Bees n beans project and soil experiments

Back in April we sent off for the Bees n Beans free kit as part of a research project by Sussex University. 

The kids dutifully planted their beans. 

It was a slow start, but the broad bean plants grew a little like children do some slow and squat, and some skinny and tall. Finally, after a few days of hot weather last week, the plants have suddenly burst into flower. Not all are fully blooming yet, so we wont be able to do the hand pollination bit until later in the week. Bad timing considering half of us will be in Spain, so poor dh will be left with 'pollination' instructions along with a long list of dd's busy social schedule :)

A while back, when I had a chance to think of things other than IGCSE exams and robotics championships, we did some hands-on things.

One of them was to do with soil samples. It was inspired by an experiment from this old book that we picked up from the swap shop, along with other old textbooks.

The kids collected soil samples from different areas of a local nature reserve/woodland and followed the above instructions

Watching soil settle is a bit like...er...watching soil settle.

Three days later...


 and we compared our bottles of the different soils

This is what they should have looked like:

Our results were, um, not quite so well defined...

We planned to do pH testing of the same samples, but the pH paper is still in its packet on the windowsill and the soil samples are bagged up and going slimy in the greenhouse. Perhaps that will be next month's project?

Ellen McHenry science: eyes are bigger than stomach

I'm hoping to catch up with biology with the kids over summer. To kick off we've dug out the free Ellen McHenry invertebrate lift-the-flap classification chart from here.

It's a shame she never made a vertebrate version, but I rediscovered the classification cards that I'd lovingly laminated long ago when I was in a laminating mood and these are now velcroed to a felt board. I am starting to feel like a proper home educator ;)

Ellen McHenry's The Elements has made a reappearance. We've used it before so most of the printing and prep for games has already been done. I'm also planning to start Environmental biology IGCSE with ds1. Well, we are going to tentatively dip our toes in that direction (let's not get ahead of ourselves).

As you might have guessed, it's a case of eyes bigger than stomach. My enthusiasm to cover lots of subjects is larger than the time or energy we have to do it all.

Last minute table decorations, rag-rugging, Christmas 'stocking' decorating, the Christmas tree, and other December activities

Just time for some last-minute making of table decorations.

During a quick trip to the local park this morning we - er - "borrow" some holly, leylandii and ivy.

Using a potato as a base (instead of florist's foam) the potato is wrapped in foil. The kids use a barbecue skewer to make holes before poking in the greenery.

Some garden wire and bows made of leftover ribbon give it a more professional look.

While scrabbling around in the loft I re-discovered some rag-rugging attempts.

This week the kids have started their own rag rugs. These will probably end up in the loft after Christmas, but perhaps one day they'll be finished.

In the afternoon the kids decide to decorate small hessian onion bags with felt and ribbon shapes to make Christmas 'stockings'.

And yesterday we celebrated ds1's 14th birthday. No photos allowed on here (by his request. Where did my little boy go? ;)


In the past week or two...

Dd decides to make a cat tile to go with our others that reappeared during our pre-Christmas tidy up.

We sow cress, mustard, broccoli and alfalfa sprouting.

The Christmas tree gets decorated

Ds1 makes this year's Christmas cake. Now marzipanned, but still to be iced.

The kids open some discounted body parts (models)

Intestine-man causes some problems, but eventually we jam in all his internal organs and shut them in with his ribs. (No doubt at some time in the near future his ribs will give way and fire his guts across the room).

More microscopy

And at the beginning of December, a Christmas fencing team competition

10:18 Thursday. Learning about...

Skeletons!

(At the Natural History Museum)

And what else...

...has been happening with the children for the past few weeks (apart from all the art!)

Ds1 plays drums at Rock School for a week. (The staff praised him on his talent and were gobsmacked he'd never had any lessons - just a teeny proud mum moment :) ). Meanwhile ds2 went rollerblading in the local park, and dd went for playdates with her friends.

We go to a local festival, held at a large allotment. Dd stays at the festival with friends for the rest of the day, while we made our way home.

We pick courgettes from the garden. (Note the closeness of the yellow football. Plants in our garden have to be hardy to survive!)

Ds1 continues with his IGCSE chemistry and Geography reading

  Blackberry picking, to make crumble and wine.

Ds2 empties the counties' libraries of books about manga. Then teaches himself.

He makes a short list of equipment he needs to do animation 'old school', then goes onto the internet to do a price comparison.

 Ds2 decides he wants to make shortbread.

We move paving slabs to make a base for the new chicken coop that we're making out of a packing case that was being thrown out (our 10 hens need more space).

 And discover a huge ants' nest:

 Lots of reading - Guinness World Records, British History, The Aztecs, and a 4-inch tome called "3D Game Development"...

Lots of talk and plans for the kids' new Minecraft server:

 Thoughts on design:

We took down our posters and information about Australia and New Zealand:

 And replaced them with posters on space and art:

We started a chart of moon phases. The moon decided to hide behind cloud for the next three nights :)

The children caught flies and fed them to the garden spiders, overcoming their fear of spiders and experimenting with size and type of fly.

We walked to the park intending to pick blackberries. But came home with elderberries for wine.

 Swimming in the lake (bit chilly, but fine once we got over the initial shock!)

And catching crayfish

Ds2 took the screwdriver to the waterpistol to try to fix it.

Wine, all bottled up and fermenting happily under the piano.

Dd and I have a discussion about wine-making, fermentation, yeast, gas and the similarities with the chemistry of bread baking. So that's chemistry, biology, self-sufficiency and home economics in one 5-minute conversation.

Dd continues on her reading journey. Having finally decided she wanted to learn to read (or at least was willing to give it a go), in a matter of weeks she has gone from simple words like cat and bed to reading words like 'couldn't' and 'everyone'. She seems to have an excellent memory for sight-recognition of words, less tendency I think towards phonics deciphering. Each of my children has been different and found their own combination of what works for them. I haven't been teaching her. I just sit with her while she reads. She'll do it at her own pace when she wants to. Being, at the peak of "reading readiness" (which she, herself, has recognised) I expect there'll be no stopping her now.