Kitchen science—demonstrating matter

I admit it. I ordered a book of science curriculum. It was highly recommended by other homeschooling moms, and it isn't filled with worksheets and quizes, Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding is more of a guideline for parents, and that's a "curriculum" I can live with.

The "lessons" start with categorizing, so last week we took a walk and categorized everything by its manner of life or lack thereof. Is it living? Is it organic non-living, or inorganic non-living? It was a fun talk, and walk.

The second section deals with matter and the states of matter. I don't feel the need to keep up with the book's suggested pace, or even necessarily stick with its order (although it strictly warns me that deviation is unacceptable, I think rules were made to be broken), but since we've been reading Bang! The Universe Verse Book 1 on our journey through evolution, which starts with the Big Bang and the formation of matter, yadda yadda, I thought now was as good a time as any.

So we hit up the library for some books on the matter and read them. Of the books available there, States of Matter, by Suzanne Slade, was the most helpful. To connect the activities with the things we've already been reading about we took it down to energy, then to atoms, then to molecules and matter.

Then I put our books of experiments in Calvin's hands.

Demonstrating matter: marbles in a boxtop—tightly packed is a solid, lightly packed is a liquid, loosely packed is a gas. He played with that for a while, and explored items in the house with reference to their matter.

Changing states of matter: Of course. Ice from the freezer, melt it in the pot, bring it to a boil and watch it steam, allow the steam to condense on something and, if so desired, re-freeze it.

Molecules on the move: two identical glasses filled with the same amount of water. Heat one in the microwave. Add one drop of food coloring to each cup and watch the color move through the water.

Air is matter, too: sweep an air tight bag through the air and quickly close it tightly, then notice that the bag is full of...air.

Displacement of matter: fill a glass and mark the water level. Add an object and note that the water level is now higher.

Air is matter, too, two: fill a bowl with water. Find a glass smaller than the bowl and stuff a sheet of paper in the bottom so that it won't fall out. Push the glass, top down, into the bowl of water, keeping the glass completely upright. Remove, still keeping the glass straight upright, and note that the paper is dry.

The last demonstration, from the book Chemistry for Every Kid, by Janice VanCleave (a great book, by the way), was Calvin's favorite, but really he had a great time with all of these. And I liked the time together; science was my mainstay in college.