Science project: The volcano experiment

It's the science month at the school and Aidan told me he wanted to participate in the volcano science project. I thought it will be difficult, until I saw the instruction list given by his teacher and was looking forward to do it with the kids right away. The kids had fun while experimenting and exploring the 'volcanoes' of their own last weekend, before the science project. Even mama got overly excited and impressed. It was a good activity to work with the kids. 

The instruction is pretty straight forward. 
I googled it and this how it should be:

1. Build the volcano model. We made the volcano model using used bottle and shape it into a volcano mountain using the cheap plasticine.

2. Add water, vinegar, dish detergent and red food coloring in the bottle.

3. Add the baking soda when you are ready for an eruption.

A very good introduction to chemistry. 
I told them briefly in the simplest word of what really happened. 

It's the reaction between the vinegar which is acidic and baking soda which is a base that produced gas. Different form of chemicals has its own properties when mixed together and produced another different form of byproducts with different properties. For this case, I told them the byproducts is the carbon dioxide gas. I related to how human got allergic reactions and rashes all over due to do reaction on foreign things to our body. 

Aidan was quick and asked me why are not producing any bubble when we exhale carbon dioxide. I told him it's the detergent and colouring used in the experiment made it gas visible as we couldn't see the gas with our naked eyes. The detergent and food colouring are used to manipulate the observation in the experiment. 

It's a great time well-spent. Plus, they love cleaning the mess too... anything to do with bubbles and water..

Aidan is showing this in the science project in his school today. I hope it turned out well. Good luck, abang.

Science Yr 4 - Proses Hidup Manusia

Aidan learned the basic of human system, though the syllabus doesn't really introduce the human anatomy in general. The idea is to introduce the system that related to the human anatomy and to understand the effect of certain process and behaviours. 

Science Yr 4 - Kemahiran saintifik

The sports' day are over and just as the boys wanted to have a break, mama is already in panicked mode. Exam is coming in two weeks time and they must be prepared!

Completed chapter 1 of Aidan's science subject. Gosh, I still insisted in having science in english medium. Not that I don't love my own mother tounge, but, it's easier to explain the terms in english rather than malay. 

Anyway, we tried. 

The idea is to make the students understand what science is all about and what does it do. It is important for them to understand what scientist does in order for them to understand the methods and experiments terms and definitions. 

Aidan does understand the word 'experiment'..whenever we mentioned it, he will get overexcited and all he wanted to ensure is the outcome as expected. Interestingly, he's quite confused when we asked him to 'map' out what is the input, procedures and outcomes will be in performing any experiment. He's clueless.. I hope this helps. 

On a side note, we went through series of exercises from the book. I still believe the syllabus should link on other related subjects, especially maths. There were few examples discussing about averages and so forth while the students are not being introduced these theories in maths.. hmmmm... is not sync!