My teacher has required me to keep a journal. So here are some of the excerpts from my science classes. Science was the best part of the days. My cousins were home schooled. I loved how they included science experiments into all parts of their day. Some evenings they did some experiments in their pajamas. They were careful note takers during the experiments. They wrote about them. They made careful illustrations and diagrams with labels.

Michael, that’s my cousin, is nine and in fourth grade. (I’m seven and in second grade.) He explained to me that they were studying changes in matter. He said that all matter could change. (I’m thinking transformers. He was thinking about the adding or taking away of energy, which causes matter to change states.) He said the matter that is easiest to see in nature that changes states is water. (Now you’re talking about my favorite things…water…the ocean…the waves. But wait, I’ve never seen ice cubes in my ocean. Maybe I better stop being so distracted and listen to what he is saying.)

Day one: Water can be a solid, a liquid, or a gas. In nature, the oceans, lakes and rivers are liquid. But up in the mountains there is snow. In northern and southern climates the rain turns to snow and ice. Ice covers both the north and the south poles. Icebergs are frozen water. When the ice is heated, it melts to a liquid. When the liquid is cooled, it forms ice. Steam (water vapor-gas) forms when the water evaporates or is heated to the boiling point. The boiling point is 212 degrees Fahrenheit (100 degrees Celsius). So, that’s what I learned on day one.

Day two: We made root beer floats. I was asked to name the states of matter. “Ice cream-solid, root beer-liquid, and the bubbles in the soda are the gas.” (Nailed it!) After eating one root beer float, we made another. This one we let sit and watched as the matter changed state. The solid melted and became liquid. The liquid stayed the same, but the gas continued to escape from the pop. (That’s why soda gets flat when you leave the cap off too long.)

Day three: Today was a book scavenger hunt. We went to the library. We found as many books as we could about matter. We even used a cook book. I could not read some of the books. Michael helped me with a tip. He said nonfiction books often tell the meaning of a difficult word in two ways. They may add the definition in a parenthesis or a set of commas, right after the word. That’s how I learned that 212 degrees Fahrenheit is the same as 100 degrees Celsius. I also learned that volume means taking up space.

Come back later and read more of my journal later. Then you will see how much more I learned.

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