One week we spent the time figuring how to tell the difference between elements. We found what elements conducted electricity, we did the Moh test on some, we heated some up, we saw which were magnetic, and my personal favourite, we burned them and saw the colour of their flames (boric acid makes some awesome green flames.) I'm sure there were other ways we categorized elements too that I can't think of right now.
Then we played "Periodic Table Battleship" to get the kids to feel comfortable with the table and where the elements were.
I also made this movie about the element symbols that are odd, to help them remember them.
The next week we learned about density I made a song for that, but it isn't nearly as impressive:
The big experiment of the day was putting different kinds of liquids into test tubes to make a density rainbow:
And this week we talked about molecules. This included talking about mixtures and compounds. Mixtures are just physical changes where the elements are just next to each other and can easily be separated, and compound is a chemical change where new molecules are formed.
We read the Adventures of Adam the Atom (love that book!) and made cake, and hardboiled eggs, and we took sulphur and iron and mixed them together, and separated them out again with a magnet, and then melted them together. We also made molecules out of candy (it was a yummy science. Well, yummy and stinky. Stinky because of the sulphur.)
