Reddit reviews Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments: All Lab, No Lecture (DIY Science)

Should not be the top post...
There's no reason you can't learn chemistry while performing simple experiments that reinforce basic principles.
Pick up this book.
If you haven't had your high school chemistry class you might run into issues, but I imagine you have.

This book is considered too dangerous for public consumption, so it's hard to find paper copies, and most libraries removed it from their shelves in the 1960s. Nevertheless, many of today's chemists (including me) learned a lot about handling chemicals from that book.

http://www.geekityourself.com/files/The-Golden-Book-Of-Chemistry-Experiments.pdf

A more up-to-date (and presumably safer) text is this one:

https://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Guide-Home-Chemistry-Experiments/dp/0596514921/ref=sr_1_20?ie=UTF8&qid=1521740904&sr=8-20&keywords=chemical+experiments

Most chemistry books are theory-heavy and light on the practical side, although lab / experiment / technique books do exist:
https://www.amazon.ca/Laboratory-Experiments-Chemistry-Central-Science/dp/0321949919
Overall, it can be difficult and expensive and potentially dangerous to try to learn it all on your own, since you likely don't have much of the needed equipment (which is expensive), and will be forced to improvise; you are probably lacking the basic safety equipment; and with no experience, you will have a hard time assessing risks. I see that they do make home chemistry-type books, which is probably your best bet to have fun with some experiments and stay in that window of safety.

Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments: All Lab, No Lecture is a good book explaining how to create a real home chemistry setup.

Chemicals

http://www.carolina.com/category/physical+science/chemistry.do

http://elementsales.com/

http://www.onlinesciencemall.com/Shop/Control/fp/SFV/30852

http://www.aaa-chemicals.com/

Equipment/Chemicals

http://www.hometrainingtools.com/default.asp

http://www.labdepotinc.com/

http://www.pyrocreations.com/

http://www.labx.com/

http://expediglass.com/

http://www.freyscientific.com/

Bottles

http://www.specialtybottle.com/index.asp Like their selection, I don't think they carry polyconde lids

http://www.containerandpackaging.com/index.html They carry polycone lids

http://www.bottlesolutions.com/

As far as these bottles go, try to get the polycone lined caps as they seem to seal better, like in this one: http://www.containerandpackaging.com/item/L069

And lastly, if you're going to be doing home chemistry, I highly recommend this book: http://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Guide-Home-Chemistry-Experiments/dp/0596514921

They forum I linked you to before is by the author Robert Bruce Thompson.

And if you can, I'd recommend getting a sink like this one: http://www.lowes.com/pd_56972-10882-MF20000FM.001_0__?productId=3448692&Ntt=utility+sink&pl=1&currentURL=&facetInfo=

It would make washing glassware a hell of a lot easier than trying to use a small ceramic sink in the bathroom and MUCH safer than using your kitchen sink. Don't use your kitchen sink. Don't. Really Don't.

Let me know if you have any more questions!

This only proves that Bush and Co. took it a little further, but what equaleyes and I have said in this thread is completely true... Bush is just ONE of the latest contributors to the destruction of all things fun.

Clinton before him was doing it, and so was Bush before him, and on back.

EDIT: Read the Editorial Review for this book

I think that red cabbage powder is used as a PH indicator here.

Zinc sulfide will react with acids to produce zinc citrate and some hydrogen sulfide that smells like rotten eggs.

And while zinc sulfide won't dissolve in water, the zinc citrate salt will dissolve.

The cross linked powder is a bit of a mystery to me,since I have no idea what they wanted to demonstrate. I guess it will just absorb water while increasing in volume, might also heat or cool slightly. I think it is the stuff used in diapers and similar products.

There are better chemistry sets out there, but they do cost a lot for the simple chemicals they put there. More or less good examples are these two:

https://www.amazon.com/HMS-Beagle-Heirloom-Chemistry-Set/dp/B01AQ0N0ZU - this one is the stuff all little chemistry kiddies used to crave, but the price is in the range of several thousand dollars, IIRC.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B004UU3REC - this one is $200 - $300

I also have a wild guess that the zinc sulfide with added copper chloride might be luminescent, but I am not sure. Pure zinc sulfide won't glow, but if doped with copper it should have that familiar greenish glow in the dark after being under the sun or a loghtbulb. But I might be wrong.

If you want further info, then I guess books like this one: https://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Guide-Home-Chemistry-Experiments/dp/0596514921 or even The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments might be useful, but the second one is from a different era, where you could buy more chemicals and your safety was more like your responsibility, than the responsibility of the authors.

All in all, it is the most basic set you can get, but should be fun. Plus, I don't know how old is your kid and I guess they should not get anything dangerous until their teens. I still do remember how my classmate spilled some acid on me. It was very diluted, no harm done and it even dissolved all the dirt on my backpack.

I was recently asked to teach HS chemistry and I bought this book to brush up on my lab skills. It is understandable, but doesn't dumb things down.

http://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Guide-Home-Chemistry-Experiments/dp/0596514921/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

T'is why I'll be giving them this book and buying all the components individually.

Go wild:

https://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Guide-Home-Chemistry-Experiments/dp/0596514921

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0596514921/

I am actually not sure how good it is, I found it on boingboing that have quit a lot of articles on home chemistry. Including several scary ones on FBI raid !

I strongly suggest reading this:

http://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Guide-Home-Chemistry-Experiments/dp/0596514921/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1240275430&sr=8-1

It tells you how to setup a home chemistry lab, and how to handle chemicals safely. Has some very interesting experiments.

1. Go to Khan Academy's Chemistry and Physics sections and select which videos are applicable to your course.
   
   
2. Assign these lectures as the Homework (Explained how to do this here)
   
   
3. Purchase The Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry. (This book has over 60 very straightforward experiments that show various aspects of chemistry. There probably won't be an experiment for each aspect you want to cover, but you should be able to get at least quite a few. Plus it's just an extremely good reference book for chem.)
   
   This still leaves you short for a few of your requirements, but should be a good start. I'm interested in seeing others' suggestions as well.

Think of the things you (or others) would enjoy working with her using. A telescope/binoculars is great if you do regular viewing, but terrible if it sits in a closet. An electronics kit (I like snap circuits) or chemistry kit (Thames and Kosmos or Thompson's book with supplies) is fun if you can do them. Programming (lego mindstorm for example) is fun, if you do it together, but will likely otherwise collect dust.

Don't think of a gift to give and forget, think about something the two of you can do together and get the supplies for that. It is a much bigger investment, but has a much bigger payoff.

Dunno about cheap as possible part.

• Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments: All Lab, No Lecture
  
• CK01A Standard/Honors Home School Chemistry Laboratory Kit
  
  Laboy or deschem for cheap glassware.

I’d recommend https://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Guide-Home-Chemistry-Experiments/dp/0596514921

Might be too basic for your purposes but it’s a start!

I came here to post this. His chemistry play list is really good (especially organic chem). It will give you a really solid fundamental understanding of college level chemistry and will make it much easier to understand other higher-level sources of information like wiki pages and MIT open courseware lectures.

Also, (to op) I recommend The Illustrated Guide To Home Chemistry. This book will help you build a decent lab setup and give you the necessary basics of lab procedure to have a strong understanding of chemistry as well. Good luck.

books? movies? I'd say you should get the Cosmos DVD set for general science, and maybe The Ascent of Man book/series. maybe some Attenborough documentaries as well? of course, this is more for the theoretical side of things and not for curriculum, but it would definitely be a positive experience for kids wanting to get the gist of what's involved in science, I think.

depending on your location and the logistics of your teaching environment, you might want to get a telescope as well as a microscope. you can get a pretty good general purpose telescope for a few hundred bucks and I know that I would have loved the shit out of that as a kid, but I'm not sure what you could possibly do with it being that you're probably only teaching during daylight hours.

so for an actual indoors "lab," maybe you should get one of those Thomson C3000 chemistry sets, in addition to a general assortment of beakers and test tubes and such. that seems to be the best chemistry kit around these days, sadly, but it's not half bad. it does come with some decent experiments and supplies. in addition to it, I recommend Robert Bruce Thompson's Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry

First off, pay attention in lab. Take it more seriously than lecture. Lab should really be twice as many credits as lecture- because it is at least that much more important. Chemistry is action, not books. If you aren't taking a lab, you will suffer greatly. If nothing else, get a chemistry set or something to internalize it. I suggest buying and working through this on your own: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0596514921

Second, supplement readings with MIT Gen Chem lectures (http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/chemistry/5-111-principles-of-chemical-science-fall-2008/video-lectures/), they invoke some math-you won't need most of the quantumn mechanics/wave equation stuff to ace your class, so don't get too hung up on that part). Overall the lectures are great.