Ack! Chemistry? Help!

[Just1More]

Does anyone have any good resources about chemistry for six year olds?  I am totally in over my head.  Thanks. :)

(She doesn't want piddly little experiments, and I just don't have the brain power for telling her how it all works and why right now.  She won't be satisfied with "see, we made slime", or "look what the soap does to the colors."  It is not enough for her.  In fact, those sorts of experiments are a waste of my time and effort.  She doesn't even care.  She wants me to explain atoms and memorize all the elements and such.  She wants to truly understand it all, and not just see some cool stuff happen.)

Help!

[moominmamma]

A couple of books my kids have enjoyed around that age:

Real Science 4 Kids Chemistry 1 textbook; your dd may or may not get anything out of the lab experience ... it's not bad, and does related to topics in the book (miscibility, acid base reactivity, etc.)

Basher's "Periodic Table of the Elements" book... has a nice poster, friendly and accessible intro to elements

HTH,

Miranda

[Roar]

http://www.rainbowresource.com/prodlist.php?sid=1299545918-2001521&subject=11&category=1321

One of my favorite all time homeschool resources. A challenging and fun chemistry curriculum. It isn't fancy but the activities are perfect for gifted kids - plenty of intellectual challenge, but also plenty of kid fun.  The same author has also put together an organic chemistry curriculum.

[Just1More]

Thank you!

[Galatea]

What about this?  It looks cool: http://www.middleschoolchemistry.com/lessonplans/

[Ivy53]

I just bought my seven-year-old son this book: http://periodictable.com/theelements/ we saw it at the natural history museum and it looked fantastic (but didn't have the money for it at the time). It should be here Tuesday and I'll tell you how he likes it. I also ordered him at the same time the DK Eyewitness Book for Chemistry, which may or may not interest her, but I know my son likes a lot of those books so we'll see. This weekend my mother was cleaning out her books and gave him my little sister's old AP Chem review book and a basic chemistry textbook from either...college or high school, I don't know. He did read it a bit but we got a bit stuck when they were talking about the measurements (because they were explaining the basis for the different measurements and then I had to explain about vibrations of cesium and all sorts of things and my brain sort of ran off - the problem was we couldn't just read it, each little bit had this huge explanation necessary behind it) and haven't gone back to it. He loves stuff about elements and atoms and things but he is still interested in things like slime and baking soda volcanos, though sometimes I wonder if that's just because he likes making a mess of things.

[RiverTam]

I'm a big fan of the  Let's Read and  Find Out about Science series:

This is a good one to introduce states of matter to her age group:

http://www.amazon.com/Solids-Liquids-Lets-Read---Find-Out-Science/dp/0064451631/ref=sr_1_13?ie=UTF8&qid=1301937990&sr=8-13

This one has a good introduction to some simple biochemistry:

http://www.amazon.com/Drop-Blood-Lets-Read---Find-Out-Science/dp/006009110X/ref=sr_1_44?ie=UTF8&qid=1301938126&sr=8-44

We use Chemistry for Every Kid at our Montessori school, and I like it quite a bit:

http://www.amazon.com/Janice-VanCleaves-Chemistry-Every-Kid/dp/0471620858/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1301938188&sr=1-1

[Tjej]

The Elements book is a fun coffee table type book.  I got it for Christmas.  Lots of interesting fun facts, simple, straightforward info too (element place on periodic table, orbital diagram, melting and boiling temps, other stuff).

Tjej

[captain optimism]

I hope you won't be too scornful of this suggestion--it's definitely the suggestion of a person doing enrichment, not homeschooling--but we love these videos:

http://www.periodicvideos.com/

We've watched all the elements more than once--the last time, in order. I bring my laptop into the bathroom and we watch them during bath time.

Today at the library we picked up The Periodic Table: Elements with Style by Simon Basher--my son, who is 8, is really excited about it.

We also got Atoms and Molecules, Building Blocks of the Universe by Darlene Stille from the library today.

My friend, whose son was also passionately interested in science, liked The Cartoon Guide to Chemistry. We haven't tried it yet. The Cartoon Guide to Physics was a huge hit last year when DS was 7.

[moominmamma]

Originally Posted by captain optimism 

My friend, whose son was also passionately interested in science, liked The Cartoon Guide to Chemistry. We haven't tried it yet. The Cartoon Guide to Physics was a huge hit last year when DS was 7.

Wow, I'm impressed that he enjoyed CGP at that age. My ds found parts of it pretty challenging at 10 or 11. 

Miranda

[TesseractMom]

These resources look fantastic - thanks for sharing! I'm starting science club up again for my DS (7) and some of his friends. We finally have one girl in the group besides DS who has some "advanced" science knowledge (her dad is a chemical engineer). We started 2 days ago with states of matter, and yesterday my husband said another boy in DS's class said he wants to come to science club and would bring his pet worms if we let him! I might have to get more chairs if the group keeps growing...

[Ivy53]

That's neat, TesseractMom. Do they just come to your house or do you do it somewhere else?

[captain optimism]

Well, this is something interesting about my kid. First of all, I had to read it to him, because he was intimidated by the font. It might be hand-lettered. He's not a super-strong reader in any case. Second, he asked me to reread it immediately, because he has a lot of patience for listening to and puzzling over anything he finds interesting. (And also, a love of really geeky dumb jokes.) We'd probably still be rereading it occasionally if I hadn't returned it to the library. D'oh!

He's also continued to pursue the concepts we found in The Cartoon Guide to Physics (which he for some reason enjoyed calling the Physics Guide to Cartoons) in other media--in reading material that he could decode himself, in PBS shows he watches on the internet during screen time, and sometimes through spontaneous recall because someone mentioned something. So we're driving home from Hebrew school and he's making obscure jokes about Newton's Third Law of Motion, and I'm...totally lost, I didn't even take physics in high school.

I'm getting used to his idiosyncratic methods of learning unexpected things in math and science while not being particularly adept at reading. Until his decoding catches up to his interests, I'm going to be learning a lot of science.

Originally Posted by moominmamma 

Wow, I'm impressed that he enjoyed CGP at that age. My ds found parts of it pretty challenging at 10 or 11. 

Miranda