The Water Cycle (minor Smug Home Educator Moment)

Well I'm feeling rather smug.

It's not often that we plan to do something educational and then actually do it. I'm one of those breeds of home educators who has lots of Grand Plans, of which only about 10% ever get started, and only about 1% approach the finish line.

But YES, I am proud to announce that we have done - more or less - The Water Cycle.

I got the kids (after some minor grumbling and rolling of eyes) to do a collage based on the water cycle. Here it is in progress:

It's still awaiting some labels on it - you know the stuff 'condensation', 'evaporation', 'precipitation', etc - but we'll skip past that little technicality and gloat in the success of actually getting the kids to do something that is almost finished. [Actually I have a good excuse why it isn't finished: it's because the house has been invaded by a decorating dh, and the conservatory table where we were working on our water cycle, is now covered with tins of paint and assorted tools and the floor of the conservatory is covered with all the stuff that doesn't have anywhere else to go].

And still on the theme of The Water Cycle, we also put together our Eco Dome which we bought half price in Argos. I have to mention the half price bit, cos even at half price it was expensive, so there's no way I'd have paid full price for this glorified bottle garden. Bottle garden? Well if you're as old as me, either you or your mother or your aunt would have been bought a bottle garden from Marks & Spencers, or BHS in the 1980s and you'll know what I mean. And if you're not as old as me I'm sure Google will let you know all about it if you just ask...

Anyway, this Eco Dome is packaged up as a sort of educational climate/water cycle project with lots of observations and measurments to take (er, no we haven't actually done that bit yet). It is a sort of enclosed plastic box, with lift-off see-through lid.It has several tiers which are meant to replicate the different growing environments - tropical, desert etc. There is a water reservoir at the top and the bottom, plus thermometer strip, windmill to show air currents and other stuff. Here it is in progress:

Assembling the windmill (the best bit of course)

The 'desert layer' is in

and the finished result below...



And here is ds1 potting up all the tiny plants we had going spare. A local garden centre was selling off the pot-bound plants for 20p each and we couldn't resist...

Another reason why we can't get to the conservatory table to finish our Water Cycle collage - we seem to have rather a lot of plants now...

p.s. Can't remember if I've posted this link to a fab page about The Water Cycle before http://www.geographyalltheway.com/year7_geography/flooding_rivers/water_cycle.htm

It's worth a look just for the absolutely wonderful little video it has.