The Science Chef Makes Popcorn Balls

He's a scientist. He's a chef. He loves to do science experiments and he loves to cook. I decided that I should get him a book that connects science and cooking, so we got a copy of The Science Chef. The first experiment he chose to do was to make popcorn balls.

He says:

I have one major problem with this book. It always says to use margarine instead of"butter" or "margarine or butter". One of the most annoying recipes was for strawberry butter. It said here is a recipe for strawberry butter that doesn't even use butter. It uses margarine! In another place it says, they substitute applesauce for margarine and oil,, but then they use margarine! That is just plain idiotic.

The first recipe I chose to make was popcorn balls. I chose this because I like popcorn balls. You need to use an edible adhesive.

The science behind popcorn popping is this: Popcorn kernels pop, after they've been dried, because of a small droplet of water inside the kernel. It turns into steam and it cracks the hard outer shell with explosive force resulting in fluffy popcorn. This also explains the dud kernels. No matter how much you heat them they just won't pop. This isn't a problem with your popping strategy, but simply that the water droplet has evaporated, and/or because the outer shell has already cracked. You can show this by hitting an un-popped kernel hard with a hammer to crack the shell. Then, if you try to pop that, it won't pop.

The first thing I did was pop 10 cups of popcorn.

Then what I needed to do was melt a half cup of butter (or "margarine")in a pan over medium heat. Once the butter was melted I added 11.5 ounces of marshmallows and turned the heat to low.

Ingredients: popcorn, butter, honey, marshmallows (little sister "helper" optional)

When the marshmallows were melted I added 1/4 cup of honey and waited for it to melt in. After that happened I took it off the heat and let it cool for five minutes. Then I poured this on the popcorn and tossed the popcorn to get it well coated. Next I moistened my hands with water and started forming the balls which I put on a cookie sheet covered with wax paper. Finally, I let them cool in the refrigerator for one hour.

rolling the popcorn balls

The marshmallows were stale the first time and so they didn't melt properly. They ended up turning into a big pile of silly-putty-like goo. So, I threw that away and waited a couple of hours for my mom to take my baby sister (She insists she is not a baby) to soccer practice and on the way home she would pick up some marshmallows (non-stale ones). When she got home I  continued with the recipe and made some popcorn balls. I rolled them up, let them cool, and put them in a bag.

I learned that I should not give any popcorn balls to my baby sister because she only ate half of it and the other half got thrown away. The next day, I told my mom not to let her have one, but she gave it to her any way. There was another one thrown into the trash!

Real Science 4 Kids Chemistry

This year I decided to try the Real Science 4 Kids curriculum. There are not a lot of secular science curriculums aimed at homeschoolers, and I had heard good reviews on this one. My sons are now in grades 6 and 7 so I figured the Middle School, grades 5-8, version would be perfect for us.  We decided to start with Chemistry.

 I am lucky that our charter school purchases our curriculum and educational supplies, so I don't have to worry as much about cost. I decided to go ahead and also order the hands on kit (which has supplies for all three topics: Chemistry, Biology, and Physics). We got the Level 1 kit from Home Science Tools

Level 1 Kit for Real Science 4 Kids

We just finished with the Chemistry unit and so far it this curriculum working for us. The text is very simple, but goes into good detail at the same time. The hands on experiment with every chapter is great. The textbook, laboratory workbook, and teacher's manual are all nicely laid out and easy to follow.

Here's a little summary of our experience.

Chapter 1: Matter

This chapter introduces atoms and the periodic table. I supplemented here with Teacher Book Bag's Periodic Table of Elements Card Kit.  Printed, laminated, and cut out the kids could handle all of the elements of the periodic table, sort them into types, match symbols with names, and even re-create the periodic table on the pocket chart (at least a good chunk of it before running out of room!)

Another supplement were the free downloads from Sunflower Schoolhouse 

• Chemistry Class
• Chemistry Class Exploring The Elements
• Chemistry Class Vocabulary Cards

  

There is a big selection of interactive on-line periodic tables for the kids to explore as well:

• Chem4Kids.com
• The Photographic Periodic Table
• Periodic Table of Elements
• It's Elemental

Chapter 2: Molecules

This chapter was lots of fun because we got to make molecules out of marshmallows!

Start with some carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen.

Building molecules

Even little sister joined in the fun!

Chapter 3: Chemical Reactions

Who doesn't love a good chemical reaction experiment? Several different chemical reactions are discussed: combination reaction, decomposition reaction, displacement reaction, exchange reaction, and spontaneous.

Chapter 4: Acids, Bases, and pH

The experiment for this chapter was to make an acid-base indicator. The kids really had fun with this one, cutting up and boiling the cabbage and making the pH paper.

Making the pH paper with the purple cabbage water

testing acids and bases with the homemade pH strips 

 Chapter 5: Acid-Base Neutralization

In this experiment we got to use our cabbage water again to plot an acid-base titration. It was exciting to watch the solution turn from an acid into a base.

Chapter 6: Mixtures

We learned about two types of mixtures: heterogeneous and homogeneous. In the experiment we got to see first hand how soap helps dissolve oil in water.

Chapter 7: Separating Mixtures

This was one of my favorite experiments; using paper chromatography to separate individual colors in various inks.

Chapter 8: Energy Molecules

The kids read about a lot of the same things I recently learned in a college level nutrition class about nutrients, carbohydrates, monosaccharides, disaccharides, polysaccharides, starch, cellulose, amylose and amylopectin.

For the experiment we used tincture of iodine (in the kit we purchased) to test a variety of foods for starch content.

I created vocabulary flash cards for Chapters 8, 9, & 10. I printed them on card stock (they are already formatted to print on business cards, Avery 5371, if you don't want to have to cut them up yourself). I would put the words in the kids' workboxes with the definitions in the pocket chart and they would go match the words with the definition (or the other way around). Together we would check the pocket chart to see if they got them correct. Click here to link to a free pdf file of the vocabulary cards: Chemistry Vocabulary

page 1 of the vocabulary cards

Chapter 9: Polymers

After reading about polymers the experiment was to observe a change in properties as two polymers are added together. The kids were very excited to discover the fun, gooey glue that you get when you mix together white glue and laundry starch!

Little sister had lots of fun playing with the goo after the experiment was over!

Chapter 10: Biological Polymers: Proteins and DNA

The final chapter is on DNA and in addition to the experiment in the text, we are going to extend the unit for a couple of weeks with some supplemental hands-on kits:

A DNA model from the Science Wiz kit.

Have you used Real Science 4 Kids? What did you think of the curriculum?

Chemistry!

I asked my 8 year old what he wanted to study in Science next. "Chemistry!", was his response. A quick shopping trip on amazon.com got us one kit, and 3 books on chemistry, and we were on our way to becoming mad scientists!

Wow! 30 experiments in one kit, and real glass test tubes!



A few reading assignments for the next couple of weeks, check.





I have also assigned some time on a favorite website, ptable.com. What is not to love about a dynamic periodic table of the elements?

The hardest part is waiting for the baby to take her nap so that we can uninterrupted "lab time". Here are my little scientists hard at work: