Two experiments in one day!

Even though we are studying chemistry, which should be full of experiments, I haven't done nearly as many as my kids would like me to. We come across experiments in the books we read and they ask to do them but I always look at the list of supplies needed and there is usually something we are missing. Well today I finally got around to doing some hands on science. We read a book about Oxygen and then needed to have some fun with it.

The first experiment involved matches and a flame. Fire is always exciting for kids. I lit the candle that was placed in a pan of water. We watched the flame flicker and dance for a bit and tried to keep Henry from blowing it out. Then I placed a glass jar over the flame and we watched the flame slowly go out as it used up all the oxygen in the jar.

We did the experiment a few times and the kids watched what happened to the condensation inside the glass and also the water lever raise inside the jar and take the place of the Oxygen that had been used up.

Sophie and Ian did some great drawings to document the experiment.


Then we tried another experiment which was supposed to go along with our study last week on Hydrogen. I didn't have the 9 volt battery that I needed to do this one until now. For some reason I just kept forgetting to get it. But today all the supplies were on hand and we were able to separate the Oxygen from the Hydrogen.

We couldn't see the Oxygen but we could see the Hydrogen bubbling around the copper wire coming from the negative side of the battery. We could tell that Oxygen was attracted to the copper wire coming from the positive side because not long after taking the wire out of the water it turned green. We then go to talk about what oxygen does to copper. The negative wire which had been surrounded by the Hydrogen looked a bit brownish. Very interesting since they were both sitting in the same water.

They happily did a notebook page for this experiment as well.I love it when the like doing their work.

I sure hope I come up with some more fun things to do. The kids really liked these and even had to do them again for their Dad when he got home from work. They even plan to show these to Grandma and Grandpa when we see them in a dew days.