Chemistry Unit 4: Density and Unit 5: The Periodic Table

Density was a fun and simple unit. The chemistry lessons from the ACS website (Chapter 3)were easy to follow. The labs did a great job explaining how and why different molecules had different densities. As an added bonus – try dropping an Alka-Seltzer tablet into the layered liquids.

Next, we explored the periodic table. First, my son watch the Brain Pop videos Periodic Table of Elements and Isotopes. Both had vocabulary and follow up worksheets. Next, he watched the Crash Course Chemistry videos #4 and #5 The Periodic Table and The Electron. I worried that the orbital shells of the electrons would be above him, but he grasped it with no problem. We finished with the labs in the ACS lessons (Chapter 4). It’s looking more and more like he has a natural aptitude for chemistry.

Chemistry Unit 2: Matter—Solids, Liquids, and Gases and Unit 3: Changes of State

Both of these were taken straight from the ACS Middle School Chemistry curriculum.  Since I added an introduction unit, we’re off by one on the numbering – Unit 2 is Chapter 1 and Unit 3 is Chapter 2. Oh well.

Each chapter had several pages of student reading, so we started with those. Next, we went back to Brain Pop for vocabulary (Temperature, Measuring Matter, States of Matter, and Matter Changing State). After my son had a solid grasp of the fundamentals, we started into the individual lessons and labs. I like the emphases on what was happening at an atomic level. That continues through the whole program.

You don’t need elaborate equipment for the labs. Each day has a simple experiment and questions focused on one concept. Even though some of these seemed overly simple, my son learned advanced facts that are normally reserved for high school chemistry, such as the affect of pressure on the volume of a gas. There are also nice, short videos that can be used for the teacher demonstration part of the daily lessons. A favorite is the slow-mo water balloon.

 

Chemistry Unit 1: Introduction

We’re spending the fall semester on chemistry. I’m aiming for a level above normal middle school, but still below an honors high school class. The first unit was an introduction to the basic terms, periodic table, and the atom:

Science: Daily Lessons

This is the final post detailing our curriculum choices for this year. Next week, I’ll start sharing specific unit plans and how well they went (or spectacularly crashed, as the case may be).

We’re spending the first semester on Chemistry, complete with all the mixing and explosions that it may include. Middle school science can be very bookish, due to the logistics of setting up labs in limited space with limited time and unlimited middle school student energy. I wanted a different experience for my son. Fortunately, the American Chemical Society offers a free curriculum with a lab and videos for each lesson.  You'll need to purchase materials for some of the labs, but they are cheap and easy to obtain. In fact, we already had most of them.

Science: Basic Lab Supplies

Our home is filled with budding mad scientists, so a well stocked science lab is essential. I’ve spent more money on that than on all our other curriculum combined! We already owned a microscope and slide making equipment. If I was starting from scratch, I’d splurge for a higher end microscope with the ability to display to a laptop. My only really decadent lab purchase was a Physics kit from Quality Science Labs. It’s put together specifically for an AP course, but there are also cross references to most common homeschool curriculums. We did all of the labs during our physics unit last spring. This year, we are redoing some of the labs and using the data for practicing real applications in Algebra I.

Our Summer Vacation: Science rules!

In our house, science is the thing that rules us all and in the darkness binds us… together, that is. We spent the summer binge watching Eureka and Warehouse 13. Besides renaming our homeschool to “Tesla High”, my son was motivated to do a lot of science experiments just for fun. My only requirement was that he needed to write a short paragraph about each experiment in his science journal. He had come so far in his writing struggles, it was the perfect way to not loose any ground.

Here was one of his favorites. He used the gas generated from dry ice in warm water to create strong soap bubbles. Thank you to Steve Spangler for this lab. (Bouncing Smoke Bubbles from this book)  

  

This summer’s just-for-fun lab time was a big hit so we’re continuing it each Friday this school year. And, I am thrilled that my son finally loves exploring science again.

Starting Science

This was the absolutely easiest subject to get up and running. My son’s 7^th grade class had just finished a unit on weather. So, we were able to jump right into cells. There were several big issues I had with the way he was being taught science in middle school. My older child had also had this particular teacher and had complete lost any interest in science. Fortunately, she had an amazing run of science teachers after that and is now considering a career in biology.

So, what did her great teachers do that the 7^th grade teacher didn’t? Simple. They made science fun and hands-on with minimal bookwork. With that in mind, here was the frame work for future our science lessons:

Step 2 Content, con’t.

At this point, I had read through the entire published objectives for 7th graders in North Carolina. I had them sorted into charts with the notes from the unpacked PDFs, which gave me a general picture of what we should be teaching in order to stay on pace with public school. I had also looked over the objectives for the next few grades to see where we needed to be at the end.