East Head Spit: Checking out the geography of the South Coast, August 2014

A few weeks back we took a field trip to the south coast to check out some seaside geographical features. Ds2 will be taking IGCSE Geography next year, so I took him to the same place we took ds1. East Head spit is a great place to see firsthand, a sand and shingle spit, salt marsh and sand dunes.

I confess it was nice to grab my old camera back from ds1 for a while and play with the black and white feature.

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?

No words, only photos.

While sorting out my blog posts, I came across this post. It was written some time in July last year, but for some reason I never published it. No words, only photos.

 

in the woods

As an attempt to restore balance to our home ed and get away from textbooks and the table, we made use of the (brief) patches of fine February weather.

My little girl, who will be growing up all too soon, is making the most of being 10.

We should do this more often :)

Something has been eating our dragonflies

Even with my mediocre camera, the pictures of the transformation at our little concrete garden pond are quite amazing :)

Someone - or rather something - has been eating our dragonflies. Below is dd's collection of wings picked up from the garden path. She says she saw a bird catching the dragonflies at the pond.

Boat-building adventures at the weekend

 The boys got hold of some huge thick sheets of foam from the scrapstore and set about boat building. At the weekend they got a chance to test them out on the lake.

I can walk in them, honest.

Ds2 in his kayak, dd on ds1's boat and ds1 realising that dd has forgotten to take the paddle (the green bit of plastic nailed to a bit of wood!)

 A slight mishap in the reeds.

Dd shortly before losing both her crocs in the mud. Half an hour of mud-poking later and they rose to the surface!

Steering is always a problem :)

This month (November)

November is nearly over and it's time for a quick catch-up of what we've been up to this month.

Autumn walks in the woods

 (with home-made dart shooters)

Visits to home ed group to do Chemistry, Spanish, Art, Arts Award (and time for dd to sneak off and play on the communal computer)

Bat-themed activities

Bat origami

Online bat jigsaws (here )

Putting together a festive mini-swap for Worldwide Culture Exchange (sent to the USA). Pick three to five items representing Christmas/The Winter holidays in your family and send it to another family. Mini-swap sign-up form can be found here (festive mini-swap open til the end of November)

Digging for dinosaurs in a wolf suit (thank you 99p shop!)

Playing lego games

 Fungal foraging

 And spore printing

 
 Enjoying outdoor times with friends

Looking at lichen

Sewing Christmas decorations and printing cards

Making a mobile of the solar system (printable here)

Ds digs up our area in the name of archaeology (and finds pottery, nails, bones and a medieval tile painted with a griffin) 

Leaf rubbings

Making a printer out of Lego Mindstorms

Artwork (experimenting with symmetry)

 Trip to Aldeburgh Poetry Festival (me, without the children). Hence plenty of time to take arty photographs...

Fencing competitions

Bug handling workshops