Plant Science: Photosynthesis AND The Sandpit

Chocolate cake helps with all educational (and not-so-educational) tasks



Constructing the Photosynthesis Formula game. [Download this for free from Ellen McHenry's Basement site here]

Other similar free downloads here

All the best games involve eating sweets

Oi! You've just eaten a hydrogen!

Once you've completed the top part it's a race to turn your carbons, hydrogens and oxygens into glucose, oxygen and water.

Man may have risen up from the primordial soup, but he's only a few steps from returning to his evolutionary roots:

The secret stash of yummy things held in the treasure chest of pinkland.

Arrrrgggghhhhhhhhh (or something like that)

Haircut.

Soon.

Is all I can say.

Wellies, hoody and skinny jeans is obviously the new look.

By the way, I've found a home-made shampoo recipe here, on the Here We are Together blog.

Might solve that pre-teen limp locks issue.

Or maybe not.

I await the scowling verdict.

What have we been doing..?

With the change in seasons we've been a bit out of sorts. However, slowly we are getting back into a rhythm, and these are some of the things we've been doing...

Dd has been learning to crochet:


Ds2 has been reading up about design for computer games:

We've downloaded the free 3D computer graphics software Art of Illusion and ds2's been getting to grips with it. It might as well be Japanese to me - I just make approving noises with the occasional interested-parent comment, like: 'What does that bit do?'

We've also downloaded the trials for various Sony video/music editing packages here . today the kids have been testing out Sony's Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum, which looks on face value a little like Windows Movie Maker, but with a million more whistles and bells.

Ds1 has been reading about survival techniques and has created his own survival kit (everything but the kitchen sink stuffed into a rucksack I think). He's also been reading about guns. And more guns. And weapons in general. And been watching the series 'Weaponology' that I recorded which shows techniques that snipers use,and real footage of war time shooting (nice). This child-led learning is fabulous, but there are times when I wonder if there is such a thing as encouraging the wrong hobby?

We've been to a fireworks party:

and the boys have attended their yearly Capoeira Batizado

"Batizado literally means "baptism"; besides being an initiation rite for new students it is also a graduation ceremony for advanced students and a great capoeira community celebration with masters from near and far are invited and the fraternity of capoeira is measurably strengthened by the camaraderie and interplay."

For more info see here

And today I took the bears off to the woods to let off some of that grizzly energy:

The low rope swing over a muddy ditch was particularly popular:

(This is what wellies and leggings were made for)

and there's always time to poke in the sand:

I am brain of Britain (but shhh it's a secret)

Last night I answered 8 questions right on University Challenge. Perhaps they were particularly easy...or maybe I have a few more brain cells than usually displayed while cleaning the toilet or washing up. Don't worry, I'm not going to make a habit of being brainy. I know my place (somewhere between the kitchen sink and the chocolate display at the corner shop).




Yesterday we spent a wonderful day with friends, walking by the canal. Ds1 went off fishing with one of their sons (well ds1 dangled the rod optimistically over the edge of the bridge into the water, which is closer to fishing than he usually gets). My friend and I wandered along the tow path with small people leaning precariously over the water, not-quite-so-small people waving swords and disappearing into woodland, and two dogs (one of whom needs some lessons in gender identification) doing what dogs do. We talked about living on a barge, chickens, knitting, jam, decluttering, life, the universe and everything important. It was one of those days.




I abandoned our very noisy cockeral in their garden (these are the people who have already adopted our secondhand rabbit) and dd chased their teeny puppy around the house like a demented terrier (her, not the dog). And then after prising ds2 off the life-support-machine (computer) i took them all home.

(Has anyone seen the littuns - you know, the non-swimmers?

Oh yeah, there they are, disappearing into the distance)

Tonight I am doing a performance with other writers in one of my writing groups. I'm not quite sure how I said yes, but obviously somewhere along this unrehearsed, slow-motion train crash that started way back in October I thought it would be a good idea to hop on. Are we doing it somewhere quiet and secret - no! We are doing it in a restaurant. A restaurant! Now whose big idea was that?! (not mine). And people - public, non-writing human beings - are actually coming and paying to see us do...er...not very much, very poorly. And if anyone mentions positive thinking to me I will smack them. Not even chocolate can fix this.

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe...

This morning I took the herd ice skating, and as usually happens at these things I came back with a few extra children.

I currently have 8 children in the house. Hence the reason why I'm up here, hiding with my laptop - sorry I mean supervising from a position of height.

Two children are digging a very large hole in the garden (possibly burying the dog).
Two are floating dried runner beans in jar lids in the pond.
One is waving a huge pair of tree loppers above his head.
Another is playing with the petrol strimmer (er, I wonder if he should be doing that).
And any that are left (I've lost count) are plugged into some sort of technology (Wii or computer most likely).

You know it's days like this that I want to invite around all those people who say 'what about socialisation?'. Cos these home educated children of mine are obviously so deprived.



So what have my sproglets been up to recently (apart from trying to maim each other with the strimmer).

Well there have been very educational activities going on, like, er information technology studies:

and more IT studies...

Some cross-curricular art and IT studies...

Some business studies combined with Design and Technology...

Scientific experimentation combined with IT (testing the hypothesis: can one use a keyboard at the same time one has a box on ones head)...

P.R training - ie how to deal with fame and publicity ('No comment')...



Design and technology and history (honest - it's Archimedes's Screw for the ignorant among you)...

Some archaelogy, though officially they're not suppose to study that until at least secondary age...

Home Economics (er, actually it's candle wax, but same principal - cook really hard until pan is ruined)...

Italian lessons (it's Cornetto, obviously Italian)...

More physical education (and a lesson in health and safety)...

Foundation stage education (taking turns at teddy bears' picnic)



Interpersonal relationships :
'Mummy, why are you taking a photo of a dead mouse?'
'Because I thought it could go on the blog.'
'Oh, ok.'

And something totally non-educational. Well we like to chill out and relax with those workbooks sometimes. A child's got to have SOME downtime, you know...

Parenting, parenting..oh where did it go?

You may remember that a while back the kids had a sale of their toys/books/assorted junk outside our corner shop. Well they raised enough to buy the bits and pieces to allow us - I mean them - to play gamecube games on the Wii machine.

The past couple of days they've been playing the gamecube game Super Smash Bros Melee. It's basically a beat-each-other-up game with nintendo characters who have all sorts of little beating-each-other up tricks. Yes, you can tell I have three children... gone are the days when I thought having toy guns in the house (and shoes that were put on un-measured feet) were the worst parenting crime ever.

Anyway, I'm waiting my turn on the game. Cos actually it looks fun. And us parents never get to do the fun things do we? Except everytime I ask 'how did you do that' they come up with this sort of complicated 'well you hold this down while pressing b and moving like this...and if you do this then you can morph into xxx and then you can suck him up while doing a power kick'. Um..yeah. Can I have that in English please?

After several days of the kids' intensive gaming I have set one proviso for playing the game: I've told them that if I hear them yelling 'DIE YOU LOSER!' one more time then I'm switching the game off...I do like to keep the faint illusion that I'm actually doing an ok job as a parent {g}

When I was a kid all the computer games we had were those with little squares that went across the screen and bleeped; you know the ones you were meant to hit with the little vertical line? Oh, and I had a Spectrum ZX 2+ where you could make music with 'white noise' (it took you three days to make about 4 seconds worth of music, but it was wonderful!). I never even got to play pacman till I was an adult. I had such a deprived childhood you know...I think I need to have a go on this game just to make up for it...lol.

And did you see Derren Brown predict the lottery numbers on Wednesday? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMIzR6GNAXw&feature=related

I'm just watching the programme on Channel 4 which supposedly explains how he did it (though the programme's an hour long and I wouldn't be surprised if at the end he refuses to tell us anyway - he's a crafty blighter that Derren is). The most likely explanations it seems (well according to those intelligent folk on the internet) is that he used some sort of split-screen technology. But...I guess we'll have to see. Maybe all will be revealed.