Homeschool Science Experiment: Making Gas

We conducted our very first homeschool science project this week.

We’ve been reading about the three different states of matter in The Berenstain Bears Big Book of Science and Nature. In case you don’t remember from your elementary science class, they are solid, liquid and gas.

In the book, Mama Bear does an experiment to change ice cubes (solid), to water (liquid) by letting them sit out and melt, and then to steam (gas) by heating it on the stove.

After reading about this quick experiment, the kids and I headed into the kitchen to conduct the same experiment ourselves, which turned out to be not as quick for us. Actually because I got distracted….this project lasted three days.

First, I put some ice cubes into a bowl.

The girls were able to identify that the ice cubes were a solid.

I sat them out on the counter to melt while we ate lunch. They weren’t completely melted after lunch, so we decided to let them sit out during quiet time.

Well, after quiet time I was busy cleaning and forgot all about our bowl of water sitting on the kitchen counter.

And then my neighbor came over to visit and invited us over to her house for a lunch playdate the next day. I chatted with her for a while and her daughter stayed to play during the afternoon while I prepared dinner.

As you may have guessed, after dinner, we got busy with getting ready for bed.

Our bowl of water stayed on the counter all night.

Wednesday was a super busy day for us. We had homeschool time, then our lunch playdate followed by quiet time for all. After quiet time we had afternoon baths, dinner, and then we had to quickly get ready to go to Children’s Choir and AWANA.

The bowl of water sat on my counter untouched all day.

Thursday was a more settled, routine day. When we got to Science in homeschool, the girls immediately asked if we could finish our experiment. I didn’t see why not, especially since that bowl of water was still sitting on the counter waiting on us to turn it into a gas.

All three kids (Will included) began singing, “Yay!! Let’s make GAS!!! Let’s make GAS!!!”

It was hilarious!

And so we took a trip to the living room, a.k.a. our very own Science lab.

I showed the girls the bowl of melted ice and they identified it as water, a liquid.

MC poured it into a small pot for me and I placed it on the stove top.

They all watched in anticipation as the water heated up and steam began floating up from the boiling water.

I pointed out that the steam was a gas and EA explained that she knew it was because it didn’t have a shape. (yay! She actually remembered that from our Science lesson)

And then they all did some celebrating and dancing in the kitchen to celebrate the making of GAS!

I am happy to report that our first homeschool science experiment was a success, although it taking three days to conduct such a simple experiment is my Friday Fail.

Visit My Blessed Life to see more Friday Fails from the week.

Tagged as: friday fail, homeschool, science