Science- a little bit of chemistry

We've been having fun with science lately, skipping around through chemistry and earth science, whichever she is in the mood for that day, with a little bit of quantum physics thrown in for fun. 
A few weeks ago, we spent some time on atoms and valence shells. She had some fun filling the shells with left over skittles from Halloween.
You've got to love eating your electrons after a science lesson!

I picked up this Cartoon Guide to Chemistry on Amazon and A is LOVING it. It's basically high school chemistry in cartoon form. I catch her reading it at completely random moments, That's when you know its a good book.

We spent some time on the whiteboard learning about electron orbitals and writing them out like a chemist.


Then we found a cool game where you can make your own atom. I think she played on this for over an hour.

We are still loving The Elements that we picked for part of our curriculum this year.

Science is probably one of the subjects we are most relaxed with in our homeschool. We jump around, follow rabbit holes. and use so many different resources and curriculum that it would make your head spin, but it works for us. A's grasp of science concepts reaches into the upper college level on some sub specialties. She reads everything she can get her hands on that is remotely scientific, so I am okay with this approach. It's a bit more unschoolish than anything else we do, and it gives us a nice break from scheduled work. Some days it's all we do. As the years go on, I relax a lot more and realize that we learn more when we don't follow my set schedule. Maybe one day I'll relax enough to take this appraoch with everything!

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