This week, Dora and I “studied” the states of matter. It is a subject that is covered in the ages 3-6 Montessori “curriculum”/album that I have. I think I’m going to wait on the rest of physical science until she is older though. It really seemed to go over her head. I tried demonstrating with melting ice in a jar, which I then heated until it formed steam, but she clearly didn’t grasp what I was teaching. The one thing she did grasp, is that water makes things stick together, such as hair and paintbrush bristles. I have no idea why this was the one thing she hooked onto during the week, but she has been spraying her hair with a water bottle all the time so that she can show everyone how the water makes it sticks together. For this unit, we did the famous colorful milk experiment that you see all over the internet these days, but which I personally had never heard of until I started reading blogs. You add several drops of food coloring to a dish of milk and then drop a bit of dish soap in the milk (you can also touch the milk with a q-tip that has been dipped in soap). The soap instantly sends the food coloring flying in all directions. (Here are some good “officially scientific” directions and explanations from Steve Spangler.) The picture above shows the milk after we dropped the soap in, below is the before shot.
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I loved doing science experiments as a kid.
ReplyDeleteWe've done magic milk painting a couple of times and it's always a hit.
ReplyDeleteVery dramatic way to demonstrate chemical bonding!
ReplyDeleteI don't know if this will make you feel better or scare you, but I swear my 14 year old (younger son) still doesn't seem to quite grasp chemical bonding, or even just the different between convection, conduction and radiation. *palming forehead* It's so hard for me since his 16 yr old brother has been reading Scientific American for the past 3 years and (embarrassingly for me) explains concepts to both me and his younger brother during our chemistry labs.
Kids...they all aggravate you in their own unique ways. ;D
Yes they do! And we aggravate them in our own unique ways too! :-)
DeleteThe milk experiment always gets such spectacular results.
ReplyDeleteThanks for linking up to Science Sunday!