Home education update October 2016

The last few weeks have been quite busy, Autumn always is with all the food preservation from the allotment and finishing off the summer projects. The children have been busy with days out, drawing, making Halloween crafts and writing books as well as going swimming and a new home ed sports club. They have also been enjoying the experiments in some science kits with Dad.

Some of the experiments were exploring densities, this first one is to recreate a kind of Lava lamp. They started by pouring water and oil into a jar, waiting for the liquids to separate then they added food colouring and salt. The salt dropped through the oil layer talking some oil with it, after the salt dissolved the oil returned to the top in what looked like bubbles. We have added a short video to show this in action.

The next experiment was to create the look of fireworks in a bowl of water. They first mixed oil and food colouring together and poured the mixture into a large bowl of water.

The oil and food colouring mixture rose to the surface but after a few minutes the food colouring began to sink down and look a little like fireworks, or streaks of colour. We have added a short video to show this in action too.

There was also a fizz bomb experiment but that really didn't work at all well. They then tried out the volcano experiment with vinegar, food colouring and bicarbonate of soda. The first time they tried not much happened at all, just a bit of a trickle, it was a bit of an anticlimax so Dad added more ingredients, this time it worked much better... a little too well.

So well in fact that it left a big red stain on the ceiling! I have spared you the video on this experiment as there was a lot of screaming.

We have enjoyed some lovely nature walks looking at all the leaves changing colour and the jewel like berries and visits to the beach for Autumn beach combing.

Also a trip to the local sea life centre, where the children watched the rays for what seemed like hours and got the chance to see the turtle having his lunch.

Beach Trip

The weather predicted rain for a couple of weeks so we decided to make the most of a really sunny day last week and get to the beach. It was a beautiful day, not a cloud in sight.

The children spent quite some time playing on the sand and in the dunes before deciding to do some paddling and beach combing.

We ended up walking quite a long way along the beach at the shore line and found many things of interest to look at and discuss.

We found lots of sea gooseberries that had washed up with the last tide, these are not technically jellyfish they are a marine invertebrate. They tend to only live a few months and die after spawning but just in case any were washed up by accident and were still alive the children decided to return them to the sea.

Finds like this usually inspire the children to learn what they can about the life cycle and this link leads to a wonderful website called Arkive where you can find out more about this creature and see photos of it in the water if you choose to.

My daughter also found a fish head and some dog whelk shells which were slightly worn away to reveal the beautiful inner spiral.

Our disappointing find of the day was some rubbish and lots of old fishing line and hooks which we decided to collect and take to the nearest rubbish bin as we were a little concerned that someone or one of the beach combing sea birds could have been injured. It is important to keep our wild spaces rubbish free and safe for all, it only takes a second.

Enjoying the Sun

Sorry for the lack of posts recently, really must try to keep up, we have had a very busy few weeks enjoying the lovely weather and spending most of our free time outside. During the week we went to the seaside by train, and we happened to pick the most glorious day for it, apparently it was the hottest day of the year so far. 

We spent half the day on the sandy part of the beach, looking at the things that had washed ashore and intended to visit Amazonia, a reptile house, in the afternoon but unfortunately it had not opened for the season yet so we will have to visit again another time. Not wanting to waste the rest of the day we walked through the sand dunes to have a closer look at the offshore wind farm and the sand bank, which usually has seals on. 

We have been for nature walks in our local woodland and spent a few days exploring our local nature reserve, on one day it was so lovely we walked round the entire great broad. There were so many swans here that some times it got a little scary when they came charging up to you, especially with the little ones about. My daughter however, was not phased at all being surrounded by about 7 or 8 swans much taller than her! We had to throw food at them and make a hasty retreat.

On the home front we now make our own yoghurt all of the time, and we have also been experimenting with cheese production. My son has been fascinated with the whole concept of making these things ourselves and has helped out too. So far we have just used a simple recipe to make cream cheese, but my husband is hoping to increase our range so that we can also make mozzarella and ricotta too. We will be posting soon about how we make these things in more detail.

As you can see in the above photograph some of the things we have planted are coming along very well, the children have been watching the new vegetable plants as they come up very closely. We have had good results so far from the peas and beans, and due to the lovely weather some of the other things like the corn and potatoes are also starting to show. The lovely wooden row markers that you can see were made by my husband, who has been very busy and has also made raised vegetable beds, a new desk and a new book shelf for a wall I'm hoping to turn into a wall of books. If you would like to see how some of these things are made visit his blog here.

Beach Love

How I do love the earth. I feel it thrill under my feet. I feel somehow as if it were conscious of my love, as if something passed into my dancing blood from it. --James Russell Lowell

A couple of days ago we visited the beach, an Autumn visit, to compare the difference in the things washed ashore by the sea at different times of year. We visited earlier in the year too, in spring, and went beach combing, the things we found this time were a lot different to the spring visit. It was wonderful to get to the beach again and we chose a really sunny day, even though we went to a beach with a town attached it was so quiet, hardly a soul to be seen strolling on the sand.

Spring

On the spring visit we found mostly young cuttlefish bones and some shark and ray egg cases. The photographs show a small sample of our finds. On our Autumn visit, there were no cuttlefish bones, there were a few egg cases (or 'mermaids purses' ) but this time we mostly found a few different kinds of shells. Mussel shells, dog whelk shells, some limpets and slipper limpets. Also much driftwood.

Autumn

We have decided to make some things from our finds to remind us of the times we spent on the seashore. I will post about the things we make at a later time but we have decided to use some of the small perfect whelk shells as jewellery charms for bracelets and to make some beach wind chimes with some of the other things.

Before leaving the seashore , while the children were playing, I took a little time to myself to feel at one with nature. Just for a second between the beach combing and playing I looked far out to sea and took a deep breath... with the wind in my hair and the sand between my toes, then as the breath left my lips I felt a kind of peace, a calmness spread over me... just for a second, I felt the freedom of the gulls and the wildness of the seals... then the call came to leave.

After our beach adventures, we decided to visit the sea life centre, which again we mostly had to ourselves. The children had the the touch pool all to themselves and the staff still gave them the educational talks. They got to touch a large crab, stroke a starfish and be cleaned by a sea anemone. There were some very happy children that day! We absolutely adore the seashore, my children especially, and often speculate what it would be like to live by the sea.

I wonder... does the seashore still hold it's magical quality if you see it everyday?

photographs numbered 1,4 and 5 were taken by my lovely husband.found here.