Science, Crafts and more

The home ed science and craft group started our Monday off, 'M' made a very lovely Kaplinsky style bit of art while I ran the older science session.

We were building paper bridges in small groups using only 5 bits of paper and a small amount of tape. The idea was to find what sort of designs did/didn't work. They all had a look around at each others designs at the end and it was quite obvious which group won! But they all worked, which was great, as I was a little worried myself how well it would turn out. I had also made a few extra worksheets up to show the kids real life bridges like Tower Bridge. The kids all had a lot of fun and the time ran away with me, didn't realise we had in fact come to the end of the session. Quick tidy up and the sessions switched over.

I'm not 100% sure what the boys were studying as I was busy with 'M' but it involved a painted character rock and a passport. Have a feeling they were making a character to go towards future story telling sessions.

'M's science session was bubble based which made for a bit of mess and a little chaos.

We enjoyed ourselves and despite a few small issues with the hall, timings and peoples expectations hopefully we are going to gain a valuable weekly home ed group in the long run.

Today we had a free cinema visit in the morning courtesy of the national schools film week, the kids were more than happy watching Despicable Me 2 and it was a nice change, despite the cinema being full to breaking point with school kids. Was a little chaotic but once the film started it was mostly quiet in there. 

We then went on for a treat lunch at KFC, before heading to the Forest of Bere, we had been reliably informed there were chestnuts waiting to be found! We were not diapointed, 2.5kg worth came home with us.

We found some lovely looking mushrooms, which then made for a good conversation on poisonous ones etc. 'C' has a bit of a phobia about things that might harm him so tried to make them less scary and more pretty, just don't touch them sort of thing.

A few sculptures in the sand pit and a play on the park before heading home.

Our evening was pretty usual up until the thunder storm started, then we were all crowded around the bedroom window talking about what causes thunder and lightening and having a good home ed chat in general. At bedtime, myself and M spent some time on the megasketcher going through the numbers and the alphabet. Megaskethcers have got to be one of my favourite tools, even though the boys are older they still like to do spellings on them as a bit of a game when I shout out the words. Everyone should have a megasketcher :-)