Chemistry for 5yo

[Jackie]

DD, age 5, has asked that our next project be learning about chemistry. I figure on getting a chemistry set, probably one of the Thames and Kosmos ones. Recommendations?

 

She would also like to learn about the elements and some of why things work the way they do. Resources?

 

Most of her curriculum and most of her preferred nonfiction books are at about grades 3-5 in level, if that helps for recommendations. She's picked up a bit about chemistry here and there, but we've never formally covered much of it.

[desertflower]

She may like this Element book.  http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=theodore+gray+elements&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Atheodore+gray+elements (the first one)

 

I don't have that one.  I have the Molecules book and really like it. 

 

I don't know if it'll explain the why. 

 

hth.

[tm919]

My 5yo daughter likes this:

 

http://www.amazon.com/Basher-Science-Chemistry-Getting-Reaction/dp/0753464136/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1447983718&sr=8-1&keywords=basher+chemistry

 

We don't have the periodic table book, but they do have some free downloads of it that look interesting.

 

http://www.basherbooks.com/usa/downloads.html

 

Edited November 20, 2015 by tm919

[SeaConquest]

Not all of these are appropriate for a 5 year old, but I collect resources in my Amazon wishlists. It should be public. Here is my chemistry wishlist. http://amzn.com/w/2H01VTD1X2YD4

[Jackie]

Not all of these are appropriate for a 5 year old, but I collect resources in my Amazon wishlists. It should be public. Here is my chemistry wishlist. http://amzn.com/w/2H01VTD1X2YD4

You have a chemistry wish list. Wow. I have a lame little wish list with about 20 things my kid wants, and maybe 2 of them are school-oriented.

[Jackie]

I love the book recommendations, because I love books. Which may be what is prompting my daughter's further request - she wants this to be mostly me teaching her, lecture-style and hands-on. She would probably accept an introductory MOOC as she loved Dino 101 and was into How Things Work until we got distracted and abandoned it. But she has asked that this not be heavily book-based.

 

I've heard of Ellen McHenry's Elements, would it maybe fit?

[SeaConquest]

You have a chemistry wish list. Wow. I have a lame little wish list with about 20 things my kid wants, and maybe 2 of them are school-oriented.

 

I have wishlists for every subject. That's the only way I have been able to keep track of all the awesome recommendations I get from reading this board. Whenever someone recommends a book that I think we might find interesting, I just add it to my wishlist for the subject. Then, when  I approach planning for the year, I just check the wishlist for a given subject to see if any of the resources will work for the year. I haven't come up with a better system for keeping track of everything. I do bookmark pages of interest, but, if it is a book, I just add it to the wishlist.

Edited November 20, 2015 by SeaConquest

[Black-eyed Suzan]

Ellen McHenry's Elements sounds like it would be a good fit. The pages are black and white, though, so I would add a visual component - either the Elements book (We recommend it!) and/or videos about the elements. I believe this is one of the sites we used: Royal Society of Chemistry

 

If you are ok with a Christian worldview, my then 7 year old son really enjoyed watching the Chemistry 101 dvd series. He actually watched these first, which made Ellen McHenry's Elements fun but redundant.

[mckittre]

If you're OK with videos, you have to try the Periodic Table of Videos.  Short videos on every chemical element from a university in England, plus many molecules, etc...

 

That plus the dynamic periodic table website plus a few molymod chemical modeling kits have turned my kid into an obsessed little chemist for over a year now.

 

He got into all of this at 5, and now he's 6, and the one thing he insisted on bringing on a long trip to visit family over Thanskgiving was his box of molecule models and two chemistry books. He can't do a regular chemistry class yet because he couldn't handle the algebra (though in the context of this board, I don't want to presume your 5yo can't!) But a year in, I'm really glad he couldn't, because he has the concepts of how chemicals and reactions work at a really intuitive level, much better than most adults, who took chemistry in a context of being so distracted by solving the math problems that they never really learned to look at a chemical structure and see what was an acid, and why certain acids would be stronger than others, or what types of molecules you might expect to be explosive, etc... (he gets many strange looks carrying the molecule modeling kit around and trying to explain it all to adults)

 

We've used lots of other fun resources along the way. Found it cheaper to buy safe chemcals in bulk rather than kits -- citric acid and borax and baking soda and vinegar and such are good for a kid that age. Test tubes and beakers and the Basher Science chemistry books, and Theodore Gray's molecule book, and the "Mystery of the Periodic Table" as a read-aloud, which is really great for going through the history of it all and how chemists figured out the really basic stuff about what elements were and how they could combine.

 

My son has started making his own videos -- you can see how a little kid might use a molecule kit in those: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvHVUgpVzWSQ_bZogMPzBzQ

 

Sorry for the novel. Couldn't help it because I've been gathering up all these resources for awhile with the same age kid. I have more, too, and am still looking for more yet since mine is still so interested.

[Grover]

My DS did Ellen McHenry's elements at that age.  He enjoyed it. 

[Dmmetler]

Also, if you have an iPad, the apps for the Elements, the Elements in Action, and Molecules are awesome.

 

Chemical model kits are great. We also have a movable periodic table.

 

Set ground rules on experimentation now. For us, that's usually "do it outside", "do not eat or drink anything you make", and "check with me before disposal" (there are some chemicals, even in Thane and Kosmos level kits, that should NOT be disposed of down the drain or in the trash.)

Edited November 20, 2015 by dmmetler

[desertflower]

She may like this site:  http://elements.wlonk.com/

 

Yes as dmmetler said, the touchpress apps are awesome.  http://www.touchpress.com/

[Miss Tick]

Ellen McHenry has an elements game in her free stuff, Quick Six. We've played with the cards for the whole table of elements and now we are using subsets as we look closer at different groups.

 

You might look at the American Chemistry Society's free middle school curriculum. They have some hands-on suggestions and videos. My biggest frustration is that it is so, so class oriented. Also the suggested sources for chemicals won't sell to home schoolers, I was able to get any chemicals I needed from HomeScienceTools.

[Carol in Cal.]

Adventures in Atoms and Molecules has good experiments with household materials.

Awesome Ocean Science is good also, covers a lot of concepts around the implications of salt vs. fresh water chemistry.

Real Science 4 Kids Chemistry level 1 might be OK for an advanced student.  I have not seen pre-level 1, but it's written for that age.

https://www.nature-watch.com/awesome-ocean-science-p-487.html

[Jackie]

Wow, last night I was thinking "what in the world can we do for chemistry" and now I'm wondering how to fit in all the great stuff!

 

For the record, we do have and love our iPads, we don't watch a lot of videos but I don't object to them either, and we're strictly secular.

 

We have a MolyMods kit stuck on a shelf somewhere that I nearly forgot about.

[Btervet]

We just finished up RSO Chemistry (I think it's grades 3-6?) with DS5. It was a big hit. Some things are simplified, but if you know the info it is easy to go a little deeper. DS loved that every lesson was had an experiment/demonstration. There is very little writing, which is a plus. RSO gave us a really nice backbone of study to add other elements into. 

 

We also used The Happy Scientist videos, molymods, Brain Pop videos, the Elements/The Elements in Action ipad app, Basher's Complete Periodic Table Book (comes with poster, best periodic table poster we've found), and some of Ellen McHenry's free Chemistry resources.

 

Ellen McHenry's The Elements seemed a bit out of reach of our 5yo, so I haven't looked too deep at the actual curriculum, but her free stuff is great.

[Kerileanne99]

Jackie-

Reviving this thread because I got Alex the coolest periodic table toy and it has been a huge it. It is interlocking pieces in colors that follow the trends and groups. Putting them together has been the absolute best way to notice and 'discover' those trends and patterns for herself. Hubby says he wishes he had time for his college students to play with it:)

http://www.amazon.com/ETA-hand2mind-Connecting-Color-Periodic/dp/B008AK6FVA/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1449074226&sr=8-7&keywords=eta+hand2mind

[Dmmetler]

We have that same periodic table.

[Jackie]

I've been gathering stuff and we're just about to start in on some stuff today!

 

Our main pieces to work through together:

- Ellen McHenry's The Elements

- Thames and Kosmos's Candy Chemistry kit (totally breaking the rules about not eating science projects)

- MolyMods kit that I remembered was on a shelf somewhere

 

And a lot of other pieces I'll bring in and at least make available for her independently, like the interactive periodic table website and Touchpress apps and books recommended. She already has and heavily uses her subscriptions to BrainPop and The Happy Scientist, though I may point out the chemistry-related videos on them.

 

Always open to more ideas! Especially ones she can play with on her own. I'm guessing the pieces we work on together will already fill most of the time between now and when we leave for a big trip in February.

[mckittre]

A fun thing to do with Molymods is to challenge each other to put together a molecule, then look it up (can use the "compounds" section of the dynamic periodic table for this) to see if it really exists and what it does. My son and I played lots of "Molecule Challenge", and when he got better, we'd add rules -- make a colored molecule, an explosive, an acid, etc... He played this by himself for hours and hours as well.  We're visiting family now, and the box of Molymod is the one toy he's carried from home.

[Carol in Cal.]

There are additions to the periodic table--recent ones.  My inclination would be to talk about that with him, also.  It's pretty exciting to see science moving forward!  http://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/jan/04/periodic-tables-seventh-row-finally-filled-as-four-new-elements-are-added

[cmarango]

We have combined mchenry's Elements with RSO and have had a great time. However my de wanted more experiments so I added on HST chemistry kit.

[nerdybird]

I would suggest Real Science 4 Kids. They have elementary and middle school level chemistry curriculum available. We were going to do chemistry this year, but opted to do astronomy for the older ones and physics for the younger one who is ready for science. We'll be doing chemistry together as a family next year, so we're looking forward to that.