Growing crystals (hopefully!)

We've had an unplanned day at home today.  We were going to meet up with my mum but we  moved it to the end of the week.  I dug around to see if I could find anything the kids fancied doing, as the weather was looking too dismal for the playground or the woods.

I sometimes get an online magazine called Alphabet Glue and it has lots of ideas for cool things to do, and lots of printable resources.  They have a straight forward tutorial for growing crystals using string and a bicarbonate of soda solution.  I haven't replenished our bicarb stock, but wondered if a salt solution might work.  

Freddie was keen to work on the experiment.  It took *a lot* of salt to make a saturated solution.

Once the solution was ready, Fred added some food colouring so that we would grow red crystals.

Fred poured the solution into the glasses, and added the string.
Meg helped me to make a sugar solution, so we could see if they grow differently to salt crystals.  I hope one (or both) of them work!

Meg is heavily into Fireman Sam at the moment.  Today she and Betsy played with the emergency vehicles for ages.  We have a Playmobil fire engine and ambulance, and a Fireman Sam fire engine that Freddie got when he was little.

I found Freddie a new game for the Nexus.  It's a shark game, and he gets the shark to swim about and eat stuff.  Right up Fred's street!

I found another idea from Alphabet Glue - story machines.  They are printed box templates that you make up, and fill with a very long narrow strip of rolled up paper, like ticker tape.  You pull the paper out to see what is written on it.

Alphabet Glue suggests you write a story on the paper strip, but as neither Fred or Betsy are writing yet we came up with something different.  Betsy drew a picture on hers.  I wrote jokes on the other one and gave it to Fred as a joke machine.  He read most of it himself, except where my writing was too sloppy!

Back again!

I took an unscheduled blog break there!  We got a microscope, Meg was ill again, the kids did pony care at the stables when it was too wet to ride, lots of things I've forgotten now.  Whoops.
Now it's nearly December.  I'm crafting madly for Christmas, and planning Elf on the Shelf shenanigans, and advent activities.  I love this time of year.
Today has been a very relaxed affair.  I had hoped to go to a new group nearby but Meg woke up with a very runny nose and a case of the grumps.  So we stayed in a did lots of cool things.
Betsy has been asking about knitting for a few days, so I suggested we try finger knitting.  I did it using her fingers and between us we made a short scarf for her dog.

Betsy also did some sewing using one of her sewing cards.  I told her that the needle should go up and then down, and she drew herself a diagram as a reminder.  Brilliant!

All three kids did a foil art craft, borrowed from Jarvis next door.  They all enjoyed it, at the same time.  This doesn't happen all that often, and I loved it!  I've ordered our own kit so we can make some more.

Freddie played a game with the Playmobil people, involving a lizard, a shark, parrots and pirates.  I filmed it for him, he loves doing this.  I'll stick it on youtube later.  Meg watched it on my phone a few times, she was fascinated.

Freddie looked through the boxes upstairs to find something to do, and stumbled across the science box I put together recently.  He wanted to make a potato clock, and chose a sound experiments kit.
The potato clock is ace.  He chose to use apples.  He stuck the wires in as directed, and hey presto!  An edible battery.

Then we got to work on the sound experiments.  First he measured and cut some plastic tubes to make panpipes. We saw some musicians in town last week playing panpipes, so this was a cool connection to that.

And just because I can, here's a quick video of the panpipes in action!

Unfortunately, by the end of the day Betsy was feeling rough.  Two sick kids, I'm tired just thinking about it...

Science club

I offered to run a monthly science club from our house.  We started in May, and had the second one today.  Two families came each time, with 8 kids joining in.  So far I have given them bicarb/viniegar experiments (it's cheap, and fun!).  At the first club we did volcanic egg painting from toddlerapproved.com, and fizzy explosion bags from homeschooljournal.  Both experiments were exremely satisfying, though it took some tweaking to get the bags to blow up.

Today we made a volcano, and inflated balloons with carbon dioxide (great tute here).  I didn't take any photos but my friend Carrie did.  I'll add them in once she sends them to me.  Huge thanks to Carrie for taking the photos here too xxxx

Sunshine!

Yesterday it stopped raining for the day.  We were all pleased to get outside.  Freddie wanted to show us the biggest puddle (the one he swam in on 'his best day in history')   I had an important parcel to post so we did that first, and on to the park afterwards.
He was so right about the puddle!  There was a very deep lake in the underpass, so deep that it sloshed over the top of wellington boots with ease.  Betsy was very unhappy about it, Freddie was delighted.
Then the massive lake in the middle of the park.  Huge!  I tried to take some photos but I dropped my phone and it got wet (doh!).
After lots of splashing and some fun in the playground we headed home for lunch.
Later, we started an experiment with white flowers and food-coloured water.  We've not it before, and I've no idea how long it might take, or even if it will work at all.  I have my doubts about the yellow, as it was pretty viscous compared to the blue, but we'll see.

Betsy decorated some craft foam people.

Freddie spent some time on the Wii, playing Lego Pirates of the Caribbean.  He finished a level that's been challenging him for ages.

He and Meg then made the most of the dry weather.  Freddie wanted to do experiments with water and balloons.  He filled them up, squirted them, and made water bombs.  Jarvis came round after school and joined in the fun.

Unschooling in the woods

We went to an unschooling meet up today, our first one.  It was at the woods at Bracknell, where there is an excellent playground and a very hands on science centre.
The kids loved the playground, which was divided into 3 big areas.  There was much swinging, climbing and king-of-the-castling.

We met some new people.  We'd all come from far and wide, most from much further south or west than us, but it was lovely to see some new faces and make contact with other families.

After lunch we went into the science centre.  It's fantastic.  There is a big water play area, where you can see how canal locks work, how water flow can move heavy objects, and just generally play and get really really wet!

Freddie played around with a cool exhibit.  It's a huge cylinder of water, and when you turn the wheel it creates a water funnel that can get bigger and smaller.

I took a photo of Freddie through this water tower, I like the effect it had.

The main bit of the science centre had loads to do.  A ball floating on a air stream, a hot air balloon that we heated the air up for (to 70 or 80 degrees), a big keyboard, a bubble making pump and a whole bunch of other bits and bobs.

The kids really enjoyed the day.  The journey home was good too - Freddie played games on my phone (and won at Uno and back gammon yay!), while Betsy and I sang along to her Silly Songs tape.  After listening to it countless times she knows lots of the lyrics.

Fizz fizz fizz

It was our home ed co-op meet up this afternoon.  Mel set up little tables on the green outside the hall, and we did some science experiments.

I brought along the necessary equipment to make a 'Fizz Inflator'.  It was even better than I had expected.  Bicarb+vinegar+kids reactions never gets tired!  

Mel brought her volcano for more bicarb and vinegar fun.   She also had a cool experiment using red cabbage water as an acid and alkaline indicator.  I think we'll do this again at home.

On the way home we saw four swans flying through the sky.  They looked awesome!