Solids, Liquids and Gases

What a week! I think most homeschool moms would agree that no matter how much we do, we wonder sometimes if we are doing enough. Are my kids learning enough? Am I pushing them enough? Those are natural questions… Even when I taught a classroom of 34 kids, I still wondered if what I was doing was sufficient or if there was more or better I could be doing for my students.

Having said that, this was NOT one of those weeks. We crammed a TON of fun learning into one week. Our theme this week was Solids, Liquids and Gases, thanks to our second month of Magic School Bus Young Scientist's Club experiment packet. Our week was packed with experiments and hands-on demonstrations. 

We started off reading library books about the states of matter. Then we used raisins to model the different states of matter. It's fun to hear my 5 and 6 year old explain that the atoms in a solid are close together, so they can't move and that's why solids keep their shape. I think they learned something!

Then we modeled the different states of matter with a fun demonstration… The Life Cycle of a Snowman. The kids filled tupperware with snow and brought it inside to make snowmen. Then we set them in the sun while we did other experiments. We watched the SOLID snowman turn into LIQUID water and eventually had less liquid in the pan as it turned into GAS. So fun and a great visual!

This experiment is called Dancing Raisins. Pretty easy. Stick raisins in some kind of carbonated beverage. The kids predicted the raisins would sink and then had fun watching them "dance" up and down because of the air bubbles. Another fun experiment that really taught them about science. They could explain that the air was lighter than the liquid so it wanted to go up. The air brought the raisin up and then escaped so the raisin sank again.

Next we mixed a solid (baking soda) and a liquid (vinegar) and created a gas. It's a variation on the classic volcano experiment. Only this time, we stuck a balloon on top to catch the gas. The kids were able to see the balloon inflate as it filled with gas.

There were several other experiments, including making slime, but I was so busy trying to keep the mess contained that I couldn't grab my camera. 

We ended the week with a super fun field trip that has to do with one of our favorite liquids: Maple Syrup! Our local Nature Center offered a homeschool class about maple-sugaring. Because of the awesome layer of ice covered with a dusting of snow, they also threw in a ton of information about tracking animal footprints. 

The kids located buckets that had been collecting maple sap. Then we collected it, put the buckets back on the trees and brought the sap to the evaporation room to be turned into syrup. We even got to taste some of the sap as it was going through the refining process. Yum!

We couldn't bring ourselves to leave the Nature Center, so we at a picnic lunch (inside) and did some bird watching. I love how much my kids love to learn. They have such a natural curiosity. It was fun to listen to them identify most of the birds they saw and figure out a way to look up the names of the ones they didn't know.

Even the Nature Center store provided some fun math practice as they decided to figure out which stuffed snake was the longest. It was such a wonderful trip and the perfect ending to a great week of school.