Saturday 27 September 2014
Flower - Saxifrage
The Flower
A Poem by Rowan Blair Colver
Bringing petal tips against the velvet of evening, like candle flicks that lightly glaze the air,
In stillness and enticement, some wonderful feeling of inner excitement, the flower opens.
Spilling pollen, aroma and life bringing colours, dusted with nectar and silk.
Alluring sensual milk of the fiery eye, behind half closed lid in pressure to absorb,
Sensations. It is silent, almost silent, apart from the heart that pounds inside,
And the movement of the dream that forms in bubbles and quilts around the very mind,
It comes. Like the fox from a burrow, with its whiskery nose and flash of red, allowing the presence
A Poem by Rowan Blair Colver
Bringing petal tips against the velvet of evening, like candle flicks that lightly glaze the air,
In stillness and enticement, some wonderful feeling of inner excitement, the flower opens.
Spilling pollen, aroma and life bringing colours, dusted with nectar and silk.
Alluring sensual milk of the fiery eye, behind half closed lid in pressure to absorb,
Sensations. It is silent, almost silent, apart from the heart that pounds inside,
And the movement of the dream that forms in bubbles and quilts around the very mind,
It comes. Like the fox from a burrow, with its whiskery nose and flash of red, allowing the presence
Of whatever awaits to greet its awareness from outside the confiding of safety
Courtesy of Rowan Blair Colver weebly page for more of this beauty check out this, and get weekly updates
Thursday 25 September 2014
Miraculous Mycellial
Autumn brings with it all sorts of beauty. We are eager to explore fungus and learn more about it this year. At Longshaw this week, lots of fungi spotted. With the kids this week we are going to go through our new book and see if we can identify some of these.
Future Learn: Basic Science ~ Understanding Experiments
We have begun our very first Open University course this week. It is ideal for home educators, and involves simple household equipment. This is the link if you are interested in joining in:
This was our Potato experiment. Trying to work out the water content of a potato. We discovered this potato was fully dehydrated after 6 minutes of cooking in the microwave, when it promptly burst into flames. Using simple calculations derived from the mass difference we established that the potato had a water content of 90% This was the children's first experience of using a simple xy axis analysis graph.
In the next experiment we looked at what happens to cucumber when allowed to rest in saline solution and distilled water. We were left with a flabby and lighter cucumber slice in the saline and a denser heavier cucumber slice in the distilled water. We have yet to discover why....
We have begun our very own field journal, where notetaking is made. Quite exciting to have something like what the researchers use. We look forward to the next 3 weeks of the course, and probably courses in the future on other subjects.
When looking over the results and the notes we discovered that we were learning about the process of Osmosis and how liquids like to be at an quilibrium but if there is a semi permeable membrane in the way there is a possibility that the liquids cannot pass through from one place to another because the size of the parts are too big - we used a sieve and a colander to demonstrate this on a practical level.
This week we learned about properties of solids and liquids, and their corresponding densities. Using an ice tray and some liquids as well as a freezer. See the picture below for our results.
We learned that whilst water in its solid state (ice) decreases in density, and therefore floats, this is due to the hexagonal structure that is created when it freezes which takes up more room than the water molecules in their liquid form. This is, however, unique to water, and is not found in other liquids, whose solids would sink in their liquid form. Sadly, as both the extra liquids we chose were water-based - despite my best efforts to persuade them to use other liquids, we only saw this difference in Olive Oil. The demonstration on video showed this happen with honey though, so the children witnessed this, even though it was secondhand.
This week we are looking at conditions necessary for living and thriving. We are doing this with really basic organisms - yeast.
This was our Potato experiment. Trying to work out the water content of a potato. We discovered this potato was fully dehydrated after 6 minutes of cooking in the microwave, when it promptly burst into flames. Using simple calculations derived from the mass difference we established that the potato had a water content of 90% This was the children's first experience of using a simple xy axis analysis graph.
We have begun our very own field journal, where notetaking is made. Quite exciting to have something like what the researchers use. We look forward to the next 3 weeks of the course, and probably courses in the future on other subjects.
When looking over the results and the notes we discovered that we were learning about the process of Osmosis and how liquids like to be at an quilibrium but if there is a semi permeable membrane in the way there is a possibility that the liquids cannot pass through from one place to another because the size of the parts are too big - we used a sieve and a colander to demonstrate this on a practical level.
WEEK 2
This week we learned about properties of solids and liquids, and their corresponding densities. Using an ice tray and some liquids as well as a freezer. See the picture below for our results.
We learned that whilst water in its solid state (ice) decreases in density, and therefore floats, this is due to the hexagonal structure that is created when it freezes which takes up more room than the water molecules in their liquid form. This is, however, unique to water, and is not found in other liquids, whose solids would sink in their liquid form. Sadly, as both the extra liquids we chose were water-based - despite my best efforts to persuade them to use other liquids, we only saw this difference in Olive Oil. The demonstration on video showed this happen with honey though, so the children witnessed this, even though it was secondhand.
WEEK 3
This week we are looking at conditions necessary for living and thriving. We are doing this with really basic organisms - yeast.
Monday 22 September 2014
Back at the Deep - Gentoo Penguins
We've not been to the Deep for quite a while, so decided that since we no longer have a Chatsworth pass we decided to get an annual pass to the Deep this year. As we prefer things quieter we thought the first week the children go back to school would be a fairly safe bet. As it happens there were two school trips, but fortunately they didn't disrupt our day out too much. We had a fabulous day, especially thanks to the Gentoo Penguins who had arrived earlier this year. We were with our friends and we have both decided to do a project on penguins in follow up to this. As a prelude to our visit we decided to watch a recent documentary on penguins which I had noticed on iplayer called "The Wonder of Animals". It is a fascinating program with new insight into the behaviour of Penguins and why they do the things they do. It was great to have watched this beforehand, as some of the behaviour that was explained in the program was displayed by the Gentoos in our presence. Namely the wiggling and preening they tend to do in the water prior to jumping out. It appears that they are allowing air bubbles to get in between the feathers to allow them to become more buoyant and use the air expelling to propel them about double the speed, and literally fly out of the water onto land. A truly impressive display which I managed to capture on film. Can't seem to upload as it is a really big file... I might try youtubing it and linking.
The children spent a good while at the lagoon area and coral reef drawing and painting, which I really encourage as it gives the children time to really and truly observe what they are seeing. I found it interesting to notice how fleeting the glances other people made at the lagoon, quickly snapping a photo with their camera and moving on to other things.
The children spent a good while at the lagoon area and coral reef drawing and painting, which I really encourage as it gives the children time to really and truly observe what they are seeing. I found it interesting to notice how fleeting the glances other people made at the lagoon, quickly snapping a photo with their camera and moving on to other things.
Saturday 20 September 2014
Minecraft - The story begins
About a month ago I introduced the children to the program Minecraft. I have known about it for about 2 years now, and whilst I recognised the learning potential of the game, I felt that by introducing it I would be opening the floodgates to nothing but Minecraft for the foreseeable future, with its infinite possibilities in a virtual world, I feared the infinite possibilities in the real world may be left behind. After a lot of thought and reading on the subject, we decided the time was right to introduce it. The first 3 days were completely dedicated to it, and Autumn found it quite tough having her playmate extracted from her play so suddenly and completely. I helped her to find things to do on her own, but didn't like the idea of life adjusting and changing so utterly and completely.
We had a chat and I suggested that some sort of limit were introduced so that we could all continue to function as a family in the normal way. My first suggest was playing it before breakfast. This went down like a lead balloon and was followed by a moody teenager going round the house slamming doors and huffing and puffing a lot. So I suggested that Evan come up with another idea that could help him to have Minecraft time and still allow us to do the things we normally do as well. He suggested before breakfast and after dinner, unless something else needed doing. I felt that this was a reasonable idea, and so did everyone else, so that is what we agreed upon.
So enough of the practicalities of finding a time and space for it to work with our family, now to the creations.
I haven't paid very close attention to all of Evan's projects, but here are some of the things that I believe he has worked on and created.
Digging to the centre of the world and finding lava;
a lot more digging really deep;
making a home with pretty garden features, a pond and water features;
a roller coaster;
using someone elses realm to make new spaces including a heated waterflume and heated swimming pool, more rollercoasters;
a penguin slide;
building pyramids to place beacons on;
In an octonauts land: an Octopod, an Octolab, several Gups and Octobots.
There are many other things that I don't know about as well. Skills he has developed include:
Making signs, building floating structures, teleporting, discovering new ways of doing things, following maps, programming using Redstone, exploring the properties of minecraft materials,
He has also thoroughly enjoyed talking through his projects with people. He is keen for his friends to start using Minecraft and to share his realms with the wider online Minecraft community.
Meanwhile Autumn has begun to use it too, exploring and building towers in the Frozen Minecraft
world that has been downloaded for her.
We had a chat and I suggested that some sort of limit were introduced so that we could all continue to function as a family in the normal way. My first suggest was playing it before breakfast. This went down like a lead balloon and was followed by a moody teenager going round the house slamming doors and huffing and puffing a lot. So I suggested that Evan come up with another idea that could help him to have Minecraft time and still allow us to do the things we normally do as well. He suggested before breakfast and after dinner, unless something else needed doing. I felt that this was a reasonable idea, and so did everyone else, so that is what we agreed upon.
So enough of the practicalities of finding a time and space for it to work with our family, now to the creations.
I haven't paid very close attention to all of Evan's projects, but here are some of the things that I believe he has worked on and created.
Digging to the centre of the world and finding lava;
a lot more digging really deep;
making a home with pretty garden features, a pond and water features;
a roller coaster;
using someone elses realm to make new spaces including a heated waterflume and heated swimming pool, more rollercoasters;
a penguin slide;
building pyramids to place beacons on;
In an octonauts land: an Octopod, an Octolab, several Gups and Octobots.
There are many other things that I don't know about as well. Skills he has developed include:
Making signs, building floating structures, teleporting, discovering new ways of doing things, following maps, programming using Redstone, exploring the properties of minecraft materials,
He has also thoroughly enjoyed talking through his projects with people. He is keen for his friends to start using Minecraft and to share his realms with the wider online Minecraft community.
Meanwhile Autumn has begun to use it too, exploring and building towers in the Frozen Minecraft
world that has been downloaded for her.
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