Siege weapons from pegs, elastic bands and lolly sticks

I've been getting the kids to test out some models of catapult that I'm hoping to use at a workshop in September. We're using this as a basic model and modifying it to suit our resources.





This is our version (more modifications to be made):

Retrieving ammunition from the garden:

Physics Demonstration Films

This link to physics demonstration films (scroll down the page) was crossposted to our local HE list: http://www.nationalstemcentre.org.uk/elibrary/collection/491/physics-demonstration-films

Check out the jelly bean wave machine. It's now on our 'to-do' list!

The birds (food, plucked and electronic) and 'Big Girl's Blouse' Kale

Ok. So the birds don't like our bird 'cake'. Or perhaps they don't realise that those weird yoghurt pots hanging upside down from the apple tree on bits of 100% cotton wool (my best knitting stock) are actually meant to be lunch. Either way, the bird cake remains untouched.

Which is more than can be said for the birds...or the bird to be precise. It seems that something has had a chunk out of one of our chickens. We came down the garden the other morning to find a pile of black feathers outside the run (yes OUTSIDE). We did a quick count of the chucks in the run - none were missing - and they looked ok (a bit scrawny and hen-pecked as always, but nothing new). Today, however, one of them is definitely limping with a damaged claw and appears to have a chunk of feathers missing from her back (not sure why we didn't notice this before - maybe more feathers have fallen out since we first looked).

Here is the pile of feathers.

And yes, those are my feet.

[Sadly this foot affliction is a well-known side-effect of having more than 2 children:'nice mummy' enters a transitional phase which without adequate sleep and chocolate and a nice holiday in the Caribbean can result in her becoming 'mummy the monster'. The disease affects mothers in a number of ways; most noticeably in the voicebox (loud screeches and interminably long rants) and in prolonged cases - where there is extensive exposure to offspring - the physical development of the feet is affected. There is no known cure.]

The chicken thing is a mystery though. Whatever it was appears to have grabbed the chicken through the bars of the run fencing, been unsuccessful (i.e not eaten it), and left a pile of feathers on the path. But what chicken would be stupid enough to go near the bars when something like a fox was around (and without making much noise). It's more damage than your average rat could do (even if it was ridiculously hungry), so the whole thing is rather puzzling. My only thought (and I've just thunked it while I'm typing this entry) is that it could possibly be a ferret. The next-door neighbour's kids had pet ferrets which escaped months ago and for a while we used to see them running through the chicken run, causing chaos and mahem (big flurry of anxious chickens doing the daft things that chickens do when they're anxious). But I thought ferrets would only usually take eggs or young chucks?

Will have to google that one.

It still leaves us in the dilema of what to do about the injured chicken. She seems to be managing ok, but experience has shown that the other chickens are likely to gang up on her (chickens have 'bully the weakest' /'pecking order' - politics) and cause further harm. I think I'll see how chuck is doing tomorrow and maybe clear out the greenhouse as a temporary shelter.

So, while checking out the chicken situation, I had a quick recky of the garden. My Italian Kale was looking very sad (but has since perked up as it defrosted today).

Sad Kale (look, you can see it shivering)

These mediterranean types are big girl's blouses compared with the rugged British greens. Mind you, the latter often taste like cattle food, so that's probably why I'm growing the former. And I watched Jamie cooking with the Italian stuff in a programme tonight so it must be awwwright mustn't it? Bless his cotton socks; he can come and cook for me any day...

Errhum..

The plastic over one of the raised beds where I planted the garlic (erected to stop the chickens digging them up) has had the added bonus of keeping the parsley frost free and still productive. I still have no idea what I'm going to use the parsley for (does one garnish baked beans on toast in one's house?), but it seems to be indestructible and non-invasive; both good qualities in my neglected veg patch.

Not very exciting picture of parsley

(are you bored yet?)

I've been sorting my seeds out for the next season and had theis year's delivery of heritage seeds from the HDRA (now known publicly as Garden Organic) seed collection. As always, I have far too many seeds, and lots of seeds for things that we probably wont eat even if we successfully grew it, but I've stuffed them into the box, in order of month of planting. It's all very organised with little cardboard separators between the months. Peppers and chillis and tomatos first (Jan-Feb). Then 20,000 packets of seeds for Mar-Apr. Then absolutely nothing until September (one seed pack in that section).

I read somewhere that this date thing was a really good way of organising your planting.

Yeah...

On Friday ds2 mentioned something about electronics and whereas I would usually have made excuses - or pointed him in the direction of dh - I patiently went in the loft and got out an electronics set that I'd got secondhand years ago (probably when he was a toddler!). Ds1 had never wanted to use it (hence why it was collecting dust in the loft), but ds2 spent over an hour making circuits to create 'bird sounds' (we seem to be having a bird theme going here) and then fiddling around making alterations. I was clueless, but both the boys seemed to know alot more than me! When ds2 started telling me what a transistor did, I started glazing over (as I would if dh did the same), but I have to admit I was impressed.

And no, I can't remember what a transistor does. If it could clear up dog poo, sort out the odd-sock drawer or even cook Italian Kale then I might show more interest. I don't need to know what a transistor does to be grateful that an electronic gadget is working. And I don't suppose a florist needs to know the ins and outs of photosynthesis to do their job...

Well either the volcanic mountain of craft materials has finally erupted, or the home-educating Gremlins have been doing some tidying up...

I really shouldn't feed them after 5pm

So...I finish on a photo of dd1 riding her bike (shortly after this was taken she got distracted by looking at the postman coming the other way, tipped to one side and fell off). Funny how I always take photos just before my children damage themselves in some way. Some might say it's inattentive parenting. I prefer to call it sequencial fate. Camera + child = nice photo + minor accident.

Essential clothing for a bike ride in below-freezing weather:

woolly hat, jumper, coat and - oh yes - shorts!

On Sunday the weather was fine so around lunchtime we headed off to a local garden centre where there is a playground and animals to look at. As usual we took a bag of carrots for the goats. Here's a photo of ds2 looking cool...


and dd1 with her favourite toy dog. We keep losing the darned thing and I'm started to get quite paranoid about taking it anywhere. Most of the following photos are taken by ds1 on his camera.





And a not very flattering photo of me and jack. I knew there was a good reason why I'm usually the person behind the camera, not the subject! I'm not quite sure what Jack is doing, but I'm obviously trying to stop him.


Mmm...here's a llama (or is it an alpaca?) with a very nice hairdo. Must have gone to the same hairdresser as my boys (yes, the memory is still raw).

This week at the sailing club we were making lanterns for the forthcoming bonfire night party. This is the grand version (made by a friend, not me). It has a willow frame covered with tissue paper (coated with diluted pva glue) and a candle suspended by wire in the middle. I was a bit concerned that the tissue paper might catch light, but apparently it doesn't (ok, I'm still a bit paranoid about it). It wasn't dark enough to show the full effect, but I think with a bit of refinement it will look fantastic.

I've got plans to try one at home using chicken wire. I thought we could mold it into a shape (leaving a hole to place a night light in a jar inside) and then do the whole tissue-paper-with-pva-glue thing.

Here are some of the other lanterns we made. The 'punching holes in a tin can' ones were pretty tricky to make, partly because they rolled around so much and also because they tended to flatten out when hit with a hammer and nail. The solution, we found, was to fill them with sand from the sandpit and sit them in a pile of sand to stop them rolling. I marvelled at my ingenuity but then I was given an even better tip of filling them with water and freezing them overnight - apparently this works a treat. It was still difficult for the kids to manage, so most of them opted to make lanterns by decorating glass jars.
And no, I don't know why dd1 has blue stickers on her nose...

The painted glass jars...(still a bit sticky!)

We had a little birthday party at the sailing club for dd1 who will be 5 tomorrow. Even the bigguns were keen to join in pass the parcel! I managed to impress myself by actually making the birthday cake: it wasn't burnt and it even rose (a bit). I had a bit of an icing failure though; the icing was meant to be stiff enough to stand in peaks, but instead it sort of slopped and ran down the sides into a puddle. Still, by the time dd1 had covered it with artificial additive-laden, sugar-overdose sprinkles, then it didn't seem to matter. As I had loads of icing left I even slapped it on the home-made chocolate cookies. Remind me not to do that again...

The kids have been doing some science with dh at his work, while I go to my weekly writing class. Last week they took a CD player apart. Thankfully most of the bits stayed at his work (we already have too many boxes of bits of dismantled machinery).

This week they had a magnetic device thingy that made objects 'float'. Can't remember the name of it, but judging by the whiteboard on the wall dh had been trying to explain exactly how it worked. I'll be asking questions later children...

Anyway, here's a video of it working:

We haven't been doing our regular http://www.kramf.com/ experiments, so I need to get back in to the habit. I think it's also time to pick up on some history, maybe a museum visit, or perhaps going back to covering some of 'The Story of the World' book. We seem to have busy days just doing 'stuff' and sometimes it's hard to fit in anything more formal. Once dd1's birthday is sorted we'll have a chance to settle down to other things.

I had the 'usual questions' today at my writing class when a few people found out that I was home educating. I'm always happy to answer the questions because I know they were exactly the sort of questions I used to ask years ago. However, it's always quite difficult to explain to parents who are in 'the system' and who still have very 'schooled' brains without sounding defensive. I don't mean that in a derogatory way because having spent years in the school system most home edders I've known needed to deschool and rethink the whole concept of education, even more than their children. I know that when I first started out the idea of autonomous education - children learning without teaching! Shock horror! - would have just been too much for my brain to even contemplate. Now it seems so obvious, so self-evident, that I wonder how I couldn't see it earlier! I have a completely different mindset now. And if my kids blame me when they're older (as most kids blame their parents) I'll just say it was all the fault of that John Holt bloke.

To finish off the posting I thought I'd pop in a photo of dd1 enjoying her latest 'thing', colouring in. It's a fascinating time for me because neither of the boys showed any interest in any of the colouring books we had. In fact we got given so many I just got rid of all of them because it didn't seem worth taking up space. Now I've got to go out and buy some more. She draws lots too. Mostly dogs and hearts (with the boys it was always castles, knights and machinery). I did wonder if there is anything I could have done to lessen the gender difference and then I gave up thinking about it 'cause my brain ached.

Oh, and as a p.s. Ds1 seems to be doing fine on his ds lite. I'm not quite ready to ration it yet as I figure the novelty will wear off in a few weeks and he'll get into a more civilised routine of using the ****** thing. It seems that he got a good deal though. The deal included the ds lite and one game up to the value of £29.99. Gamestation have a general policy that if you don't like a game you can return it within 10 days. Ds1 returned the game the day after we bought the package (it wasn't quite what he expected) and they then said under their returns policy that he could choose any games (plural) up to £29.99. Because they had a sale on he got 2 games that he wanted and was also given a £5 credit voucher for the remaining money!

Angular momentum with sellotape and the speed of light with microwaved chocolate.Two months worth of science in one week.

So, what have we been up to?

Well, last week we went to an hour-long workshop titled 'The Science of Magic' at our library and run by staff from a local science 'hands-on' centre. Having two scientist parents in the family means that the kids have a pretty good grounding in science. Our experience of science workshops aimed at children is at worst they are badly presented or give inaccurate scientific knowledge, and at best they are oversimplified and patronising. Fortunately this presentation was neither.

Although the bicarb and vinegar (in this case, water) in a film capsule experiment was very familiar to us (see previous blogs), the other experiments/demonstrations were less familiar. One involved an optical illusion, another involved angular momentum and another magnetism. Even I learnt several things from it; I didn't know much about angular momentum and had forgotten that zinc and cobalt were attracted to magnets. I also learnt that of the three things: movement, magnetism and electricity, any 2 of these combined would make the third. How simple! Now why didn't they teach me physics like that at school?

Surprisingly, the kids seemed to take quite a bit in. Ds2 was repeating some of the information about 'blind spots' as we crossed the road the following day, and both boys tried to repeat the experiment with a roll of sellotape tied to a string and held up, while a mug with an egg was suspended on the other end of the string over a rod. Ok, difficult one to explain...I did try and do a google search on 'angular momentum' and 'sellotape', but, not surprisingly it just came up with some very weird links. I resisted the urge to click on the one about locusts...don't think that would have been useful. If anyone finds a link to a better description of this experiment let me know and I'll put in it.

Dd1 finds a cabbage white butterfly in the garden and carries it around all day in her pop-up bug box. It even went for a car ride!

So what else have we been up to? Well ds1 played cricket for the first time, at a birthday party. I looked up from my glass of wine to find him actively participating in a group sport (shock horror!) and then taking advice on bowling (!). Maybe sometimes I underestimate my kids. Anyway, he obviously doesn't have any sport genes from his parents as he managed to bowl reasonably successfully AND hit a ball with a cricket bat, neither of which are skills his parents posess.

Then of course more time at the sailing club. Will probably get there this week some time too. Not a huge amount of actual sailing has been taking place, but as usual dd1 has been freezing her wotsits off, swimming in the lake. Have just ordered her a wetsuit (pink of course) in the hope that this might allow her to stay longer in the water (i.e. prevent her lips from turning blue during the first 5 minutes). Just hoping she likes it enough to wear it. Fussy? That's an understatement.

Ds2 takes dd1 out for a sail in an Oppie. I ask them not to go too far out, just in case they need rescuing!

BREAKING NEWS!

For the past two mornings ds1 has been late out of bed because he has been reading. Yes..READING! READING! READING!I hardly dared to get him out of bed this morning, but he had a workshop to go to and was being picked up quite early. Looks like he's worked his way through the first 5 chapters of a Goosebumps book.

The museum workshop ds1 went to this morning was 'Flintnapping'. So, two hours later he came home with a sharp - but apparently very functional - bit of flint. According to him it would be ideal for making arrows. Great. Might keep that in the kitchen drawer: it could come in handy if I mislay the potato peeler.

At the museum there was an exhibition on the 70s. It's a bit scary to see your familiar childhood items displayed in a museum. Am I really THAT old? I did love the hard plastic tupperware-style snack tray that had swivel dishes on a kind of 'tree'. Orange, too. Nice. Still it's better to have your childhhod labelled as 'retro' rather than 'antique' I guess.

The kids clean up a bowl of chocolate.

Using leftover chocolate from a Krampf experiment (see http://www.krampf.com/) we covered some chocolate brownies that I'd made. The experiment involved melting chocolate in a microwave to see how a microwave works and to work out the speed of light. We calculated it to be around 4.4 billion thingies, so we were only a couple of billion thingies out. I think we probably didn't have a big enough try to put the chocolate in, so some of the hot spots were missing and this led to inaccuracies in the calculations. Hey, what's a few billion between friends?

Here are the instructions, cut and pasted direct from Krampf website.

________________________________________________________________

MICROWAVE CHOCOLATE (from http://www.krampf.com/)

Part 1:

To try this, you will need:

a microwave oven
waxed paper
several chocolate bars

a large plastic, glass, or paper plate. Do not use metal!
Start by looking at the inside of the oven. If it has a turntable to rotate the food (most do), remove it. We want the chocolate to stay in one place, not move around.
Cover the plate with waxed paper, and then place the chocolate bars (unwrapped) on the plate to form a solid layer. You want the layer of chocolate to be as flat and even as possible.
Place the plate of chocolate in the oven and set the timer for 30 seconds. Depending on your oven, you may have to cook it a bit longer, but I learned from experience (see this week’s video) that cooking too long gives you a LOT of smoke and a mess.
After 30 seconds of cooking, check the results. You should find that there are spots where the chocolate is melted, and maybe burned, and other places where it is not melted at all. Why?
Your microwave oven works by producing microwave radiation. No, its not radioactive! This is electromagnetic radiation, which also includes visible light, radio waves, ultraviolet light, radar, etc. Microwaves can cause water molecules to vibrate, producing heat to cook your food. OK, so why does your oven have hot spots, instead of cooking evenly?
Instead of just blasting microwaves around, your oven produces something called a standing wave. The easiest way to imagine a standing wave is to look at one. Get several feet of rope, and tie one end to a doorknob. Hold the other end move back to take up most of the slack. You don’t want the rope tight. Start shaking the rope up and down, and notice the way the rope wiggles. By adjusting how fast you shake the rope, you can find the point where it produces a stable pattern. Some parts of the rope will always be moving up and down, while other points will not move much at all. Its easier to see in the video than it is to describe, but you should recognize the pattern when you see it. That is a standing wave. The points where the wave is moving up and down a lot would be the part of the wave that produces a lot of heating in the oven, producing the burned spots. The part of the wave that does not move much would not produce much heat, giving you the cooler spots in the oven. That is why you need a turntable to move the food through the hot spots, to heat it evenly.

Part 2:

Follow the directions from last week’s experiment, to produce the melted spots. If you still have last week’s chocolate, you can use it. If, on the other hand, you are like me, you ate all the chocolate, and so now you have to start from scratch. Of course, that means more chocolate to eat, so its not a bad thing.
Once you have cooked the chocolate and have your melted spots, the next step is to look at the pattern. Different ovens may have different patterns, but mine produced three evenly spaced spots on one side, and two on the other side. There would have been three on the other side, but one of the spots was beyond the edge of the chocolate.
Measure the distance from the center of one melted spot to the center of the next one. You should get something close to 6 centimeters. Mine measured 6.2 centimeters. Then measure the distance from the center of the second spot to the center of the third. Again, I got 6.2 centimeters.
Now, think back to last week. We said that each hot spot represented the extreme point of a standing wave of microwave radiation. If you froze the wave, the first melted spot would be the top of one wave. The second melted spot would be the bottom of that wave, and the third spot would be the top of the next wave. The distance from wave top to wave top is the wavelength, so the wavelength for my microwave oven is 12.4 centimeters (6.2 + 6.2)
Once we know the wave length, then we multiply that by the frequency. Frequency tells us how many waves per second are passing a point. Looking on the back label, I found that my microwave oven has a frequency of 2450 megahertz. One megahertz is one million waves per second, so 2450 megahertz is 2,450,000,000 waves per second. We know that each of those waves is 12.4 centimeters long, so if we multiply frequency times wavelength, we will get the speed of the microwaves. That gives us a speed of 30,380,000,000 centimeters per second. The actual speed of light is 29,979,245,800 centimeters per second, surprisingly close considering that I was not very precise with my measurements.
Afterwards, I realized that I should have put the chocolate bars on an insulating bed of graham crackers, and then added a top insulating layer of marshmallows, to make light speed s’mores. Now that is a potentially winning science fair project!