Sketch Tuesday Blue...experiment update

This weeks Sketch Tuesday was to draw something blue, so here are the pictures Tom and Annie drew

This one is Annie's



this is Tom's



Next weeks assignment is to sketch something alive.

Check out the other 29 sketch's at Heart of Harmony, there are some lovely hues of blue.

Now for the update of Stalactite and Stalagmite experiment, unfortunately it's not gone well, or I should say it's not gone as expected. (But that's often the case is it not with experiments!!!)
In this first picture, you will see we swapped the large white plate for a small saucer, on it you can see where the liquid has dripped causing white staining, the string had become rock hard, and had crystallised, but not was not showing the proper shapes of the stalactites and stalagmites.





We stirred the water, and changed the saucer for a toy saucer so the string was drooping more, it then went all soggy! You can see the drip of water in this one. There is a puddle in the toy saucer too! Although you probably can't see it around the edges of the saucer it is starting to crystallise.

Stalactites and Stalagmites - create your own

As part of our Geography topic, we are now doing Stalactites and Stalagmites we use this book as our base



(click on pictures)

This is the experiment we are doing from the book



You need 2 jars, a small plate or saucer, washing soda ( we bought ours from Wilkinsons), string, and warm water.




First mix the washing soda with the warm water in the jars, we had put the string in already.



Then put the jars with the saucer/plate in the middle between the jars on a sunny windowsill, it needs to be a warm place.






Then you WAIT !!!

A friend did this experiment and it didn't work the first time, she felt it was because it wasn't put in the right place by a sunny windowsill, we put about 5 - 6 tablespoons in each jar of the washing soda, if our experiment fails, we will probably need to add more. I will keep you all updated on how this one works.

About Stalactites and Stalagmites how can you remember the difference?

www.jimloy.com/geology/stalac.htm


http://www.geocities.com/bunyankids/caves/titemite.htm


http://memorymentor.com/blog/mental-tips-tricks/stalagmite-or-stalagtite/

Sketch Tuesday - legs!

This weeks assignment from Sketch Tuesday was draw something that had legs, Tom and Annie had a couple of friends stay over who joined them with this activity J and Y

Here are their pictures;
Annie's

Tom's

Y's

J's

If you want to see the rest of the pictures from all over, 36 in all, then check out *here*

Next weeks assignment is to draw something blue.


With having their friends sleepover the kids played mostly, but did all have to finish some English, Maths and Spellings.

Tom and J made their own board game which the girls then joined in with. Much fun was had.

Today was finished off with making jam tarts yet again!

I'm finishing up with a link to a HEer's recent post on dissecting Owl pellets, an excellent post, this is something I would like to do in the future. See *here*

Playing shops

I had to play shops with Annie yesterday, she loves playing shops, I don't - but I sat down with her and played as it helps with the concept of money.

She does give her money over in real shops but I don't always think it clicks as it does when playing, as often there is a queue. She has time at home to see what she has, how much it costs etc.

We have used real money, but it keeps disappearing, so I've bought some play money from ELC, it includes euros as well.

She was delighted, I'm going to look out for stickers and some nice money worksheets to give her, any suggestions would be welcome.

I remember when I got mumps when I was 5 and had to have a lot of time off school, they sent work for me to do at home, money was one of them, I remember really enjoying doing it, in fact I remember just enjoying being a t home learning and I got through lots of work and really enjoyed myself...so I was home taught for about 4 weeks ;-)

Back to Annie, and less of my reminiscing, as promised here are the two paper masks she happily made all by herself




Tom and Annie went to their weekly swimming lessons and now after 4 years Tom wants to stop, he's a good swimmer and reached as far as he wants to go, so now I've got to make sure he gets enough exercise...I'm made all the more conscious of this as I watch the school kids charge up the hill to the school as they pass my house.

Spring Flowers in March

Tom and Annie have done their basics the last couple of days and both have been on EC

Annie has done a fair amount of writing practise, and some more reading from Ladybirds 5a (click on picture),



I bought the next ones 5b, 6a and 6b. She likes reading them, whereas by now Tom was more than happy not to bother and just read what he wanted, but for Annie they are confidence boosters.
What I have noticed is that she's looking at labels, signs, and pieces of writing, and having a jolly good attempt at pronouncing the words she see's and doing quite well at it.

On Friday's we meet with a family, taking it in turns at each others houses, and we attempt to something on a nature theme, we use nature detectives as our base.

We decided to look at spring flowers in March, this week the children have been looking out for them all about.

We then had a couple of daffodils on the table which the children drew, and then pasted other spring flowers that can be seen at this time in their nature notebooks

The children drawing together

Annie's drawing of daffodils

Tom's drawing
Not forgetting Ruth having a go!

Sketch Tuesday (dinner plate) and roundup

It's Sketch Tuesday again! That seems to have come quickly around.
The assignment this week was to either draw your dinner plate, with or without food on.

Tom wasn't happy with his, ( I thought it was fine) so respecting his wishes I didn't send his off, but Annie was happy with hers and I have to say I thought she did well for her age.


Here is her picture, sorry it's a bit dark



If you want to see the other sketches or join in, then go here
Next weeks assignment is to draw something with legs!

The last few days have been hit and miss, as OH is on holiday at home, so that always interferes with schooling, plus we are trying to renovate the house at the same time.

So mainly core subjects, Maths with Tom has been multiplication and a bit of division, this will continue for the next few days.

I want to get Maths 4b finished by the end of April, watch this space to see if it gets done!

I must concentrate more on Annie's maths, more about the understanding of it, it's become recently a little too much workbook, so I've got some ideas off Boyceview, that may help.

Tom is using My Spelling Workbook 'C' from Prime-ed Publishing book cover looks like this




although a little younger than his age group I wanted to start him off on something that would be achievable, we have got into a good pattern with it, and now do it weekly, rather than just being hit and miss. I like this spelling book, as it gives the spellings to learn, but then reemphasises them through pcrossword,s puzzles etc. There are sample pages to look at on prim-ed's site.
I have Spelling Workbook A for Annie, but we have yet to start it, hopefully it ill be soon.

Last summer Annie, wasn't bothered about reading, then she got interested, she started on Peter and Jane 1A, and is now on 4b,though she insists it's 5A, but I like to cover them properly, these are our base books, meaning that we use them as our main reading scheme, but not solely as it would be very boring. So we have a mixture of other early readers avaible for her to choose, but she must do whatever Peter and Jane book she is on first. It works well for us.

Since making the Roman Theatre Masks, Annie has been making her own out of paper, I must takes some photos of them. Finally Tom related the whole stroy of Boudicaa to MIL, she was mightyily impressed.:-)

Jam Tarts - a lesson in rolling pastry

Although we have baked many cakes, I realised I had never made jam tarts with the kids. So when my dad came visiting, I got him to help the kids make them.

Now first off I have to admit to having bought ready made pastry (it was buy one get one free - I couldn't resist)but the main lesson was about rolling pastry, so I wasn't too worried. My dad made sure they did it well, telling them not to handle it too much, as it doesn't want to get too warm.

Rolling out, to just the right thickness


I couldn't find my pastry cutters so we improvised using plastic cups


Putting the filling in



Before the oven


All cooked - you will see there is less than in the tray, once on the plate, they were being gobbled up. Soon there was an empty plate.



It was a big hit, although they must make their own pastry, we shall do that hopefully soon.
The only downside was that I'm watching what I eat, and these were rather irresistible, so perhaps not too many pastry sessions ;-)

The last couple of days, have been doing the usual Basics subjects, maths for Tom, we are using at the moment as our base, CGP's 4B we also use other books and resources, but I like to follow one main book so I know where we are and if any particular area needs working on, plus hopefully I wont miss much out.
Today he has just started a book called Using Maths - solve a crime
(click on pictures)


The book says for ages 8 - 12
The principle is to use use Maths in 'real life' settings. So far so good, Tom has seen a direct link for how useful Maths can be.
Tom and Annie have both done read alouds, some spelling, writing, and science. They have socialised and played with friends over here too.

Almost forgot, lots of Education City too.
You will have noticed, that I'm using names rather than initials, as I had showed my dad my blog, he thought they needed names (not real) so here they are Ruth is the youngest. I'm not sure if I'll keep up with names as initials are so much quicker ...lol!

Sketch Tuesday

This is the first time the kids will have participated in this. It's a great idea by Barb from the Heart of Harmony

Basically, Barb sets each week an assignment of what to sketch,then you email your finished drawing and Barb will then add it to the Sketch Tuesday Gallery I've always enjoyed seeing what others have drawn, so I asked T and A if they would like to join in, I had an enthusiastic YES!

This weeks assignment was to draw a piece of fruit, so I had different fruits and asked them t pick one, neither could just pick one so the drew what they wanted.

This A's drawing


and this is T's drawing


Why don't you go think about joining in

Roman Theatre Masks

I have a new goal to start the day off with some exercise, nothing too strenuous, just 5 mins of jogging, marching, waving hands wildly into the air. I felt great A, and R joined in enthusiastically, whereas T just grumbled and showed little effort. I will get T jumping and running around first thing in the morning, poor child, is so not an early morning person.

T sat down to a Maths test which was at the end of the Maths book he was doing. It was a Scofield and Sims 'adding and subtraction' He just got a couple of mistakes and on his workings out I could see it was just carelessness. I was pleased though as he hates subtraction and has grasped it well now.

A sat and did some writing practise, from this here(click on picture)

Then we did a couple of pages from the Key Stage 1 science book from CGP learning about seeds and what plants need. This will come in useful when we start planting seeds soon.

Then we discussed about Roman Masks that were used in Roman Theatre, how women were not allowed to perform ,and that men played both parts, wearing masks. If it was a brown mask, that indicated it was a man, and if it was a white mask ,then it was a women.

T and A went on to make a Roman Mask each. First the designed on paper what they wanted.


Then they started to paint the designs on their masks, which we had bought from Asda for a couple of pounds



Their masks next to their designs


Wearing the finished masks


I was really pleased with how they turned out. We got the idea from History on the Net we bought the download and use this as our basis for our Romans project, interspersed with other material.

We have visited a fort, where the children, 10 altogether, learn how a Roman soldier lived and on another occasion visited our local museum, same number of children where they learnt about Roman life, food, and were able to dress up as Romans.

After finishing the masks, we went and picked up R who had been at a friends, then on to the Library, then back home to write up about what they had learnt regarding Roman Theatre Masks.