Felt making

Flat felting is a really funb and easy way to make things with children.  Here we were making a purse.  The main part of the process involves bashing squeezing and twisting the wool once wrapped up in bubble wrap so that the wool fibres knit together and thus form felt.

Here is a wool fibre under the microscope.   You can clearly see the scales which are there which catch with scales on other fibres and mesh together.

Play

Play is such an important part of kids lives.  I am so glad we have the opportunity to let our kids to spend so much of their time doing so.  It occurred to me, that even though it is the thing Evan and Autumn spend most of their time doing, I don't document or really mention it on this blog. I think the reason is simple, I'm not involved.  I am purposefully not involved in their play.  They don't want me involved, and don't need me.  My role is that of facilitator.  I provide them with opportunities, mainly, rather than specific ideas or stimuli.

Our outdoor space grows by the day as the children spread into the woods behind our house, beyond the badger set. Our garden could easily be described as a complete mess, or unkempt or even a tip.  I beg to differ.  It is an open ended environment in which children can learn, explore, play, cooperate, create, destroy, test, imagine and just be.  I find it easier to let this space be and give it over to them as I don't have to be in it the whole time, and there is much more space.

Science day - Plants

Today, with another family, we did a number of explorations and experiments to explore plants and how they grow.  To plan for this day we have been growing beans with different variables changed.

#1 - Demonstrating oxygen evolution during phosynthesis using Cabomba pondweed

This was such fun, we followed a number of the experiments in the linked to page.

#2  Exploring the variables affecting growth on a bean plant

Excitingly our beans planted at the same time about 3 weeks ago showed differences depending on their environment.  The plants germinated at Su's house (warmer and brighter) grew really well, whilst ours failed to thrive. The photographs give an indication of what they were like.  The bean which had been left without water failed to germinate at all, whilst the bean with water but no light germinated and grew quite well, but the small leaves which grew remained small and yellow.  The plant appeared to try hard to find light, seeking out fractions of light at the edge of the cupboard it was in.

#3 Exploring the different parts of a flower

#4 Hapa Zome - Exploring the colours found in plants

Hapa Zome printing is the process of extracting the colour from a plant by bashing and thereby transferring the colour onto fabric underneath.  It was the most wonderful satisfying experience and everyone enjoyed it, including me and Su.

A relaxed day at Chatsworth

When we visited with friends last week, Evan and Autumn found that there were a number of things they wanted to do, but our friends weren't particulalry interested.  So I promsied we would have a choice session at Chatsworth, where they could choose to do what they wanted and I woudln't hurry them on to another thing.  Evan really wanted to watch the globe fountain and play in the squirrel nutkin tree.  On Tuesday, that is exactly what we did, after a quick stint in the playground and farmyard, we headed to the gardens and we spent 2 hours at the squirrel nutkin tree whilst I ate lunch and did some craft.  Then we moved on to the maze and then rock garden.  The kids had a wonderful time plopping little rocks into the pond, watching as the ripples got larger.  Finally we went to the globe fountain.  No paddling today, as the cascade was turned off whilst they cleaned it out.  

At the globe fountain we decided to time the different intervals of the sequence of movements it made.  We watched for 20 minutes, and with the cycle being about 4 minutes long we had a few different sets of timings to work from.  We got to the point where we were able to countdown to each of the next things in the process.

A beautiful relaxed day.   It made a nice change to let the children set the full agenda rather than compromising.  I think we need to do that more often. Thank you Chatsworth, once again, for making our week pretty amazing.

 Evan was concerned about this nest having fallen out the tree, no eggs in it though.

University Science Day

This Wednesday, Evan had the opportunity to visit the Chemistry department at the University for some experimenting in the School's lab and an Electricity lecture.  During the evaluation he said he had an amazing time and he thought all of it was brilliant.  I was surprised at this, as the afternoon was a lecture on Electricity, which, whilst interesting and interactive, Evan appeared to pay no attention to as he was obsessed with making his newly made slime, touch the floor.  However, my husband mentioned to me last night, that Evan gave his own lecture on Electricity to him with all the elements that were discussed using all the terms correctly and giving examples.  He seemed capable of not showing any outward signs of engagement in a topic, whilst actually taking it all in and understanding the concepts clearly.  He is a keen scientist, so the subject matter helped,  but the level at which his mind is working on these ideas seems beyond what I am capable of fully understanding.  Today, I have been reflecting on my role with this.  Everything we come across to do with Science he seems to understand instantly.  Do I, therefore, provide him with as many opportunities as possible to take on board new science things, or continue allowing him to pick things up when the moment or situation arises that it feel pertinent?  I am not really sure.  My instinct tells me that he will find his way to all the learning he wishes in time, but what stops me is the fact that a lot of the learning that he could do with science may require external skills that he has yet to require, therefore needing me to be more proactive in my approach.

I toyed with the idea of postponing the density exploration until science club next month, but decided instead to do it today.  He said to me on the Science day that he has been inspired by the day and want to do more Science work in the future.  He is most keenly attuned to the fact building rather than experimenting at the moment.

Thank you to all involved in the Science day, it really has given us a lot to think about.

Guinea Pigs Online

For anyone who encounters us in the forthcoming weeks and possibly months, it will become quickly evident that we have a few new play constructs under our belts.  A move on from Octonauts and Peter Rabbit; the world inhabited by Coco and Fuzzy, near Strawberry park, has become our world too.

"GUINEA PIGS ONLINE is the squeak-out-loud funny new series starring Coco and Fuzzy: two guinea pigs who love surfing the internet when their owners aren’t looking!" 

We have all thoroughly enjoyed this series of 5 books.  Although the perilous adventures they get into has been a true test for, 'in the moment' Autumn, who gets completely absorbed in their world during the story, and runs off screaming.  During the first book we had to read almost the whole thing in one sitting as the perilous antics would desist.

Sadly a couple of nights ago, the adventures came to an end when we closed the book on the final book in the series.  Evan in eager to get engaged in the sister series - Puppies online, but Autumn is mourning the loss of Coco and Fuzzy.  Fuzzy, who, by the way, she inhabits most of every day presently, and we get corrected if she is wearing her crest and we refer to her as Autumn.  She talks about her nails as claws exclusively and feet and hands as paws.  When we went to Yorkshire sculpture park the other day, she was told she couldn't have bare paws and needed paw covers, so, true to her word she found two pairs of shoes and covered her hands and feet with them.  Autumn's capacity for make believe play is unending, and she goes in deeper every day, and is often found fully "storying" their play with additions of things like "..said Pepper" in her play.  She really enjoys playing with language and has such a strong imagination.  She really likes to embody the characters she plays in their mannerisms, the way they would speak, the words they would use and the types of play and things they would do.  I really admire and enjoy Autumn and Evan's games together, which, whilst not free of disagreements, are largely peaceable and productive.  Lots of collaboration, negotiation and a willingness to keep the story going.  All of these elements I remember as themes in the drama groups I've attended over the years, as well as themes in our lives that help us to function as humans in today's society.

Back to stories again, I stumbled upon a Moomin book in a charity shop the other day which I simply had to have, at 25p how could I not.  Well, they fell in love the moment I started to tell them the characters.  And then when Pat read the book to them last night they were snuggly and entranced.  I came home from work when they were part way through, and came into our room to get changed, and they didn't notice I was there.  They loved it, and I'm really looking forward to seeing where this new love may lead in the adventures of our lives.

Plant veins in action

Responding to a query of Autumn's the other day about "the weird line" on leaves and stems, we explored this using a simple experiment with a stick of celery and water with red food colouring, a day later and here was the result.

Exploring Density

After spotting the experiment on Nina and the Neurons, Evan said that he would like to explore the liquids that float and sink.  So today was the day.  I started by doing a little research, and found this great video demonstrating density towers.

Good as the video was, I felt that simply replicating it would miss a lot of learning opportunities, so decided to get Evan to create his own density tower by exploring the comparative densities of different liquids he found.

He found:
Water
Milk
Apple Juice
Tomato Ketchup
Sunflower Oil
Vinegar
Washing up liquid
Hair Conditioner
Shower Gel
Aloe Vera Gel

I helped him to explore the comparative densities of the the liquids, all, initially compared to water.  So in glasses we poured out water and each of the liquids.  Before each time, I asked him to make a guess, or hypothesis of what would happen. He varied whether he put the water in first or the other liquid.

As I had watched the video, I had noted that it is important to be careful when pouring on some liquids to prevent inadvert displacement of lower liquids.

We decided to use a blue food colouring in the water to see the distinction between the liquids more clearly after a few liquids got mixed up.

We wrote a chart as we went which placed the different liquids on a scale according to their density compared to each other.  Once we had done this we found a few of the liquids were almost the same density as water and mixed up so that neither colour were distinct any longer.  Namely, vinegar, milk and apple juice.  So we decided to use plain water instead.  Next it was time to differentiate between the liquids which had a greater density than water to see which one we should put on top of each other. Evan guessed that tomato ketchup has the greatest density, so trialled this with putting what he thought was the next, which he thought would be the shower gel.  All his guesses were correct, as it goes, and we simply added them in turn on top of each other, even though we had planned on doing separate little experiments to find out which had the greater density out of two liquids at a time.  Here is the result.

We followed this by exploring the density of solid objects so started by exploring whether objects sunk or floated in water, and then moved on to adding oil on top to see if any of the objects had a smaller density than oil.  This was followed by exploring the greater density objects and liquids together with our findings as shown below.

We both loved looking at the different colours that sat together in this way, and Evan loved it so much he decided he wants a photo of the tower from all angles printed out and stuck onto a tube next for him to have near his bed.  We both noted how amazing the colour of the oil looks, particularly as there appears to be a very strong separation between the oil and water, a kind of film makes the oil base iridescent and very golden.  I think we might go on to have a go at home made lava lamps as an extension of this activity.

Yorkshire Sculpture Park - part 3

As the posts are so pic heavy, I've split them up.

Look up, there is a bee libary!!!

 Autumn's (AKA Fuzzy, from Guinea Pigs online) photography

Yorkshire Sculpture Park - going the long way

We have been many times to YSP, but this time decided to take the plunge and visit the furthest parts of it, since the gallery is open (I think it opens only a select period throughout each year).  I have a real fondness for Andy Goldsworthy, since I discovered his work whilst at University exploring art and nature.  His vision and sense of connection to the earth and nature I find inspirational and find myself emulating some of his ideas when out and about, and certainly using it as a springboard for art work with the children.  With this in mind we set about seeing "Hanging Trees", 2007. Which we saw a little trail about at the main centre on a video.  At first Evan thought all 3 trees were connected, despite the single layer wall, 30 metres between each.

On the way we found some other wonderful pieces.  

 Bluebell mania.  We picniced among them, and it was so idyllic.

 Added some money to the money tree.

 In case you can't see it - there is a really large Heron sat on this weeping willow.