so i’ve mentioned that the kids are really, really into science, right? right. one of their favorite games to play right now is to quiz each other on the periodic table. turns out, they can all name every element, its atomic number, whether or not it’s radioactive, which series and period it’s in, its electron shell configuration, its most common valence states, and, in the case of metals and whatnot, its crystal structure (and if you can’t visualize “trigonal bipyramidal,” they’d be happy to draw a picture for you. no shit.)
and that’s just the base knowledge that all 3 of the older boys have down cold. any one of them may also be able to tell you a melting point, a color or hardness, or the latin root (score one for me… those little shits are getting some stealth linguistics whether they like it or not!) and any number of other oddball properties.
even MonkeyBeef gets in on the act. it’s pretty damned funny when mr. special ed drags a kitchen chair over to the periodic table poster in the kitchen and starts jabbing his finger at random squares on it, saying, “WHA DIS? WHASS NUMMER ONE? ISS HI-JO-JEN!” he also loves the new 8-bajillion-piece molymod molecular model kit… he knows the red is oxygen, the white is hydrogen, the yellow is sulfur, and the black is carbon. “a white one hi-jo-jen, tiny bond, a wed one OCK-DOH-JEN, tiny bond, a white one HI-JO-JEN… WADDER! YAY! SIX BWACK ONES – BESSZENE WING! YAY, BESSZENE WING!” he’ll build a random molecule and ask his brothers to tell him the name of it.
it probably goes without saying that they are not impressed with the large holes in my knowledge of chemistry. i enjoyed chemistry. i was good at it. i took honors chemistry. i may have even gotten A’s. but it’s now been 15 years since i was a freshman in college, and i’ll be damned if i can remember much about sp3 hybrid orbitals. EvilGremlin is learning how to to use that thing called the “index” at the back of the chemistry textbooks i’ve gotten for him.
so. here’s my big-ass list of product recommendations.
MolyMod makes the best molecular model kits available – you can do space-filling or ball-and-stick models, its sturdy, the models don’t fall apart when handled (or when used to thwack a brother on the head.)
www.webelements.com is the place to surf. also, the place to buy really awesome posters. and periodic table socks.
“World of Chemistry” basically, anything written by stephen zumdahl is good, but i like this one because it’s for low-level high school chemistry. being written for unmotivated 16-year-olds makes it perfect for a highly motivated 10-year-old.
i just picked up a cheap used copy of “An Introduction to Molecular Orbitals” for EG – there are a ton of orbital theory books out there, most probably over his head; the big selling points for this one were that it was recommended for beginning-to-intermediate chemistry students, and that the reviews all raved about the quality of the illustrations.
“The Elements: A Visual Exploration” has been a great book for the twits, who are less interested in theory and more interested in what the heck technetium and beryllium actually LOOK like.
“The Cartoon Guide to Chemistry” – basically aimed at high-schoolers, and very well-written. EG has devoured this book, and even at age 6, the twits can follow it pretty well.
“It’s Elementary” – for younger kids. the twits love it, and even EG thought it was pretty good. lots of cool pictures and real-world examples of where you might find each element.
Basher’s “Periodic Table” – ahhhh, the book that started it all. we now own 4 copies, no fighting. 4 really dog-eared copies.
Basher’s “Chemistry” – they are counting down the days until this book is released. i should probably change my pre-order from 1 to 4 copies. i should probably also not mention that we will be out of town when it ships, or they’ll want to rearrange our entire summer vacation road trip to colorado.
but really, i owe the biggest debt of thanks to the Mad Science after-school program. all 3 of the older boys have now completed both the astronomy class and the chemistry class. if your child’s school ever offers it, DO IT. for $64 per child, they got a 2-hour session once a week for four weeks, taught by someone with a PhD in the relevant science. each session had at least one “make and take,” like a little toy rocket or “atomic coins,” which were pure genius in their simplicity… punch-out circles of the appropriate sizes for hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, sodium, calcium, and sulfur, each with appropriately-spaced little slits cut around the edges to represent bonds it could form. you slide the single slot of each of two hydrogens into the two slots of an oxygen, and you’ve got a nice, bent H2O molecule.
the boys played with theirs til they shredded and died, so we made more. a little adobe illustrator (okay… a LOT of figuring out, and then teaching the kids, how to use adobe illustrator,) a little info on valence states and atomic radii from webelements.com, and voila! several snow days were filled with drawing these and printing them on cardstock. there’s nothing else like it on the web (believe me… i looked hard before resorting to teaching myself how to use freaking adobe illustrator!) the project is only about 90% complete, but i thought i’d post them here in case any other parents of nerdy children need their very own set of printable atomic coins for making molecular models on snow days. you get both the .pdf version for printing out, and the .ai version for making your own changes to the original file if you like.
THE PDFs:
atomic coins 1 atomic coins 2 atomic coins 3 atomic coins 4 atomic coins 5
atomic coins 6 atomic coins 7 atomic coins 2 atomic coins 9 atomic coins 10
THE AIs: 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10
