one we made http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mhc9gvz6iwg )

My boys convinced me that they “needed” lab coats for chemistry class. My first stop was Good Will to find 2  large, white, button-up shirts. Woo Hoo, five minutes in the store and I had two white shirts that would work. Next stop was the craft store for some iron-on letters, fabric paint and heat bond.

While looking for the heat bond, I found some great oversized, primary colored buttons. (Big Basic Buttons, 6/Pkg, Primary)
I couldn’t resist the urge to continue our button sewing history lesson into this week’s science lesson. It was a great review and the larger buttons were easier for my youngest to sew.

Since one of the shirts was long sleeved, I cut off the sleeves and taught my son to hem the new length. Since I was using the heat bond for the hem, my son thought this was the easiest thing to do.

Now if you can handle some simple stich sewing, use some of the left over sleeve material to make a second pocket. Then we ironed on their names and used the fabric paint for some decorations.

Grab the chemistry supplies and safety glasses and let the kids pretend. This week’s chemistry lesson involved learning the names of the apparatuses used in a chemistry lab.

I introduced the name of each apparatus and placed in on the table. Then I allowed them to measure water in the graduated cylinder. Move water back and forth with a pipette. I heated a class of water in the microwave to measure the temperature. Every few moments I would ask them the name of the apparatus they were using. Then I would leave them alone to pretend what experiment they were performing. Since I have boys there was a lot of explosive reactions happening.

My boys are begging to do this again, so I think tomorrow afternoon I will add food color to some of the water, throw a few spices on the table, and let them pretend our kitchen table is the best chemistry lab on the planet. Besides I am sure the teacher in me will ask a few times, “What is the name of that piece of equipment you are using?”

Sometimes you don’t need a fancy science experiment to have fun ☺

If you read my post on planning All American History Jr, then you understand how overworked my printer is right now

This week I am laying out our Christian Kids Explore Chemistry notebooks. I am pretty excited to be teaching chemistry this year! Although I love the experiments in the book, I am planning on adding two or three more to our class each week.

I chose to keep the notebook divided by the units outlined in the book. Thankfully the cd that came with the book helped to print out the student pages. I did make a section for vocabulary. My boys are already doing a lot of writing in their other subjects, so I typed up the vocabulary to be printed out on address labels. Since the labels are white, I chose to print the blank boxes on yellow paper.

My oldest does have an extra section for the elements. I found an extra book A guide to the Elements that gives a brief history about each element. Choosing 3 a week, he will do a notebook page on each element. My youngest will do the element cards as outlined in Lesson 4.

If you would like a cover page for your chemistry notebook here is the one I made for my boys, Chemistry Cover Page (145)  
Since I was on a roll with planning, your students might enjoy a little hangman with their chemistry vocabulary. This was a hit for our first class!  Chemistry Hangman (150)

If you are looking for more information,  The Homeschool Scientist did a product review of Christian Kids Explore Chemistry or Spell OutLoud did one showing how molecules work.

“Health Matters” the name of our new game.

My favorite way to end our science co-op; design a board game! Since we just finished our unit on the Human Body that became the theme for our game.

We decided to base our game on the actual game of “Life.” The goal: acquire a medical profession, buy a medical building and retire with the most money.

We choose 6 medical jobs: Surgeon, Doctor, Nurse, Pharmacist, Physical Therapist and Medical Clerk.

We choose 6 medical buildings: Hospital, Nursing Home, Medical Clinic, Doctor’s Office, Pharmacy, and Urgent Care.

If you roll a 1 or a 6 you can switch salaries with any player.

The kids came up with 24 medical ideas for the Health tiles. For instance, “Find a cure for cancer, earn $100.” The tiles will be collected traveling the board and they can’t be read until the player reaches the retirement community.

Then came the real hard work, thinking of different things to write on the squares on the board. A few of my favorite: Lead the group in singing Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes, For a healthy heart do 10 jumping jacks or Leave scalpel in patient pay $30.

We modge podged some Google images and typed up the words onto address labels to make the different cards. A black Sharpie pen and neat handwriting completed the board.

If you want to read about last years game “Journey to the Abyss” hop over to my blog post at Bright Ideas Press 

Amazon sells a pretty colorful make your own board game.  If you need some help in getting started.

Finishing up our study of the Integumentary System we looked at our fingerprints. Now I didn’t have a fancy kit for crime scenes but I came up with a way to stage a crime.

I had everyone do two sets of their fingerprints. On one set I placed different dots so I would know whose set was whose but the kids would not. This is the set I used for the suspect line-up.

After allowing the kids time to study their unique prints I had them go outside and wait. This allowed me to stage the crime.

With the second set, I chose one child’s prints and cut out two fingers. I placed these two prints on top of a Nerf gun. Then the kids had to figure out who did the crime. Of course my kids wanted to write a story about the crime but that was getting us off topic! We saved the idea for creative writing later in the afternoon.