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#3 Make Your Own Element Cards

Monday, August 18th, 2014

make-your-own-element-cardsThis post contains affiliate links. I was compensated for my work in writing this post.

Today I will show you how to make your own element cards for the Periodic Table of Elements. We are using Christian Kids Explore Chemistry by Bright Ideas Press to study elementary-level chemistry, and one of the activities throughout the book is to make element cards. You do not have to make element cards for every single element on the periodic table, but if you do, you can make this giant Periodic Table Puzzle!

You will need some blank 3 by 5 cards. We decided to write the chemical symbols with bubble letters that we color-coded according to whether the elements were metals or non-metals. You can further classify the metals if you want.

These are the pieces of information we wrote on each card:

  • chemical symbol
  • name of the element
  • atomic number
  • atomic weight

On the back of each card you can write any interesting information about each element. You can find this information in books or on the internet.

periodic-table-cardsTo facilitate putting together the Periodic Table Puzzle, you will want to look at the atomic numbers. The periodic table is set up in order according to the atomic numbers. Watch the video at the bottom of this blog post to see how the periodic table is arranged.

You can use these cards in many ways:

  • Make a Periodic Table Puzzle
  • Use the cards to quiz each other on elements and their symbols
  • Based on the color, learn which elements are non-metals.
  • Use it as an encyclopedia of each element on the back of the cards.
  • Learn the atomic numbers of common elements.

Take a look at how we arranged these element cards:

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Posted in Science | 5 Comments »

#2 Filtration Experiment

Monday, August 11th, 2014

filtration-experimentThis post contains affiliate links. I was compensated for my work in writing this post.

Today we will be doing a fun filtration experiment where salt goes through a filter like magic, while sand remains behind. This is one of the experiments in the book Christian Kids Explore Chemistry by Bright Ideas Press. The book provides a chart to fill in as we examine the salt and the sand at the beginning of the experiment.

You will need some sand, some salt, a funnel, a coffee filter, a mason jar or large drinking glass, a pie plate (without pie in it!), a glass measuring cup, a bowl, a teaspoon, and a stirring spoon.

filtration-experiment-2

Place 2 teaspoons of salt into the bowl. Add one teaspoon of sand to the salt, but don’t mix it yet. It helps to put salt on one side of the bowl and sand on the other side. Now you will want to taste the salt and the sand. You can spit out the sand when you are finished tasting it. You will have to watch the video at the end of this blog post to find out what my daughter said the sand tasted like.

Look at the salt and sand and feel it with your fingers. Which one is more coarse? Write that down on the chart. What color is the salt? What color is the sand? Are there any other characteristics your kids would like to mention about the salt or the sand?

filtration-notes

Write down each of your findings on the chart provided in the book, and then doodle all over the rest of the paper as if you were a mad scientist. Just kidding. You don’t need to doodle.

filtration-doodlesNow mix the salt and the sand together with a spoon. This is called a mixture. Pour 100ml of water into the salt/sand mixture, and stir for 60 seconds until the salt has dissolved.

Place the coffee filter into the funnel, and put the funnel on top of the mason jar. One child can hold the funnel while the other child pours the salt/sand/water mixture into the filter.

filter-experimentThe water will go through the filter, but the sand will be left behind.

Where did the salt go? It disappeared!

Pour the contents of the mason jar into a pie plate, and leave it for a few days. When the water has evaporated, voila! The salt grains re-appear like a magic trick!

evaporated-saltWhat happened? The salt became smaller when water was added to it, and the salt was then able to go through the filter. How sneaky is that?

And the fun thing is that the salt crystals re-appeared larger than what they were at the beginning of the experiment!

salt-crystalsTake a look at the filtration experiment, as we recorded the whole experience on video:

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Posted in Science | 6 Comments »

#1 Chemistry Tools

Monday, August 4th, 2014

chemistry-toolsThis post contains affiliate links. I was compensated for my work in writing this post.

Today we are starting a new series of blog posts about Elementary Chemistry using Christian Kids Explore Chemistry by Bright Ideas Press. Each of the chapters has a fun hands-on activity as well as a simple explanation of chemistry concepts. Don’t panic if you flunked out of chemistry in high school. This book will help you to understand chemistry concepts if you’ve never understood them before.

In the first chapter we examined the ingredients of common household items to see that chemicals are everywhere! We eat chemicals all the time. Sucrose, for example, is sugar. You will find sucrose in many cereals and desserts.

We were astonished to discover that my hair spray listed alcohol before water in its ingredients list! This means that the hair spray contains more alcohol than water, since the ingredients are listed in order, with the first ingredient being the most abundant.

introduction-to-chemistry-toolsBecause I am teaching high school chemistry to my older two sons, I ordered all this cool chemistry equipment. I describe each of the chemistry tools in the video at the bottom of this blog post, explaining what each tool is used for. You do not need any of these tools for the elementary chemistry, as long as you have a glass measuring cup with measurements on the side. Most people already have this in their kitchens.

Let’s use a couple of these chemistry tools to learn how to measure liquids. We are using a graduated cylinder and a beaker for this simple activity from the book. All you do is pour the liquid back and forth three times.

chemistry-tools-elementaryLook at the markings on the side of the beaker to measure how much liquid is in the beaker. Now look at the markings on the side of the graduated cylinder. If you are doing this experiment at home, use smaller amounts of liquid so your kids don’t have to interpolate (or make an educated guess) about how much liquid is in the graduated cylinder. The orange juice went above the highest measurement, but this might happen in real life as well. My kids guessed that it was the same amount of liquid.

chemistry-tools-2If you pour a liquid back and forth too many times, you might get smaller readings for your liquid. Why? Because some of the liquid has stayed in the container, along the sides and bottom of the container. We noticed a slight change, but it wasn’t a big enough change to matter much.

Take a look at our chemistry tools and our simple measuring experiment:

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Posted in Science | 14 Comments »

Solar System Cake

Monday, May 5th, 2014

solar-system-cake

We finished our study of outer space by making this cool Solar System cake! One night at dinner I was brainstorming with the kids how to make a cake look like the sun and the planets. I was thinking I would do a rectangular cake with dark blue icing and draw the sun and planets with icing gel.

But dark blue frosting is very hard to make because icing starts white. And it seems like a lot of work to draw the sun and planets with frosting, especially if your hands start trembling because you want to make it perfect.

I could use candies for the different planets instead of drawing them, choosing the correct colors and sizes for the candy for each planet.

Suddenly a different idea it hit me: Bake one cake in a circle pan, and frost it yellow. Then make the planets cupcakes! “Brilliant!” I shouted at the dinner table, beginning to sing the Halleluyah chorus. The kids cheered, laughing hysterically at my singing. Of course the kids approved, since making cake means eating cake.

solar-system-cake-2

I cut a piece of cardboard slightly larger than the circle cake, taping foil on it, before plopping the cake down on it. After the cake cooled, we frosted it yellow. I placed gold-wrapped Rolo candies around the edge to make the sun fancy, but you could use any yellow candy.

I mixed different colors of icing, and I frosted the cupcakes according to the color of the planets. I frosted Mercury with chocolate frosting instead of trying to make gray frosting. (Yuck! Who would want to eat that?) The Earth cupcake was first frosted with blue, then green blobs for the continents. Jupiter was yellow with swirls of red. Saturn was yellow, and I stabbed a pink pipe cleaner as a ring around it. You could also use licorice.

I placed the Solar System cake on a dark blue sheet that I threw on the table, and I used white candy sprinkles for space dust. Don’t you just love it?

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