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

Bowling, moon rock and the astronomer's despair.

Being the frugal sort, we like to make the most of cheap deals at the local bowling alley. There aren't many pluses to half term, but early-morning cheap bowling is one of them.

Plus, of course, biscuits are an essential ingredient of any trip out.

(do you like our 'ghostly visitor' on the left of that photo?)

Later, we head to a local museum, for a question-and-answer session with an astronomer, taking a couple of other children with us. There's no space to sit with the children, so I sit apart and a little behind them.

It is just as well. At approximately 3 minute intervals dd declares in a loud-enough-for-everyone-to-hear voice that she's 'finding this a bit boring, and can we go now?' I hiss 'No'. And gesture for her to stay seated. Suddenly it seems she is unable to understand my usual disapproving-mother sign language. 'What?!' she says.

Can I go now?

Moon and Mars rock

In between the questions about the composition of Mars, our youngest companion child puts up his hand and asks earnestly whether there are magnetic teapots in space.

The woman is flummoxed. 'No I don't think so dear. No that isn't right.'

His sister tries to explain where he has obtained this information, and how, actually he *is* right.

The woman lowers her voice to a whisper and does that patronising nodding thing that adults who aren't used to children do when faced with a child's unusual question. I look straight ahead.

'I'm bored, can we go now?' A small, familiar voice pipes up from across the room.

I smile and, for a moment, pretend that I have no children.

Despair at encountering home educated children

One small step for...

Our day so far

After chores and watching Kiki's Delivery Service and finally getting out of pjs,  the kids did a few "tick-box" things from their folders and the boys did touch-typing. Ds2 translated rude English sentences into Spanish. Ds1 read a few pages of chemistry IGCSE and didn't grumble. Too much. 

Ds2 and dd launched into some Art from the Fine Arts Harmony Course (making clay and wire figures), while listening to Vivaldi's Four Seasons and Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata (to go with our 'moon' theme today) on Youtube. 

We may not be very cultured, but we can at least do a good job of faking it.

Continuing with our Solar System/Space theme, we watched this on the moon and tides. Then, inspired by this, dd and ds2 made 'moon craters' using marbles, flour and chocolate powder. 

Ds1 put this film together, with a little help from ds2.

The experiments indicated that, yes, we could make craters just like those on the moon. The experiments also showed that flour and chocolate powder go a long way and don't brush off black clothes as easily as one might expect :)

Soon we will be heading down the library to return our - always overdue - books and to pick up a reservation of an audio CD for bookclub (20 discs. Yikes.) Then dd and ds2 will be going swimming with friends.

And now...

Dd has just rediscovered the asteroid landing zone that I brought in from the threat of terrestrial rain. She is currently covering the conservatory table, and herself, with flour and chocolate powder. Joy.

Doing a Space Theme, in true home education style.

Week 1 (ish):  Moon phases

• Bribe children with chocolate biscuits to watch this

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/scienceclips/ages/9_10/earth_sun_moon.shtmlhttp://www.newtonsapple.tv/video.php?id=1671

• Look at our little plastic model of moon/earth and try to work out what the heck is happening. Or get dh to run around with a torch and a ball. (Definitely better to leave it to the physicist of the family)

• Start a lunar cycle chart: http://sciencenetlinks.com/tools/lunar-cycle-1-calendar/

(we started, saw the moon once, briefly, between clouds before it disappeared for three nights. How can the moon disappear? You'd have thought someone else might have noticed...

• Lunar eclipse: http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2007/0812-lunar_eclipse.htm

Listen to dh going on and on and on about lunar eclipses while we wonder how soon we can get away and eat the rest of the biscuits.

• Orbital forces experiment: http://lunar.arc.nasa.gov/education/activities/active19.htm

i.e.  swinging an eraser by a piece of string and letting go without maiming anyone. Yeah. They'll love that one.


Week2 (ish): Tides and craters

[Not sure why those things go together, but it works for me.]

• Tides:  http://www.ehow.com/video_5238520_moon-affects-changing-tides.html

• Make a crater:

http://lunar.arc.nasa.gov/education/activities/active15.htm
(need map/pictures of moon/craters; deep tray and the patience of a saint while children spill stuff all over the house)

• Listen to Beethoven’s moonlight sonata 

and pretend that we are really a very culturally sophisticated family.


Week 3 (ish): The Sun

• Video about the sun:

(short, so the kids might actually sit through it)

• Make a sundial - e.g. printout the pointer and base here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/norfolk/kids/summer_activities/make_sundial.shtml

then move to a country where the sun actually shines at a strength that makes a sundial useable.


Week 4 (ish): The sun, day and night, seasons and other sun-ish stuff

• Sit kids in front of this video  that shows a model of earth going round the sun while sneaking off to the corner shop to buy more chocolate biscuits.

http://www.classzone.com/books/earth_science/terc/content/visualizations/es0408/es0408page01.cfm?chapter_no=visualization

• Seasons. (btw, someone should put in a complaint to the met office that Britain was due a summer between June and August and it didn't turn up.)

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/education/teachers/key-stage3/lessonplan-seasons/animation


Week 5(ish): Solar System

• Make a solar system mobile

http://play.powerhousemuseum.com/makedo/pdfs/Mobile_Solar_System.pdf

This is where I spend 2 hours cutting out fiddly little shapes and sticking them together while the kids wander off...probably to eat more biscuits.

• Discuss the position of the planets. Or point the kids towards a book and make knowledgeable noises. Watch parts of The Planets series that I recorded years ago anticipating this very moment. Or take note of the kids' rolled eyes and lengthy sighs and get them to watch the (much shorter) videos here:

Mercury here: http://science.discovery.com/videos/space-school-mercury.html
Venus: http://www.cosmolearning.com/videos/venus/
Earth: http://science.discovery.com/videos/space-school-earth.html
Mars: http://www.cosmolearning.com/videos/mars/
Jupiter: http://science.discovery.com/videos/space-school-jupiter.html
Saturn: http://www.cosmolearning.com/videos/saturn/
Uranus: http://science.discovery.com/videos/space-school-uranus.html


Week6(ish): More Solar System

• Take a solar system walk:

 http://tlc.howstuffworks.com/family/science-projects-for-kids-the-incredible-universe9.htm

(need ball about 8 inches in diameter(football); 2 pins with small round heads; 1 pin with very small round head;2 peppercorns; 1 small walnut; 1 acorn; 2 peanuts; Index cards; Glue or tape; Bright markers; yardstick; Large park and some maternal enthusiasm. Latter might be in short supply.)

• Listen to some Holst The Planets,

e.g. Mars: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0bcRCCg01I

or get a CD from library. Then acknowledge that none of the kids are interested but go through the motions anyway, because, after all, you are a home educator.

The End.