One day, Henry watched his big brother do his high school homework, and he wanted to learn how to do it. His brother was working on a worksheet over 3 topics that made no sense to Henry. It was over balancing equations, chemical reactions, and the conservation of mass.

Henry asked his brother to explain it to him but he said that he wouldn't understand. Henry disagreed and thought he could do anything that his brother could so he kept asking. Finally, his brother agreed to try to teach him.

His brother said, "the conservation of mass states that matter can not be created or destroyed." Being eight years old, Henry didn't understand what this meant so asked questions. His brother explained that matter is anything that contains mass, or weight, and we can not make or get rid of something that already exists.

After Henry got a good idea of what the conservation of mass was, he asked about balancing equations. His brother explained that it was making one equation equal the other one on the other side of the arrow, so it has an equal number of atoms on each side of the equation. Although Henry didn't understand, he got the concept of things needing to equal each other.

Henry was proud that is brother was explaining it to him in a way that he could understand and he was even more happy the he was learning high school stuff!!

The last topic was chemical reactions and his brother said this was his favorite thing that they had learned all year. He said that it was the rearrangement of molecules in a substance. Which meant, it was the way thing reacted together. You know a chemical reaction is happening by a change in color, smell, taste, or a gas has formed.

After learning about chemical reactions, Henry noticed them all around him!! Even the milk going bad in the refrigerator. Henry was so thankful that his brother took the time to teach him his lessons. He had so much fun leearning high school lessons and he can't wait to show off what he knows when he gets to be his brother age.