This link has absolutely nothing to do with what we are studying at the moment but I was sent it from a friend and I simply love elephants and just had to share!
Please don't watch if you are squeamish as it is a video of an elephant giving birth to a baby, if your not squeamish then please keep watching till the end because the mother knows just what to do to get the baby breathing, it's awesome!
Monday, 7 June 2010
Sunday, 6 June 2010
Green Festival
We had a lovely afternoon here. It was a much larger event than I had first thought with loads of things happening, something for everyone's tastes I reckon :o)
Our local home ed group had a stall there which apparently got lots of interest so we'll wait and see if anything comes of it. My youngest bought a roller boot 'Pandora' bead and we had a freshly stone baked pizza for lunch. I got lots of information about composting so I am raring to try again as last years compost came out rather heavy and very wet; aparently I needed to put more 'browns' into it, so now I know :o)
For a perfect ending to a perfect day... it is pouring down with rain so for the first time in two weeks I get to put my feet up instead of watering the plants in the garden, yeay!
Our local home ed group had a stall there which apparently got lots of interest so we'll wait and see if anything comes of it. My youngest bought a roller boot 'Pandora' bead and we had a freshly stone baked pizza for lunch. I got lots of information about composting so I am raring to try again as last years compost came out rather heavy and very wet; aparently I needed to put more 'browns' into it, so now I know :o)
For a perfect ending to a perfect day... it is pouring down with rain so for the first time in two weeks I get to put my feet up instead of watering the plants in the garden, yeay!
Friday, 4 June 2010
More on Chemistry
We have been working our way through this book, albeit slowly but we are getting there. There is so much information in it that we keep going off on tangents so it's taking a while.
Here is the download we used for making candy compounds, common ones such as O, CO2, etc.
We started off with some simple compounds, even I could do these ones without much thought,
then we moved onto more complex ones, sadly I can't remember what this one is supposed to be but it looks impressive :o)
Below you can see a rather tasty looking Carbon atom. The nucleous has green and yellow sweets showing the neutrons and protons and the shells have red sweets showing the electrons. We used this template to make lots of other atoms but I won't show you all the photos but you get the gist of it; we got through lots of packets of wine gums :o)
Here is the download we used for making candy compounds, common ones such as O, CO2, etc.
We started off with some simple compounds, even I could do these ones without much thought,
then we moved onto more complex ones, sadly I can't remember what this one is supposed to be but it looks impressive :o)
Below you can see a rather tasty looking Carbon atom. The nucleous has green and yellow sweets showing the neutrons and protons and the shells have red sweets showing the electrons. We used this template to make lots of other atoms but I won't show you all the photos but you get the gist of it; we got through lots of packets of wine gums :o)
Chemistry ugh!
Over the last few weeks we've been looking at Chemistry, nothing too indepth as my daughter's love lies with animals but I just want her to have an understanding of the subject upto GCSE level and then if she takes it further that's up to her.
Having never studied Chemistry myself I felt very much out of my depth and I have to admit it, I have been putting it off and didn't go out of my way to encourage my daughter to learn about it. We've done the usual experiments because they were fun but nothing too serious. We used the Chemistry kit we bought way back when my son was interested but he just got on with it and didn't need me to interfere at all except to clean up the exploded blue ink off the kitchen ceiling ;o)
However after reading a lot of books and visiting many websites I now feel I have a thorough enough understanding of the Periodic Table to explain it to my youngest.
We started off by doing a little atomic structure, obviously using as many sweets and marshmallows as we could, guaranteed to get my daughter's interest. We also played this game of elements trading cards and visited these websites One, and website two.
Then finally we got around to The Periodic Table and visited these websites: one, two and three and four is the answer key. We also did some chemical bonding, photographs to follow after I've taken them off the camera. All in all it went quite smoothly and we've enjoyed it so far... I think that might have a lot to do with the sweets though :o)
Tuesday, 18 May 2010
Green House Photos
I thought this deserved a blog entry all of it's own because I'm so pleased with it :o)
In the first photo you can see the 3 tier shelves my hubby made, this is were I sow and plant because it has a wire rack top so the soil just falls straight through and back into the bag. We have a grape vine or should I say stick in the far right corner and hope for great things there and you can just make out my metal shelves from my plastic covered green house.
Below gives you a better view of the automatic windows, as you can see it was a very hot day so they were open fully, even so the greenhouse was still stifling so I had to open the door too.
Above shows the tomato seedlings which we planted and have had on the windowsill for a few weeks now. Some have been potted on and are having their first night out in the greenhouse tonight... I feel like an anxious parent on the first time a child stays away from home at night.
Above are my fabulous first time Tulips, the colour is so magnificent and striking, I'll certainly keep them and let them flower again next year. I might even plant some in the garden beds.
In the first photo you can see the 3 tier shelves my hubby made, this is were I sow and plant because it has a wire rack top so the soil just falls straight through and back into the bag. We have a grape vine or should I say stick in the far right corner and hope for great things there and you can just make out my metal shelves from my plastic covered green house.
Below gives you a better view of the automatic windows, as you can see it was a very hot day so they were open fully, even so the greenhouse was still stifling so I had to open the door too.
Above shows the tomato seedlings which we planted and have had on the windowsill for a few weeks now. Some have been potted on and are having their first night out in the greenhouse tonight... I feel like an anxious parent on the first time a child stays away from home at night.
Above are my fabulous first time Tulips, the colour is so magnificent and striking, I'll certainly keep them and let them flower again next year. I might even plant some in the garden beds.A Lovely Summer's Day
We've had a really good day today, the fact that it was really sunny certainly helped, but yes, we've had a lovely relaxed day and even though it was relaxed we got lots done.
My youngest started off with MEP Maths, then fed and watered her animals (too many to list). After this we started to sow seeds, a little late but my greenhouse is up and ready now, then we moved into the front garden to dehead the daffodils and do a bit of weeding. We baked chapatti bread for lunch and then my youngest started reading about 'money' from a good little book I bought here. She did this out in the garden sun bathing with her big sis, whilst her brother was sunbathing too but of course he was on the laptop at the same time :o) He's currently working on a few websites and more updates for the DigiLapbook.
I bought this book too because the other book gives the basics but it really spends alot of time on the American Bank and money system whereas this one is on about the English pound and pence so they can learn about them both for good measure :o)
Eventually I hope to do this nifty little lapbook about money from Homeschool Helper or maybe combine it with 'Living with Less' by Hands of a child, I'm not sure yet.
When the sun started to fade we turned in and my youngest started doing photoshop and editing again, leaving me free to do this, where or where would we be without computers...
My youngest started off with MEP Maths, then fed and watered her animals (too many to list). After this we started to sow seeds, a little late but my greenhouse is up and ready now, then we moved into the front garden to dehead the daffodils and do a bit of weeding. We baked chapatti bread for lunch and then my youngest started reading about 'money' from a good little book I bought here. She did this out in the garden sun bathing with her big sis, whilst her brother was sunbathing too but of course he was on the laptop at the same time :o) He's currently working on a few websites and more updates for the DigiLapbook.
I bought this book too because the other book gives the basics but it really spends alot of time on the American Bank and money system whereas this one is on about the English pound and pence so they can learn about them both for good measure :o)
Eventually I hope to do this nifty little lapbook about money from Homeschool Helper or maybe combine it with 'Living with Less' by Hands of a child, I'm not sure yet.
When the sun started to fade we turned in and my youngest started doing photoshop and editing again, leaving me free to do this, where or where would we be without computers...
Monday, 17 May 2010
Proud mum alert :o)
Just a really quick post to tell you about my daughter's website. She's made most of it herself and the rest with her brother's help :o) She is really getting into the whole photo editing thing, I'm not sure I understand the point in it all but the finished product does look rather good.
The website contains her portfolio and tutorials to help other would be editers (is that the word used in the editing world?) My daughter has completed these herself and is currently teaching herself photoshop Cs3 as she goes along. I am totally amazed because she's gone from being almost computer phobic (other than emails) to my not being able to get her off the thing! Just goes to show that once something captures their interests, there's no stopping them.
The website contains her portfolio and tutorials to help other would be editers (is that the word used in the editing world?) My daughter has completed these herself and is currently teaching herself photoshop Cs3 as she goes along. I am totally amazed because she's gone from being almost computer phobic (other than emails) to my not being able to get her off the thing! Just goes to show that once something captures their interests, there's no stopping them.
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