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Today's Electrifying Chemistry
No day of rest holiday for the homeschool family that likes to take days off for family outings, vacations, and other fun things. We homeschool year-round to keep a schedule based on our LIVES, not one dictated by the calendar or local schools. Though DH was off from work today, DD and I still had a regular day of homeschooling, albeit it a *bit* lighter load, because I'm such a wonderful mom. 
Today's assignments were as follows:
DD wanted to go outside (in the blustery cold weather, mind you) to play with the neighbor girls, so... like I said earlier, because I'm such a wonderful mother I let her postpone her piano practice until after dinner. Autobiography composition is for her writing class at the homeschool co-op. Having it on the daily assignment sheet is just a reminder (per her request) for her to work on it off/on throughout the week.
DD was very happy to finally start in her new grammar book. I can't remember if I mentioned it here or not, but she'd asked to "do grammar" again this year (instead of the year off from it that I'd planned) so I purchased Easy Grammar 5 for her. She took the pre-test last week (to compare with the post-test at the end of the book) and was eager to get started to the real assignments.
Even more exciting than that, however, was today's chemistry experiment. Learning about water molecules she did an experiment to separate the oxygen and hydrogen atoms. Even though I am such a wonderful mother, I wasn't quite prepared for today's experiment. We needed a 9volt battery. Thankfully DH was home for the holiday and offered to run up to the NEX mini-mart and buy one (plus milk and bread, thank you, honey!) So in no time she was set and ready to get everything set up and try it out. Here are photos I took...
 Click to enlarge. If you look VERY, VERY closely at the pencil led at the left-hand side
of the glass, you can see tiny bubbles. The other piece of pencil lead has them too, but those
are streaming rapidly instead of slow and steady as the left-hand ones are.
(EFIX: 1/13s at f/5.6, ISO 800, 28mm)
 Click to enlarge. This is a close up of the electrolysis in action. Again the pencil
lead at the top of the glass has bubbles steaming fast (and incredibly tiny) so it is nearly
impossible to make them out in this photo, but trust us, they're there.
(EFIX: 1/60s at f/5.6, ISO 400, 55mm)
 This is how the whole experiment
was set up. The pink tray (you've seen it in use before and
will certainly see it in action again) is our multi-purpose,
multi-mess-containing tray--used for art, science,nature, etc.
Please excuse the paint splatters, we just ignore them.
The glass is actually a votive candle cup. I didn't have any babyfood
jars on hand but this served the purpose nicely!
(EFIX: 1/6s at f/5.6, ISO 800, 22mm, cropped)
 Just a final shot.
(EFIX: 1/60s at f/4, ISO 100, 28mm, flash)
DD just loved this experiment and deemed it "very cool!" She called DH downstairs to see it in action while she explained it all to him. Afterwards she went upstairs to the schoolroom to document the experiment into her chemistry notebook.
Although the experiment instructions stated to "disconnect the battery" when you're done, DD wondered if the electrolysis was causing the water to evaporate since the water molecules were being broken down into oxygen and hydrogen gases. Well, since she has such a wonderful mother I let her keep her battery connected and the electrolysis is still going strong. We'd marked the water line at the start and already, at just about 2.5 hours run-time the water level has gone down... down very LITTLE, but down nonetheless. She'll keep it going as long as the battery lasts or the water is gone, whichever comes first.
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neat
Great experiment!
Have you tried this one?
http://www.exploratorium.edu/cooking/candy/activity-lightning.html
It's really neat!