Pat Cald...

Now that Dan has solved my math problem, we can move on to chemistry. I would like to get my kids a chemistry set like the one I had when I was a kid. You know, where you can make blue smoke and stinky sulfur stuff. I have not been able to find any chemistry sets with basic chemicals in them. What do your kids have?

Pat


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Karen Matlock

<<Now that Dan has solved my math problem, we can move
on to chemistry.
I would like to get my kids a chemistry set like the
one I had when I
was a kid. You know, where you can make blue smoke
and stinky sulfur
stuff. I have not been able to find any chemistry
sets with basic
chemicals in them. What do your kids have?>>


Pat, my son got a Smithsonian chemistry set for
Christmas and I thought, cool, because it says
Smithsonian, right? Wrong. The instructions weren't
clear, the experiments didn't work, and nothing smoked
or blew up, which really disappointed ds. Have you
tried Tobin Scientific? www.tobinlab.com

Mattie


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Pat Cald...

Karen, that is a really cool site. I ordered some placemats, a Civil War game, a bird feeder kit, and a poster. The prices are very reasonable.

We live near Gettysburg and Antietam and I feel like getting into some Civil War stuff and visiting those places this spring. We've never taken the kids there.

Pat

----- Original Message -----
From: Karen Matlock
To: [email protected]
Sent: Tuesday, February 05, 2002 11:02 PM
Subject: [AlwaysLearning] Re: chemistry sets


Pat, my son got a Smithsonian chemistry set for
Christmas and I thought, cool, because it says
Smithsonian, right? Wrong. The instructions weren't
clear, the experiments didn't work, and nothing smoked
or blew up, which really disappointed ds. Have you
tried Tobin Scientific? www.tobinlab.com

Mattie


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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Sharon Rudd

Sandra,
A while back I subbed onto some other lists that
called themselves unschooling lists, in order to lurk
awhile, see what was going on. Well, I'm going nuts
with not butting in. I've unsubbed from several, but
there may be hope for others.....though I'm not a good
evangalist. I'm more of the "Don't Tread On Me" type
of Rebel. May I post a link to your website on some of
these lists, before I unsub from them? Or is it more
inline with online ettiquette to just let them be?
Radical Unschoolers, UnSchoolers On Line ....does seem
to imply......

Sharon of the Swamp

__________________________________________________
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Sharon Rudd

> Pat, my son got a Smithsonian chemistry set for
> Christmas and I thought, cool, because it says
> Smithsonian, right? Wrong. The instructions weren't
> clear, the experiments didn't work, and nothing
> smoked
> or blew up, which really disappointed ds.
...................................................>
WHY didn't the stuff work? There is chemistry
everywhere. Hey! You could blow up eggs in the
microwave! I once blew up some in a regular pot on the
stove top. Left them to hardboil and forgot. When I
came home, the pot was welded to the burner and the
eggs were eveywhere. On the textured ceiling, behind
the refrigerator, underneath the uphigh cupboards, one
all of the exterior surfaces of everything. Wish I
had observed this!

There is the baking soda and vinigar comination, that
goes a long way for "food for thought". Actually all
cooking is chemistry. Dyes and mordants are
chemistry.
Medicine is chemistry. Compost and fertilizer is
chemistry, the weather is chemistry.....you really
can't avoid chemistry. It is sort of like art and
craft materials. Everywhere.

Sharon of the Swamp

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[email protected]

In a message dated 2/6/02 8:07:05 AM, bearspawprint@... writes:

<< May I post a link to your website on some of
these lists, before I unsub from them? Or is it more
inline with online ettiquette to just let them be?
Radical Unschoolers, UnSchoolers On Line ....does seem
to imply...... >>

I don't mind you posting it, but then they'll come to the link to this, and
I'd hate for this one to fill up with people defending a lack of unschooling.

Even the radical unschoolers list is not strongly radical? I'd've rather
used that name, but it was taken.

Sandra

[email protected]

In a message dated 2/6/02 8:07:05 AM, bearspawprint@... writes:

<< May I post a link to your website on some of
these lists, before I unsub from them? Or is it more
inline with online ettiquette to just let them be?
Radical Unschoolers, UnSchoolers On Line ....does seem
to imply...... >>

I don't think etiquette prohibits furnishing websites to anyone. But don't
use the expage address, please. Use the new one, SandraDodd.com/unschooling

Thanks.

[email protected]

In a message dated 2/6/02 8:16:52 AM, bearspawprint@... writes:

<< There is chemistry
everywhere. Hey! You could blow up eggs in the
microwave! I once blew up some in a regular pot on the
stove top. Left them to hardboil and forgot. >>

I blew some up without heat!! (sort of)

We had been camping, and came home and unloaded everything, cleaned up and
went to dinner in a restaurant.

When we got back, there was stinky raw egg on LOTS of stuff. We had broken
eggs into a tupperware container so we didn't have to take care of fresh
whole eggs. The container had been in the cooler, and we hadn't used all the
eggs. So when the cooler was unloaded and it was left on the table, it
warmed up in the house and KABLOOIE!

Missed it.

Kinda glad! <g>

Sandra

Jorgen & Ann

> Actually all
>
>cooking is chemistry.

And one of my favorite kinds of cooking chemistry is candymaking. I work as
a candymaker sometimes. When I started learning how, I really got "cooking
is chemistry," because it's so easy to see how one small error in measuring
can cause big changes or even disasters. Changes in humidity and air
temperature make big differences in your end product too.

But if you make brittle you can see the vinegar/baking soda deal and eat it
too. If you mess around with chocolate (real chocolate, not the melting
stuff) you can learn about melting it, dipping, drying it, tempering it,
why it grays, and horrors, what happens if you get a drop of water in it.
If you make fudge by making a sugar syrup you can learn about why it grains
and why it comes out really smooth. If you make marshamallow and divinty
you can learn how to take sugar, water, egg whites, and vanilla and make
two really different things. Marshamallow and divinty are essentially the
same, you just use different proportions, cook the syrups to different
temps, plus marshmallow has gelatin in it. The whole deal of how you can
cook sugar and water to different temperatures and have really different
things happen is interesting. And how adding air to mixtures changes them
is interesting too.

A lot of this stuff you can do at home. And it usually tastes really good,
even the things that aren't perfect. The very best candy really is made
with the simplest ingredients, I think.

Ann

[email protected]

In a message dated 2/6/2002 11:18:43 AM Eastern Standard Time,
SandraDodd@... writes:


> Even the radical unschoolers list is not strongly radical? I'd've rather
> used that name, but it was taken.
>

Not radical at all. And difficult people too.

K


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Pat Cald...

The discussion about chemistry has led me to begin thinking about what people like about different things. My 10 yo dd likes working with numbers in a structured way. She likes making lists and graphs and she even likes *playing* flashcards with her ps friends. My 12 yo dd does not like working with numbers in the same way as 10 yo dd but loves patterns and all kinds of games. I could either say both of my kids like math or both of my kids don't like math and I would be correct in each statement. This is because there are different things about math to like and dislike. One might enjoy being an auditor the other an engineer, both are math related.

I'm looking forward to helping my children figure out what they like about things and why. I love gardening and cooking but I'm not at all interested in the nuts and bolts of either. I'm more interested in the sensory experience and the creativity. I'm assuming the key will be in the questions they ask and how other interests they have relate to each other. Anyone else have observations about their kids that I could add to my mental database?

Pat
----- Original Message -----
From: Jorgen & Ann
To: [email protected]
Sent: Wednesday, February 06, 2002 11:35 AM
Subject: Re: [AlwaysLearning] Re: chemistry sets



> Actually all
>
>cooking is chemistry.

And one of my favorite kinds of cooking chemistry is candymaking. I work as
a candymaker sometimes. When I started learning how, I really got "cooking
is chemistry," because it's so easy to see how one small error in measuring
can cause big changes or even disasters. Changes in humidity and air
temperature make big differences in your end product too.

But if you make brittle you can see the vinegar/baking soda deal and eat it
too. If you mess around with chocolate (real chocolate, not the melting
stuff) you can learn about melting it, dipping, drying it, tempering it,
why it grays, and horrors, what happens if you get a drop of water in it.
If you make fudge by making a sugar syrup you can learn about why it grains
and why it comes out really smooth. If you make marshamallow and divinty
you can learn how to take sugar, water, egg whites, and vanilla and make
two really different things. Marshamallow and divinty are essentially the
same, you just use different proportions, cook the syrups to different
temps, plus marshmallow has gelatin in it. The whole deal of how you can
cook sugar and water to different temperatures and have really different
things happen is interesting. And how adding air to mixtures changes them
is interesting too.

A lot of this stuff you can do at home. And it usually tastes really good,
even the things that aren't perfect. The very best candy really is made
with the simplest ingredients, I think.

Ann



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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

zenmomma *

>
><< There is chemistry
>everywhere. Hey! You could blow up eggs in the
>microwave! I once blew up some in a regular pot on the
>stove top. Left them to hardboil and forgot. >>
>
>I blew some up without heat!! (sort of)>>

Everytime we come back from a vacation at sea level, all of our bottles blow
up upon opening. Things like shampoo, lotion, conditioner, even toothpaste
start oozing out at an alarming rate once you reopen them at altitude. We're
at 6500 feet currently, but it happened at 5,000 feet too. That's one
experiment that never fails. :-D And my kids are becoming experts on air
pressure.

As far as Chemistry sets go, we also had the Smithsonian one. Too schooly
for us. We never used it much. The Totally Gross Chemisrty set gets used a
lot and the reactions actually work. It uses lots of household stuff so that
the kids understand that chemical reactions are happening all around them.

~Mary


_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp.

Dan Vilter

>on 2/5/02 8:02 PM, Karen Matlock at kbmatlock@... wrote:

> The instructions weren't
> clear, the experiments didn't work, and nothing smoked
> or blew up, which really disappointed ds.

I'm afraid the product liability laws, and the easy litigation that goes
with them, have all but eliminated the kind of chemistry set that was around
when I was a kid. Then again, there are no potassium permanganate stains on
the ceiling like when I was a kid. <G>

I really like the "Experiment of the Week" list someone mentioned earlier.
Robert Krampf who puts it together, covers nearly all the sciences,
including lots of chemistry and physics. Almost everything he uses is easily
obtainable if you don't already have it around the house.

**I like the way he explains the science.**

Krampf does shows around the country at museums and schools. We saw one
several years ago and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Sorry for the long post but I'm including a news letter here for those who
have never seen one. This explanation is a bit more involved than most.


-Dan Vilter




Robert Krampf's Experiment of the Week

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<   
This Week's Experiment - #252 Bubble Colors

I hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season.  I came across the
idea for this week's while searching for the website of Tom Noddy.  Tom is
the original bubble man (and in my opinion, still the best.)  He planted the
seed for my decision to go into business for myself.  I met him while I was
working at the Memphis Pink Palace Museum.  He was doing a weekend of shows
at the museum and got to see me doing an electricity show.  He told me that
I should take the show on the road.  That was back in 1987.  It has been a
long and wonderful road so far, and hopefully it is far from over. 

While looking over Tom's website (http://www.tomnoddy.com/index.html), I
thought another bubble experiment would be fun.  This one is very simple,
but if you start to dig into it, it can become as complex as you want.  You
might be surprised to hear how much time mathematics professors spend
talking about bubbles.  For today, we will keep it simple.  You will need:

a clear drinking glass water soap (I used Dawn dishwashing soap) a drinking
straw

Fill the glass about 1/4 of the way with water.  Add a few drops of soap. 
Stir this with the straw to spread the soap around and then blow through the
straw to make some bubbles.  Examine the bubbles and notice their shapes. 
Stand with the glass of bubbles in your hand and with a strong light behind
you.  As you turn the glass, you should begin to see bright colors.  Where
two bubbles touch, they form a flat surface and these flat surfaces are
where you will see the bright yellows, blues, reds and greens.  What causes
these colors?

To find out, move the straw around to pop most of the bubbles and start
again.  This time, as soon as you blow the bubbles, hold up the glass and
look for the colors.  Where are they?  Watch for a few seconds and you will
see them begin to appear.  As you watch, the colors will become brighter and
brighter.  Why is that?  What is changing as time passes?

The change is the thickness of the bubble.  When you first blow the bubbles,
the film of water and soap is fairly thick.  As you watch, the water begins
to drain out of the bubbles, flowing downwards into the glass.  As the film
of the bubble gets thinner and thinner, something wonderful begins to
happen.

This is where things get a little more complex.  Don't let this scare you
into stopping, because it truly is amazing.  If you have ever seen a
rainbow, you know that white light is made up of many different colors.  The
rainbow separates the colors by bending each one at a different angle.  With
the bubble, bending the colors to separate them, we remove some colors, so
that we see the others. 

To understand how the colors are removed, we need to think of light as
waves. One of the weird things about light is that sometimes it acts as if
it is made up of tiny particles and sometimes it acts as it if is made up of
waves. For now, we will think of it as acting like waves.  If you have ever
watched waves, this will be much easier.  If you have not, then go take a
bath.  While you are getting clean, make waves in the tub and watch
carefully what they do.  You will notice that when a wave hits the side of
the tub, it bounces back.  Light does the same thing, and we call it
reflecting.  Part of the light hitting the surface of the bubble goes on
through and part of it bounces back or reflects back towards you.  Of the
light that goes on into the bubble, more of it is reflected back when it
hits the inside surface. 

When the light that reflects from the outer surface mixes with the light
reflecting from the inner surface, something so strange happens that it
might seem like magic.  The light that continued on to reflect from the
inner surface had to travel a tiny bit farther (the thickness of the bubble
film) than the light reflected from the outer surface.  This means that the
two sets of waves are slightly out of step.  If this difference is just
right, some of the waves will cancel each other out and that color will seem
to be missing.  Starting with white light, if the difference in the two sets
of waves is enough to cancel out the red light, then you would see a
blue-green color.  If the color yellow is canceled, you would see blue, and
so on. 

The difference in the two sets of waves is controlled by the thickness of
the bubble.  As the water drains from the bubble, the film gets thinner. 
When it is thin enough, the two sets of reflected light reach the right
level and you begin to see the colors.  Different thicknesses give you
different colors.  With a round bubble, the colors seem to swirl, because
the curved surface means you are looking through different thicknesses,
depending on the angle.  When two bubbles are connected they form the flat
surface that we have been looking at.  Since it is a flat surface, the
thicknesses are more even and easier to see.  The film is thicker at the
bottom and thinner at the top, forming bands of color.  You can even see
difference in this thickness as water flows through the bubble, producing
swirls of color.

This same process, called destructive interference, happens other places
besides bubbles.  It is what produces the iridescence seen in insect wings,
the rainbows seen from a film of oil on wet asphalt, and the beautiful
colors of the New Zealand paua shells that I had so much fun collecting last
year. 

Well, this is getting far too long, so I will stop here, but you don't have
to.  With a little research, you can find all sorts of wonders hiding in a
soap bubble.  I hope you all have a safe and happy holiday season. 

****************************************
This weekly e-mail list is free of charge.  You are welcome to forward it to
friends, print it in your newsletter, repost it on the Internet, etc., as
long as you do not charge for them and my name and e-mail address are
included. 

Please forward this e-mail to anyone that you think might enjoy it.  If you
received this e-mail from someone else and would like to be on the list,
just send a blank e-mail to:

[email protected]

You will be added to the Experiment of the Week List.  You must send the
e-mail from the account where you want to receive the experiments.

Each week I will e-mail you a new experiment that you can try yourself.  I
look for experiments that are unusual, safe, dramatic, cheap, and fun. 
Since this list includes teachers, parents, science buffs, and students, I
will try to give you a wide variety of things to try.

***************************
Robert Krampf's on-the-road schedule

My calendar is now on-line.  You can see a detailed calendar, with dates,
times, schools, etc. at http://www.krampf.com/mainsubjectsfolder/m_tour.html

January 14 - February 1 - FPL shows at public elementary schools in Broward
County
February 18 - March 1 - FPL shows at public elementary schools in
Sarasota/Manatee
March 12 - 18 Science shows at the Lakeview Museum, Peoria, IL
March 25 - April 12  FPL shows at public elementary schools in Charlotte,
Collier, Desoto, Hendry, Lee Co.
April 15 - May 5  FPL shows at public elementary schools in Brevard County
May 6 - 31  FPL shows at public elementary schools in Miami/Dade County

***************************

Check out my web site at:
http://www.krampf.com

For information on:

Watt is Electricity, the million volt electric show
The Nuts and Bolts of Lightning
Burning Questions, the science of fire safety
Energy Transformations
Educational consulting
Educator workshops

From Robert Krampf's Science Education Company
PO Box 60982
Jacksonville, FL  32236-0982
904-388-6381

[email protected]

<<>Not radical at all. And difficult people too.""

I ditto that.
Elissa, who will soon be singing
Yippee - Kai - Yay!

>
>K
>
>
>[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
>To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
>[email protected]
>
>
>
>Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
>

Pat Cald...

>Even the radical unschoolers list is not strongly radical? I'd've rather >used that name, but it was taken.
>
>Sandra

I don't really like the word radical. To me it has a negative connotation the same as fundamental Christians. I realize this is a prejudice but one I have come to through observation. I prefer to describe the unschooling that is proposed on this list as "ultimate unschooling". To me it means "it can't get any better than this"! Ahhhhh

Pat


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[email protected]

In a message dated 2/6/02 10:02:44 AM, homeschoolmd@... writes:

<< I could either say both of my kids like math or both of my kids don't
like math and I would be correct in each statement. This is because there
are different things about math to like and dislike. >>

I purposely did NOT teach my kids the concepts of "disciplines" (like "math"
and "history" and "science") because I knew that kids in school will decide
that because they care zip about Columbus sailing the ocean blue in fourteen
hundred ninety two that they HATE history. Or that because they don't care
about worms and bugs that they HATE science.

So we had in our lives explorers, and bugs, and Romans and cowboys and
samurai and waterflow and snow and rocks and trees, but never, ever, history
or science or geography or anything by names like that. Just the world, as
one big subject. Or individual parts of it, for their own merit and
enjoyment.

I kept that secret. They discovered the terms on their own later, from other
kids or TV or whatever, but by that time they were totally unable to say they
didn't like one or the other of those large concepts.

No aversions to affect their perceptions of other things related only by
school terminology.

Sandra

[email protected]

In a message dated 2/6/02 10:04:12 AM, zenmomma@... writes:

<< The Totally Gross Chemisrty set gets used a
lot and the reactions actually work. It uses lots of household stuff so that
the kids understand that chemical reactions are happening all around them.
>>

We had a little kit from Scholastic, some kind of ooky, gooky, long title
thing. Mostly baking soda and vinegar combos. We played with it lots, and
occasionally pull it out. It's with the cookbooks.

That playing did help Kirby know what baking soda was doing when that cake
was rising last week.

Sandra

[email protected]

In a message dated 2/6/02 8:42:35 AM Pacific Standard Time,
kbcdlovejo@... writes:

<<
> Even the radical unschoolers list is not strongly radical? I'd've rather
> used that name, but it was taken.
>

Not radical at all. And difficult people too.
>>

I am on RUL (radical unschoolers) which I think is a take off from the other
list, maybe the original list? It has always been radical, but totally quiet
for a while. Just got a bunch of new members so we'll see whats up with
that.
Kathy

Pat Cald...

From: Sharon Rudd
>Medicine is chemistry. Compost and fertilizer is
>chemistry, the weather is chemistry.....you really
>can't avoid chemistry. It is sort of like art and
>craft materials. Everywhere.
>
>Sharon of the Swamp

Since you all have helped me with math, patterns, games and puzzles for Allison, maybe you can help me identify some areas for Virginia, 10 yo dd. I was thinking she would enjoy chemistry stuff because she is drawn to making concoctions. She often asks to use ingredients from the kitchen to make a potions. I buy my spices in bulk and so I let her use the reasonably priced stuff. She just mixes all of it together in a big pot and that's it. She has done a lot of baking soda and vinegar, baked without any recipe and any idea what she was trying to make, and just plain mixes stuff with no rhyme or reason. She hates directions and could care less if I try to explain why certain things work the way the do.

She says she wants to be a monkey scientist some day like Jane Goodall. She really believes her animals are very smart and tells me how she has trained them. The most recent thing was training her cat to flush the toilet since he likes seeing the water swirl. Today he fell in the bath tub with her because he was playing with the stream of water. Now I'm getting off track.

Pat



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Cindy

SandraDodd@... wrote:
>
> Even the radical unschoolers list is not strongly radical? I'd've rather
> used that name, but it was taken.
>
Which radical unschoolers list? I'm on RUL which is fairly radical but
really quiet now.

It's a spin off from RU which is radical with a lot of wrangling on it.

--

Cindy Ferguson
crma@...

Sharon Rudd

maybe she would like to make soap? You can put lots
of the herbs and such in them, perhaps just use
glycerin for the base, and then she can wash with it
while the cat watches? Make good gifts, too.
Different addivtives do different things. Most
libraries have how-to books, on the order of recipies.
You don't have to wash ashes to make lye anymore.
Don't even need animal fat.

Just a thought.

Sharon of the Swamp

> Since you all have helped me with math, patterns,
> games and puzzles for Allison, maybe you can help me
> identify some areas for Virginia, 10 yo dd. I was
> thinking she would enjoy chemistry stuff because she
> is drawn to making concoctions. She often asks to
> use ingredients from the kitchen to make a potions.
> I buy my spices in bulk and so I let her use the
> reasonably priced stuff. She just mixes all of it
> together in a big pot and that's it. She has done a
> lot of baking soda and vinegar, baked without any
> recipe and any idea what she was trying to make, and
> just plain mixes stuff with no rhyme or reason. She
> hates directions and could care less if I try to
> explain why certain things work the way the do.
>
> She says she wants to be a monkey scientist some day
> like Jane Goodall. She really believes her animals
> are very smart and tells me how she has trained
> them. The most recent thing was training her cat to
> flush the toilet since he likes seeing the water
> swirl. Today he fell in the bath tub with her
> because he was playing with the stream of water.
> Now I'm getting off track.
>
> Pat
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been
> removed]
>
>


__________________________________________________
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Pat Cald...

Thanks Sharon, that sounds like a lot of fun. We will definitely be giving this a whirl.
Pat
----- Original Message -----
From: Sharon Rudd
To: [email protected]
Sent: Wednesday, February 06, 2002 6:43 PM
Subject: Re: [AlwaysLearning] Re: chemistry sets


maybe she would like to make soap? You can put lots
of the herbs and such in them, perhaps just use
glycerin for the base, and then she can wash with it
while the cat watches? Make good gifts, too.
Different addivtives do different things. Most
libraries have how-to books, on the order of recipies.
You don't have to wash ashes to make lye anymore.
Don't even need animal fat.

Just a thought.

Sharon of the Swamp

> Since you all have helped me with math, patterns,
> games and puzzles for Allison, maybe you can help me
> identify some areas for Virginia, 10 yo dd. I was
> thinking she would enjoy chemistry stuff because she
> is drawn to making concoctions. She often asks to
> use ingredients from the kitchen to make a potions.
> I buy my spices in bulk and so I let her use the
> reasonably priced stuff. She just mixes all of it
> together in a big pot and that's it. She has done a
> lot of baking soda and vinegar, baked without any
> recipe and any idea what she was trying to make, and
> just plain mixes stuff with no rhyme or reason. She
> hates directions and could care less if I try to
> explain why certain things work the way the do.
>
> She says she wants to be a monkey scientist some day
> like Jane Goodall. She really believes her animals
> are very smart and tells me how she has trained
> them. The most recent thing was training her cat to
> flush the toilet since he likes seeing the water
> swirl. Today he fell in the bath tub with her
> because he was playing with the stream of water.
> Now I'm getting off track.
>
> Pat
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been
> removed]
>
>


__________________________________________________
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[email protected]

In a message dated 2/6/02 2:10:25 PM, homeschoolmd@... writes:

<< She hates directions and could care less if I try to explain why certain
things work the way the do. >>

Then at this point she probably wouldn't "like chemistry" in the formal
schoolish way, but she's starting to learn on her own that some things
dissolve in water, some sink, some float...

<<She says she wants to be a monkey scientist some day like Jane Goodall.
She really believes her animals are very smart and tells me how she has
trained them. The most recent thing was training her cat to flush the toilet
since he likes seeing the water swirl. Today he fell in the bath tub with
her because he was playing with the stream of water. Now I'm getting off
track.
>>

There are books and videos about animal behavior, though, that you could
kinda be looking for. And any movies with trained animals (Homeward Bound,
Dr. Doolitle) would probably be of interest to her. Fly Away Home is fun
even for people who aren't fascinated by animal behavior.

Sandra

Sharon Rudd

Ann......WOW
Sharon of the Swamp

--- Jorgen & Ann <stargate@...> wrote:
>
> > Actually all
> >
> >cooking is chemistry.
>
> And one of my favorite kinds of cooking chemistry is
> candymaking. I work as
> a candymaker sometimes. When I started learning how,
> I really got "cooking
> is chemistry," because it's so easy to see how one
> small error in measuring
> can cause big changes or even disasters. Changes in
> humidity and air
> temperature make big differences in your end product
> too.
>
> But if you make brittle you can see the
> vinegar/baking soda deal and eat it
> too. If you mess around with chocolate (real
> chocolate, not the melting
> stuff) you can learn about melting it, dipping,
> drying it, tempering it,
> why it grays, and horrors, what happens if you get a
> drop of water in it.
> If you make fudge by making a sugar syrup you can
> learn about why it grains
> and why it comes out really smooth. If you make
> marshamallow and divinty
> you can learn how to take sugar, water, egg whites,
> and vanilla and make
> two really different things. Marshamallow and
> divinty are essentially the
> same, you just use different proportions, cook the
> syrups to different
> temps, plus marshmallow has gelatin in it. The
> whole deal of how you can
> cook sugar and water to different temperatures and
> have really different
> things happen is interesting. And how adding air to
> mixtures changes them
> is interesting too.
>
> A lot of this stuff you can do at home. And it
> usually tastes really good,
> even the things that aren't perfect. The very best
> candy really is made
> with the simplest ingredients, I think.
>
> Ann
>
>
>


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Pat Cald...

From: SandraDodd@...
>Then at this point she probably wouldn't "like chemistry" in the formal
>schoolish way, but she's starting to learn on her own that some things
>dissolve in water, some sink, some float...

I ordered some books from our library on soap making. My normal way of doing a project with the girls would be to direct them in the "proper" way to do the thing but I'm getting the sense that might not be the best way. If I say let's put oatmeal in this soap because it will make it scratchy and tell them why we would want scratchy soap, I've taken all the discovery out of everything. If I buy all the soap making stuff and say you decide how you want to use this, we usually will not have a finished product. What is the best way to help them discover and yet minimize frustration?

Pat


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[email protected]

In a message dated 2/6/02 3:44:50 PM Pacific Standard Time,
bearspawprint@... writes:

<< maybe she would like to make soap? You can put lots
of the herbs and such in them, perhaps just use
glycerin for the base, >>

My little dabbler has made soap using glycerin (its so easy) and
lotion. We used a kit but it would be easy to do on your own.
Mixing essential oils, lotion base, herbal additives etc. Also
found kits for lip balm and shampoo (check out Hearthsong.com)
Kathy

[email protected]

On Wed, 06 Feb 2002 13:22:45 -0800 Cindy <crma@...> writes:
> SandraDodd@... wrote:
> >
> > Even the radical unschoolers list is not strongly radical? I'd've
rather
> > used that name, but it was taken.
> >
> Which radical unschoolers list? I'm on RUL which is fairly radical
> but really quiet now.
>
> It's a spin off from RU which is radical with a lot of wrangling on
it.

Hmm. The ru I'm on has no wrangling. It's very, very quiet, maybe 10
posts a month It's mostly the TCS crowd, hosted on interversity now but
that's a recent change.

I was briefly on various other Unschooling and Radical Unschooling lists,
but I was unimpressed and left quickly...

Dar
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meghan anderson

<<<<Pat, my son got a Smithsonian chemistry set for
Christmas and I thought, cool, because it says
Smithsonian, right? Wrong. The instructions weren't
clear, the experiments didn't work, and nothing smoked
or blew up, which really disappointed ds. Have you
tried Tobin Scientific? www.tobinlab.com

Mattie>>>>

Tamzin got a Smithsonian Pet Vet kit and it was
rubbish. It cost $20 and all it had in it was a
disposable stethoscope, gauze bandages, a toothbrush,
a mini plastic magnifying lens, and a thin paper
booklet about how to give your pet a check up. She was
really disappointed.

Meghan

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Cindy

freeform@... wrote:
>
> On Wed, 06 Feb 2002 13:22:45 -0800 Cindy <crma@...> writes:
>
> > It's a spin off from RU which is radical with a lot of wrangling on
> it.
>
> Hmm. The ru I'm on has no wrangling. It's very, very quiet, maybe 10
> posts a month It's mostly the TCS crowd, hosted on interversity now but
> that's a recent change.
>

I should have used "was" in my statement. I left ru several years ago
when a woman who lived in Sonoma county, CA and someone on the east
coast kept arguing about every little thing. I'd get 20-40 posts a
day and 80% was from those two.

--

Cindy Ferguson
crma@...

mary krzyzanowski

I highly recommend a book called "Super Science Concoctions". It tells how
to make many of the chemistry cooking experiments talked about recently. My
family's favorite is very simple. 1 cup water and about 2 and a half cups
of cornstarch. Mix together. Try rolling some in your hands and then stop,
watch what happens.
Mary-NY

>From: Jorgen & Ann <stargate@...>
>Reply-To: [email protected]
>To: [email protected]
>Subject: Re: [AlwaysLearning] Re: chemistry sets
>Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2002 08:35:19 -0800
>
>
> > Actually all
> >
> >cooking is chemistry.
>
>And one of my favorite kinds of cooking chemistry is candymaking. I work as
>a candymaker sometimes. When I started learning how, I really got "cooking
>is chemistry," because it's so easy to see how one small error in measuring
>can cause big changes or even disasters. Changes in humidity and air
>temperature make big differences in your end product too.
>
>But if you make brittle you can see the vinegar/baking soda deal and eat it
>too. If you mess around with chocolate (real chocolate, not the melting
>stuff) you can learn about melting it, dipping, drying it, tempering it,
>why it grays, and horrors, what happens if you get a drop of water in it.
>If you make fudge by making a sugar syrup you can learn about why it grains
>and why it comes out really smooth. If you make marshamallow and divinty
>you can learn how to take sugar, water, egg whites, and vanilla and make
>two really different things. Marshamallow and divinty are essentially the
>same, you just use different proportions, cook the syrups to different
>temps, plus marshmallow has gelatin in it. The whole deal of how you can
>cook sugar and water to different temperatures and have really different
>things happen is interesting. And how adding air to mixtures changes them
>is interesting too.
>
>A lot of this stuff you can do at home. And it usually tastes really good,
>even the things that aren't perfect. The very best candy really is made
>with the simplest ingredients, I think.
>
>Ann
>
>




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