Homeschool Science Fun

Man, I have loved to hate distance learning through this whole Covid-19 saga. I don’t hate them being home. I’m truly glad that they are home and safe. But, doing the work assigned by someone else, it’s a special kind of torture for a former homeschooling mom. It’s made me miss homeschooling even more than I already did and it’s just been a pain in the ass. 😉

So I was determined to add a little real learning into this school at home experience. I told the kids that we were going to do a simple science experiment. I let them pick what we were going to do and we talked about the basic process (hypothesis, conclusion, etc). To my surprise, they were into it and I was soon buying a whole bunch of sodas so that they could test if other sodas react to Mentos like Diet Coke does. I also had to get some Altoids because Lizzie wanted to see if different mints caused the mini eruption, too. Spoiler alert: they don’t.

Somehow, I managed to get the whole family outside for this project and it was fun. Simple learning and fun. It left me feeling accomplished. And hopefully, the kids, too. haha. It was extra handy to have Brian there to explain things in his Brian way. 🙂  (He missed his calling, he should have been a teacher.)

I don’t think that we learned too much from the science experiment itself. This is especially true since, the consistency of our project faded fast when William wondered what would happen if you shake up one of the sodas first. And then he wondered what would happen if you put a bunch of Mentos in.

So, if I could conclude anything from the experiment, I would conclude that Diet Coke and Mentos are still the best match but Dr. Pepper holds its own. If you want a good eruption, don’t shake it first. An Altoid is more of a curiously strong mint in your mouth than in your soda.

And family time is the best time.