May 15, 2025 • 13 mins
Is free chemistry actually worth it? 🤔 Spoiler alert: YES, it is! 🙌
In today’s episode, I’m breaking down why the ACS Middle School Chemistry curriculum is one of the BEST completely free homeschool resources out there. From high-quality lessons to hands-on experiments using everyday materials, this curriculum brings chemistry to life without costing you a dime. 🔬✨
I’m sharing exactly how we’re using it in our homeschool, what makes it such an amazing find, and how you can grab it (plus a free bonus from me—test blanks to make it even easier! 📄🎯).
Why ACS Middle School Chemistry? ✅ 100% FREE—no hidden fees
✅ Engaging lessons made for middle schoolers
✅ Experiments you can actually do at home
✅ Easy-to-use PDFs, videos, and lesson plans
If you're hunting for a budget-friendly way to teach real science at home, this is it! 🏡🔬 Have you used ACS Chemistry yet? I'd love to hear your experience—drop a comment and let’s chat! ⬇️
📌 Grab the free test blanks here: https://makingeverydaymagic.com/free-chemistry-worth-it/
✨ Don’t forget to follow, rate, and share for more honest homeschool resources and tips!
#FreeChemistry #MakingEverydayMagic #MiddleSchoolScience #HomeschoolScience #HomeschoolCurriculum #FreeHomeschoolResources #HomeschoolHelp #HomeschoolLife
💖 Just a mama making magic,
Shanna
Links:
ACS: https://www.acs.org/middleschoolchemistry.html
Material List: https://amzn.to/4iLesZ5
Blank Tests: https://makingeverydaymagic.com/free-chemistry-worth-it/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Beforewe're done, I just wanted to circle back
and take another
look at what we've been using for sciencethis year.
Welcome back to Make Everyday Magic.
My name is Shanna, and if you are newhere, we're homeschooling family of four.
We're in our eighth year of homeschooling.
This year we had a seventh graderand a third grader,
and we have been using the freemiddle school chemistry
(00:24):
curriculumfrom the American Chemical Society.
And I wanted to give you one morelook at this.
Kind of in hindsight,as we are nearing the end of usage,
and let you know whatI really think about it.
We. Guys, before we go any further, pleasescroll down, hit the big red subscribe
(00:47):
button, turn on the bell for notificationsand give this video a thumbs up.
As always,
you can find me right on down
in the comments or over on Instagramat Making Everyday Magic.
Okay, so I thought that beforewe had moved on from the 2024
2025 school year, it would beor could be very helpful to give you
another look inside the completely freeand easily accessible
(01:10):
chemistry curriculumfrom the American Chemical Society.
Just really quickly, like I said,this is a free chemistry
curriculumfrom the American Chemical Society.
I will have it linked down below,
but you can justliterally log on to the website.
You just visit the website, you can getlesson plans, you can get further
(01:31):
discussions, you can get in-depth videos,you can get tests.
You can get all kinds of thingsprovided to you completely free,
and is broken up into a six unit
and there are I'm trying to remember,I don't remember
how many lessons there are,so I'll be sure to put it right here.
But it is an incredibly thorough
well thought out, very, very well
(01:54):
done, curriculumas far as I am concerned.
This is probably the most comprehensive
and robust science curriculumthat we have ever used in our homeschool.
I love that
it is one so easily accessible.
Two it is completely free, but alsoincredibly high value curriculum piece.
(02:17):
So I was able to I actually have a listfor you over on my Amazon store front of.
If you wanted to purchase
every single thingthat is required for this curriculum,
you can log on and you can easilyjust add it all to cart.
It's all in one list,but there's a lot of stuff in there
you don't need like coffeecups, salt, things like that.
(02:37):
And something that we have done inour use of
this is not even necessarilygetting everything to do every experiment.
And I will circle back to thatin just a minute.
Okay.
So the asks middle schoolchemistry curriculum,
like I said, was createdby the American Chemical Society.
So it is noteven put out by a curriculum company,
but instead by a brotherhood brotheror sister
(03:01):
personhood of chemists,which I think is really, really cool.
It is, again,like I said, very well thought out.
They dohave they do practice for five years.
So if you are someone who is wondering how
this would apply to your state standardsor any requirements that you have,
you can totally deep dive that rightthrough the curriculum site.
(03:25):
It is designed for public school,
so this is a resourcefor public school science teachers.
However, it is incredibly easyto adapt small scale.
So we have been using it with bothour third grader and our seventh grader.
And I'll let you know a little bit moreabout how we're using that
here in just a minute.
Like I said,it is designed for middle school students,
(03:47):
but I have found it to be very easilyadaptable.
There are several waysthat you can actually use the program.
It is completely free.
There's online access to lessons,plans, experiments and student activities.
There are principles.
There are guided notes.
There are likeI said, if like videos of every
experiment that they are asking you to do,
(04:10):
there are lesson plans,there are further instructions.
There's a video for teachersspecifically at the start of every lesson.
And it has been incredibly easy to adaptto having just two learners
using it in my hand, but also to adapton my third grader and to make sure
that my seventh grader is definitelygetting a course that is robust enough.
(04:30):
I chose this curriculum one because it isincredibly easily accessible.
I came across it last yearwhen I was doing my, series on free,
like high quality,free curriculum resources.
I got inspired then.
I knew that because of the source,
it was going to be a secular science,
(04:51):
which, as you guys know, at home schoolerscan be increasingly hard to find.
And I also knew you can tell right awaythat it is enough for a full year.
It had all of the experiments lined out,all of the requirements needed.
It has the tests made for you,which I do have a little bonus for you.
I and maybe I just couldn't find them,
(05:13):
but I could not find the test blanks,
so I was easily able to find this linkright on the page.
The tests that haveall of the answers filled in.
So I went through and alteredthose PDFs with the answers to blanks.
So I will try to find a way to link thatso that you can just download
those down below So I will be sure to finda way to link those down below for you.
(05:38):
Now let'stalk about what is actually included.
First of all, it's free,so anything is gravy.
And a bonus the lesson lesson structureis that it does cover six
main units covering matter,atoms, density, changes of state, etc..
Chemical reactions.
There are hands on experimentswith almost exclusively common
household items, printable worksheets,student readings which.
(05:59):
What we will do is I will, you know,
I'll get back tohow we're gonna use it in just a minute.
I keep jumping ahead
and then there's teacher guideswith clear explanations and videos.
Demonstration.
So how we are using it,we will actually do.
We've done two lessons a weekwhen we're not on break.
And what we will do iswe actually you can go in
and you can assign the,online assignments.
(06:22):
And so I shoot them over two,
my Gmail accountand we go from there and you click on it
and it's all inline.
It's very, very easy to use.
So what we'll do iswe will watch the demonstrations in line
and then also answer the questionsin line.
There are, really fun graphics.
Like if you're trying to explain how,
(06:44):
how these atoms go througha chemical change and produce these atoms,
it will show you them kind of likelinking up and splitting apart,
and then you can change the speedon different molecule demonstrations
to understandhow an increase in temperature
really impacts the rateat which those molecules are exchanged.
It's so good.
It's so thorough.
(07:05):
They have printables for,the periodic table.
It is a very, very good meaty curriculum,
especially for being free,which is what we love.
So the way that we're usingit is we're doing the lessons together.
Now, originally, I think for the firstthree units at the beginning of the unit,
I would just go ahead and purchaseeverything that we needed for that unit.
(07:30):
Unlessit was something we'd already purchased.
And so now, as we have gotten intoany kind of like more advanced
end of the course curriculum,what I have done is if it's something that
we can easily get or easily have on hand,then we'll do those experiments.
But if it's not,if it's like a specific kind of chemical
that I'm going to use one timeor something like that,
then I'm just skipping thatand letting them watch the video
(07:51):
demonstrations instead of also completingthose experiments.
And that I have found, iswhat is working really well for us.
I've also gone through and allowed
the girls to use the printable notesthat are kind of
like the condensed version of the,you know, complete unit.
(08:11):
So for the tests, I am allowing themto reference to those notes.
So like finding the answeror anything like things like that.
They also have their own chemistrynotebooks, their key concept notebooks,
which at the end of every lessonit says these are,
you know, kind of the three bullet points.
Have you copied them in your notebook?
How do you feel about your masteryof the information in this lesson?
(08:32):
So I really like that.
Now I am allowing them to usethose open notes on their tasks.
Now what I'm doing for the task,because again, I don't have
the same expectation for my third graderthat I have for my seventh grader.
So my third grader, I will usually giveher the first two sections of the test.
Because every test has multiple sections,it is multiple choice.
(08:54):
Fill in the blank and then short answer
again, they're very, very robust.
So what I will have is my thirdgrader will do the multiple choice
questionsas well as the fill in the blank.
And then my seventh grader will also dothe short answer questions.
And I feel like that is goodas far as meeting them where they are.
So that is how we are using
(09:16):
this free, amazing chemistry
middle school chemistry curriculumfrom the American Chemical Society.
Things that I do like
about it when it is free toit is a very easily accessible.
Like you could just get to it anywhere.
There are multiple waysthat you can use it.
So you can watch the demonstrationsor do the hands on experiments.
You can print all of the sheets or justfill it in with the Google forms online.
(09:37):
So I like that it is so adaptable to kindof whatever is suiting us at that time.
It's been very easy to keep up with.
So I really like that.
I feel like again,it is one of the meteor scientists.
I think science is really hard
as homeschoolers, really hardas secular homeschoolers to get like good
kind of labs and experimentsand good hands on things
(09:59):
and getting that same levelof really scientific,
you know, box tracking that
you would hopeyou would get as far as your,
your learner's go and especially at homeand not in a bigger kind of group setting.
So I love thatit does take a little bit of forethought,
a little bit of prepas far as sourcing materials,
printing out the tasks, things like that,or even just sending yourself
(10:22):
those Google formso that you can fill them in, together.
And this is somethingyour kids could do on their own
if you chose to do it that way.
Again, we're doing it as a group,and so that's good for me.
I have found it to be quite easyto adapt to that later.
Elementary.
And honestly,I feel like it could be good enough
for like an early, early high schoolif you want it to go higher.
(10:43):
But I found it very adaptable tothe grade levels that I am using it for.
So the people that I think would benefitthe most from this are people like me
who want a good, solid,trusted secular science source.
If you are specifically in the marketfor middle school chemistry, again,
I think this would be amazing for you.
And if you justwant to do something that is
(11:03):
really
fleshed out, really rounded out,
and maybe you just want to dip your toein the water.
As far as having some of this done,a lot of people are really good at
sourcing together and building out theirown things and piecing things together,
and I just genuinely almostnever enjoy that approach.
So I like this.
(11:23):
I like that it's from genuine,bona fide paid in the industry
chemistry professionalsas opposed to just somebody, some person
who is, you know, writing a curriculumwho maybe doesn't
have that extensive backgroundin this kind of thing.
So I like thatit is coming straight from the source.
And those are things that I like.
(11:44):
It's it's easy.
It's been easy to do as a group.
It's been easy to do at home.
As a parent who is not an educator,I feel like I have a very solid grasp
on how it's going and how it is.
Kind of
blossomed in a lot of waysin our homeschool.
I like thatthey do have so much information
(12:06):
about how it does align to state standardsand the different things,
because it talks about the NSS standards.
I mean, it really doesgive you enough information
to feel really,really solid with what you are providing
to your children as far as middle schoolchemistry instruction.
So, guys,
I hope that you have found any of thishelpful, entertaining, or informative.
Like I said, I'm
going to try to give you a little lookprobably while I was talking.
(12:29):
Hopefully I, I shrunk myself overand gave you a look inside their website.
And I will try to get those blank testslinked down below.
And then you would just use thosein conjunction
with the answer, the test test answersthat are on their site.
Again, I it's probably there somewhere.
I just couldn't find it that same here.
So yeah guys, I hope that you found ithelpful, entertaining or informative.
(12:50):
If you did, please scroll down, hitthe big red subscribe button,
turn on the bell for notificationsand give this video a thumbs up.
As always, you can find me running downin the comments or over on Instagram
at Making Everyday Magic.
I have had a couple of people reach outthat there is something similar,
for physics.
However, it is not.
It is a few kind of,
(13:13):
much fewerlessons, and they aren't as cohesive
as being a full and complete curriculumas this is.
So again, free.
Free is awesome, freeand well done and easy to use.
Those are the best guys.
Best of luck by.
Beforewe're done, I just wanted to circle back
and take another
look at what we've been using for sciencethis year.
Welcome back to Make Everyday Magic.
My name is Shanna, and if you are newhere, we're homeschooling family of four.
We're in our eighth year of homeschooling.
This year we had a seventh graderand a third grader,
and we have been using the freemiddle school chemistry
(00:24):
curriculumfrom the American Chemical Society.
And I wanted to give you one morelook at this.
Kind of in hindsight,as we are nearing the end of usage,
and let you know whatI really think about it.
We. Guys, before we go any further, pleasescroll down, hit the big red subscribe
(00:47):
button, turn on the bell for notificationsand give this video a thumbs up.
As always,
you can find me right on down
in the comments or over on Instagramat Making Everyday Magic.
Okay, so I thought that beforewe had moved on from the 2024
2025 school year, it would beor could be very helpful to give you
another look inside the completely freeand easily accessible
(01:10):
chemistry curriculumfrom the American Chemical Society.
Just really quickly, like I said,this is a free chemistry
curriculumfrom the American Chemical Society.
I will have it linked down below,
but you can justliterally log on to the website.
You just visit the website, you can getlesson plans, you can get further
(01:31):
discussions, you can get in-depth videos,you can get tests.
You can get all kinds of thingsprovided to you completely free,
and is broken up into a six unit
and there are I'm trying to remember,I don't remember
how many lessons there are,so I'll be sure to put it right here.
But it is an incredibly thorough
well thought out, very, very well
(01:54):
done, curriculumas far as I am concerned.
This is probably the most comprehensive
and robust science curriculumthat we have ever used in our homeschool.
I love that
it is one so easily accessible.
Two it is completely free, but alsoincredibly high value curriculum piece.
(02:17):
So I was able to I actually have a listfor you over on my Amazon store front of.
If you wanted to purchase
every single thingthat is required for this curriculum,
you can log on and you can easilyjust add it all to cart.
It's all in one list,but there's a lot of stuff in there
you don't need like coffeecups, salt, things like that.
(02:37):
And something that we have done inour use of
this is not even necessarilygetting everything to do every experiment.
And I will circle back to thatin just a minute.
Okay.
So the asks middle schoolchemistry curriculum,
like I said, was createdby the American Chemical Society.
So it is noteven put out by a curriculum company,
but instead by a brotherhood brotheror sister
(03:01):
personhood of chemists,which I think is really, really cool.
It is, again,like I said, very well thought out.
They dohave they do practice for five years.
So if you are someone who is wondering how
this would apply to your state standardsor any requirements that you have,
you can totally deep dive that rightthrough the curriculum site.
(03:25):
It is designed for public school,
so this is a resourcefor public school science teachers.
However, it is incredibly easyto adapt small scale.
So we have been using it with bothour third grader and our seventh grader.
And I'll let you know a little bit moreabout how we're using that
here in just a minute.
Like I said,it is designed for middle school students,
(03:47):
but I have found it to be very easilyadaptable.
There are several waysthat you can actually use the program.
It is completely free.
There's online access to lessons,plans, experiments and student activities.
There are principles.
There are guided notes.
There are likeI said, if like videos of every
experiment that they are asking you to do,
(04:10):
there are lesson plans,there are further instructions.
There's a video for teachersspecifically at the start of every lesson.
And it has been incredibly easy to adaptto having just two learners
using it in my hand, but also to adapton my third grader and to make sure
that my seventh grader is definitelygetting a course that is robust enough.
(04:30):
I chose this curriculum one because it isincredibly easily accessible.
I came across it last yearwhen I was doing my, series on free,
like high quality,free curriculum resources.
I got inspired then.
I knew that because of the source,
it was going to be a secular science,
(04:51):
which, as you guys know, at home schoolerscan be increasingly hard to find.
And I also knew you can tell right awaythat it is enough for a full year.
It had all of the experiments lined out,all of the requirements needed.
It has the tests made for you,which I do have a little bonus for you.
I and maybe I just couldn't find them,
(05:13):
but I could not find the test blanks,
so I was easily able to find this linkright on the page.
The tests that haveall of the answers filled in.
So I went through and alteredthose PDFs with the answers to blanks.
So I will try to find a way to link thatso that you can just download
those down below So I will be sure to finda way to link those down below for you.
(05:38):
Now let'stalk about what is actually included.
First of all, it's free,so anything is gravy.
And a bonus the lesson lesson structureis that it does cover six
main units covering matter,atoms, density, changes of state, etc..
Chemical reactions.
There are hands on experimentswith almost exclusively common
household items, printable worksheets,student readings which.
(05:59):
What we will do is I will, you know,
I'll get back tohow we're gonna use it in just a minute.
I keep jumping ahead
and then there's teacher guideswith clear explanations and videos.
Demonstration.
So how we are using it,we will actually do.
We've done two lessons a weekwhen we're not on break.
And what we will do iswe actually you can go in
and you can assign the,online assignments.
(06:22):
And so I shoot them over two,
my Gmail accountand we go from there and you click on it
and it's all inline.
It's very, very easy to use.
So what we'll do iswe will watch the demonstrations in line
and then also answer the questionsin line.
There are, really fun graphics.
Like if you're trying to explain how,
(06:44):
how these atoms go througha chemical change and produce these atoms,
it will show you them kind of likelinking up and splitting apart,
and then you can change the speedon different molecule demonstrations
to understandhow an increase in temperature
really impacts the rateat which those molecules are exchanged.
It's so good.
It's so thorough.
(07:05):
They have printables for,the periodic table.
It is a very, very good meaty curriculum,
especially for being free,which is what we love.
So the way that we're usingit is we're doing the lessons together.
Now, originally, I think for the firstthree units at the beginning of the unit,
I would just go ahead and purchaseeverything that we needed for that unit.
(07:30):
Unlessit was something we'd already purchased.
And so now, as we have gotten intoany kind of like more advanced
end of the course curriculum,what I have done is if it's something that
we can easily get or easily have on hand,then we'll do those experiments.
But if it's not,if it's like a specific kind of chemical
that I'm going to use one timeor something like that,
then I'm just skipping thatand letting them watch the video
(07:51):
demonstrations instead of also completingthose experiments.
And that I have found, iswhat is working really well for us.
I've also gone through and allowed
the girls to use the printable notesthat are kind of
like the condensed version of the,you know, complete unit.
(08:11):
So for the tests, I am allowing themto reference to those notes.
So like finding the answeror anything like things like that.
They also have their own chemistrynotebooks, their key concept notebooks,
which at the end of every lessonit says these are,
you know, kind of the three bullet points.
Have you copied them in your notebook?
How do you feel about your masteryof the information in this lesson?
(08:32):
So I really like that.
Now I am allowing them to usethose open notes on their tasks.
Now what I'm doing for the task,because again, I don't have
the same expectation for my third graderthat I have for my seventh grader.
So my third grader, I will usually giveher the first two sections of the test.
Because every test has multiple sections,it is multiple choice.
(08:54):
Fill in the blank and then short answer
again, they're very, very robust.
So what I will have is my thirdgrader will do the multiple choice
questionsas well as the fill in the blank.
And then my seventh grader will also dothe short answer questions.
And I feel like that is goodas far as meeting them where they are.
So that is how we are using
(09:16):
this free, amazing chemistry
middle school chemistry curriculumfrom the American Chemical Society.
Things that I do like
about it when it is free toit is a very easily accessible.
Like you could just get to it anywhere.
There are multiple waysthat you can use it.
So you can watch the demonstrationsor do the hands on experiments.
You can print all of the sheets or justfill it in with the Google forms online.
(09:37):
So I like that it is so adaptable to kindof whatever is suiting us at that time.
It's been very easy to keep up with.
So I really like that.
I feel like again,it is one of the meteor scientists.
I think science is really hard
as homeschoolers, really hardas secular homeschoolers to get like good
kind of labs and experimentsand good hands on things
(09:59):
and getting that same levelof really scientific,
you know, box tracking that
you would hopeyou would get as far as your,
your learner's go and especially at homeand not in a bigger kind of group setting.
So I love thatit does take a little bit of forethought,
a little bit of prepas far as sourcing materials,
printing out the tasks, things like that,or even just sending yourself
(10:22):
those Google formso that you can fill them in, together.
And this is somethingyour kids could do on their own
if you chose to do it that way.
Again, we're doing it as a group,and so that's good for me.
I have found it to be quite easyto adapt to that later.
Elementary.
And honestly,I feel like it could be good enough
for like an early, early high schoolif you want it to go higher.
(10:43):
But I found it very adaptable tothe grade levels that I am using it for.
So the people that I think would benefitthe most from this are people like me
who want a good, solid,trusted secular science source.
If you are specifically in the marketfor middle school chemistry, again,
I think this would be amazing for you.
And if you justwant to do something that is
(11:03):
really
fleshed out, really rounded out,
and maybe you just want to dip your toein the water.
As far as having some of this done,a lot of people are really good at
sourcing together and building out theirown things and piecing things together,
and I just genuinely almostnever enjoy that approach.
So I like this.
(11:23):
I like that it's from genuine,bona fide paid in the industry
chemistry professionalsas opposed to just somebody, some person
who is, you know, writing a curriculumwho maybe doesn't
have that extensive backgroundin this kind of thing.
So I like thatit is coming straight from the source.
And those are things that I like.
(11:44):
It's it's easy.
It's been easy to do as a group.
It's been easy to do at home.
As a parent who is not an educator,I feel like I have a very solid grasp
on how it's going and how it is.
Kind of
blossomed in a lot of waysin our homeschool.
I like thatthey do have so much information
(12:06):
about how it does align to state standardsand the different things,
because it talks about the NSS standards.
I mean, it really doesgive you enough information
to feel really,really solid with what you are providing
to your children as far as middle schoolchemistry instruction.
So, guys,
I hope that you have found any of thishelpful, entertaining, or informative.
Like I said, I'm
going to try to give you a little lookprobably while I was talking.
(12:29):
Hopefully I, I shrunk myself overand gave you a look inside their website.
And I will try to get those blank testslinked down below.
And then you would just use thosein conjunction
with the answer, the test test answersthat are on their site.
Again, I it's probably there somewhere.
I just couldn't find it that same here.
So yeah guys, I hope that you found ithelpful, entertaining or informative.
(12:50):
If you did, please scroll down, hitthe big red subscribe button,
turn on the bell for notificationsand give this video a thumbs up.
As always, you can find me running downin the comments or over on Instagram
at Making Everyday Magic.
I have had a couple of people reach outthat there is something similar,
for physics.
However, it is not.
It is a few kind of,
(13:13):
much fewerlessons, and they aren't as cohesive
as being a full and complete curriculumas this is.
So again, free.
Free is awesome, freeand well done and easy to use.
Those are the best guys.
Best of luck by.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.