Making Molecules

My 4th and 6th grade boys are currently working through Real Science 4 Kid's Chemistry Level 1 book.  Although Chemistry is a bit of a stretch out of my comfort zone, my boys and I are having a good time learning together.  I am finding that Chemistry is FAR more interesting than I dimly remember from high school!

This week we are learning about how atoms join together to form molecules.  Since we had experienced success with our Solar System Kits last school year during our Astronomy unit study, I picked up a Molecule Kit during my shopping for our new school year.

In the Molecule Kit that I purchased, the "atoms" were not painted.  So, our first step was to paint the atoms according to the chart on the side of the box.  Squishing the paint around the styrofoam balls in plastic storage bags worked very well for painting the styrofoam.  The directions indicated that only acrylic paint should be used but we found that Biocolor paint worked very well. 

Painting the styrofoam balls was an enjoyable activity and helped to break-up our academic day with a hands-on activity.  After each ball was painted, we stuck a toothpick into the ball and then stuck the toothpick (and ball) into a floral brick to dry.  Below you can see 36 hydrogen atoms, 3 nitrogen atoms, 11 carbon atoms, 7 oxygen atoms, 1 sodium atom, 6 chlorine atoms, and 1 magnesium atom all drying in our floral bricks.

We have science class Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.  Since we completed all the painting on Monday, we were able to construct the molecules on Wednesday.  My goal was to get half of the molecules finished on Wednesday and half done on Friday but my boys really jumped into the project and were pretty excited about putting together the molecules.  The back of the Molecule Kit box had very clear directions for making 16 different molecules.  Several times, I had to slow the boys down a bit so they could stop and listen to the information included about each molecule.  The boys recognized many of the molecules like oxygen, water, and propane.

After the flurry of activity surrounding the making of the molecules, I got out little squares of cardstock and asked my boys to label each of the molecules by putting the symbol for the molecule on the front of the square and writing the name of the molecule on the back of the square.

Now that all the molecules are constructed and labelled, I plan to hang them up in our schoolroom from the ceiling.  I was very pleased with this hands-on project.  My teacher's manual suggested making molecules with marshmallows (which would have been quite fun and educational) but I wanted to make something a bit more lasting with my boys.