This felt like the world's longest lab--I think we managed to actually squeeze it out over a three week period.  What we were doing was refining copper sulfate.  I thought this would be a good experiment to let each child do the whole thing from start to finish on their own.  Rebecca did hers first.

From her go at it we learned it's better to keep the solution boiling as you fllter if you don't want tons of crystals forming on the filter paper.  We also figured out it was a several hour lab in length, so Elizabeth and Josh worked together:

Elizabeth discovered she has a real talent for filter paper folding...

Josh  REALLY enjoyed the boiling blue chemicals and the whole filteriing process. 

After finally putting everything away we sat down to finish up lab reports a few days later and discovered on the next page that we were supposed to use the leftover solution to make some copper carbonate.  Oh. RATS.  We had to do it again!  Needless to say, it didn't happen immediately.

Finally, the end product...

Actually, we're STILL waiting for the copper carbonate to dry...