Part of the joy of homeschooling is doing hands on science. We have been working our way through a great Earth Science textbook and homemade curriculm. It has been fun combining efforts with two other families and having the boys over for lab days on Thursdays.
Last time we did an introduction to the Rock Cycle with a lab using crayon shavings, this week we talked about crystal growth. Here are a few shots of the days activities.
Yes the crystal models were indeed edible and gooey and ever so slightly messy. "Brett, where are your mallows?" "Uh.....chubby bunny."
We followed with an epsom salt crystal growing demo I found online. I made a solution days ahead to grow the pan of seed crystals, below is a shot of the results, pretty cool. I had the boys collect the seed crystals to suspend in the solution on some fishing line for growing, but in mixing the solution for larger crystals it seems we missed the mark because all the seed crystals keep dissolving. I sent more epsom salt home with the boys so we will see how their attempts work in a few days.
We also tried a saturated solution of sugar water with no luck. The boys described it as an, "epic failure", how encouraging. Even after MANY days it has still produced NOTHING, bummer.
We now have half an egg shell soaking in the salt solution in an effort to create a geoed. We'll see how well it works once the solution begins to evaporate and become more concentrated. Still, it is all fun to play with.
Tony
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