Toys and Forces

Went to the Peterborough Museum for another well lead session, this time on Toys and Forces. Geared at KS1, the museum made sure that the exhibition and toy making session was also suitable for the older children in the group. P has been in Hong Kong this week so no camera to take piccies of the many hands-on activities set out for the group (and public) to try. Lots of excellent pictures on Islamic Homeschool's blog though so take a peek here (look for Wed 7th Nov). After learning about Isaac Newton and gravity plus watching the museum lady gingerly demonstrate how to swing a bucket of water over her head without spilling a drop, the fun of learning through play began. The children also made a push and pull cardboard toy to take home too. A lovely educational and social morning once again.

As a lead up to this session, we had a quick browse and recap on some of the force experiments we'd looked at some time ago. Ben was quick to remember his favourite - making a volcano with vinegar and bicarb., but this time he made a spewing monster (using the same ingredients). We also did this which worked quite well but didn't go spinning around as we had hoped. Also much talk about making moving objects using wound up elastic bands or air filled balloons, but we didn't get around to trying these out!

Norms pretty much for the rest of the week. Lots of questions are being thrown at me at the mo. - "where's coal come from?", "what the history of nursery rhymes?" (I thought the "Mary, Mary, quite contrary" background was really gruesome) and "where does tea come from?" spring to mind. Thursday friends came over for a sleepover. Friday we headed for a Scalextric racing venue near Spalding which sounded like it was going to be a brilliant session of racing competitively between children and adults. Unfortunately, probably due to a combination of (a) the excitement of having friends over, (b) lack of sleep due to (a) and (c) not calming down when feeling a little hot and not quite himself, Ben decided enough was enough and threw up his breakfast in the car! Katie enjoyed herself though and Ben and I, once home, bathed and much fresher, had a rather nice few hours to ourselves, mainly tinkering on the piano and other instruments. The Scalextrics sounded good, but the place was freezing apparently and the gentleman in charge was later described as a bit of a John Cleese!

Saturday, much tidying up of the house and general chores, trying to keep warm in this sudden drop in temperature (not so keen on the conservatory kitchen now I must say!). Sunday, P arrived home mid morning much to everyone's delight with lots of interesting tales of Hong Kong and pressie opening (photos to follow). Later Ben went off to design and construct this working catapult using his trusty Lego (to round off our toys and forces week).

Autumn walk at Burghley and other things

Took a trip, with friends, to Burghley House for a rather chilly picnic (eaten in the car) and walk around what was known as the Sculpture Gardens but seems to now be called the Gardens of Surprise. We wrapped up warm and spent a bit of time with the Fallow deer, letting them get used to us and come close enough for a quick stroke and photo shoot. We were lucky enough to see a couple a males rutting, something, according to the website, the bucks do around this time of year to guard their patch and attract the females (does).


"I command you ..."


Once we were suitably chilled from standing around we headed for the gardens which, being more sheltered, were alot warmer (coats, hats and gloves came flying off in all directions). Ducking under low hanging trees and wandering along paths we found some new and old sculptures. We all really loved this one, which we discovered is the world - best viewed from a distance. Unfortunately it didn't have a plague nearby so I'm unable to mention the person whom, I'm sure, spent much time and energy producing such a lovely piece of work. After much studying by us all, the sculpture looks like several layers of resin with brick and rubble pieces to form the outline of the countries. It looked beautiful with the sun shining on it.

Another fun and new addition (can't really call it a sculpture) was a small shed which, when you entered and closed the door and blackout curtain, you could see the image of the trees made by a pinhole on one side of the shed. Very clever and educational.

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We have re-discovered the History Channel, by chance, and have been watching a documentary about a recent dive to view and collect more information on the sinking of the Titanic. Although 2 hours long it made for interesting viewing. As we've now finished our project it made the whole thing alot easier for Katie and Ben to understand. They found it interesting to hear some of the stories of passengers, especially of those they'd already read about and to see the camera crew's pictures of the broken liner lying along the bottom of the ocean with so much depris spread so far away from the wreck. It seemed to finish off the project nicely.

History Channel is also running a series on the universe which Ben has begged me to record and I believe they are repeating the Household Cavalry series (which naturally includes the horses) previously shown on BBC (I believe) which Katie is itching to see again.

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I chatted recently with a mum at Katie's riding about the rising stress levels in her household as her daughter prepared and took the 11+ this year and how she is going to "train" her son from year four in order to hopefully make the exam a little less nerve-racking. With all this in mind I decided to check out some sample papers on the internet. I remember finding out about verbal and non-verbal reasoning after watching a programme a year/18 months ago on TV and finding both papers rather difficult to get to grips with, especially as they were timed (I'd never been good at exams under pressure!). Looking at the sample maths paper now, I think Katie and Ben would be able to cope well with it as it covers everything that we've been learning this last year. I found I wasn't quite so slow with the verbal and non-verbal reasoning papers I'd found this time (so obviously HE has improved my logical thinking), but I'm not sure how both my children would get on with it - they've never done anything this before. It does seem a very good way to sharpen the brain. Perhaps it would be good for all four of us (as P took a bit of time to get to grips with them) to do a couple of questions a day. These are the papers I came across this time (free downloads), and here's another bunch just for good measure!

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In my spare (spare!? What spare?) time, I've been making a few crafts which I'm now selling in my ebay shop, Ellies Home Treasures. It is something I am hoping to continue to do, so please take a look. There's quite a few Christmas decorations, each one individually made and therefore quite unique. Katie and P are battling to get a website up and running for me - they are treating it abit like a contract. Good practise for the future I guess!

Rockets, fires, trained dogs and dancing horses

We've had a very busy and exciting few days which started off with a small but very well planned firework display at a shopping outlet not too far from us. We got there a good two hours early (to have a nose around the shops and pick up a few early Christmas gifts) and found a parking space but noticed that the car park and surrounding green areas were chocca block with cars when we came to leave and it took us a while to get out because of all the crowds. No doubt this was due to the extremely mild evening and the fact that it was a free display! Anyway, the fireworks were set to music from the movies which was lovely, and I think it was the first time both children enjoyed the bangs and crackles without grumbles and tears of how loud they all were. I know it's all done by computers but it still amazes me how well arranged and executed these displays are, it made a wonderful start to the weekend.

Friday morning we had a group session arranged with two people from Guide Dogs for the Blind who came along to talk to us about the training of the dogs, how the dogs are used and the various gadgets a blind person can use to help them with everyday life. Two dogs came along, a golden labrador retriever cross (with a very laid back personality) and a retired golden retriever which looked far to young to be out of service but apparently was nervous of loud noises so perhaps it had retired early. We were able to run our fingers over a sheet of braille and a specially designed ruler and were told about a wonderful electronic gadget that can tell the colour of any any object (although it can get it slightly wrong at times as it said the lady's skin was "orange"!).

In the evening P and I took Katie and Ben to see Spirit of the Horse, Chimera, for a special treat. When seeing the adverts, by chance, a good three months ago, we knew it was something we couldn't let pass especially as we'd heard such good reports of previous "Spirit of the Horse" shows. Some friends came along with us too and although we got completely chilled to the bone sitting in the tent for a good couple of hours, it was a fabulous evening. The website has some photos (as we obviously weren't allowed to take any during the performance, not that I had my camera anyway) which gives an idea of the content of the show. There were many more horses involved than I'd first imagined; Friesians, Arabs, Lusitanos, Andalucians and a delightful Sheltand (cross Appaloosa) that had every child in the audience wish for a pony of their own that would fall asleep with them on a bed like this one did. My personal favourites were the stunning black Friesians with their glossy coats and fabulous long wavy manes and tails. They all looked so well cared for (and we were able to see them after the performance in their stables) and happy to be doing what they were doing - one in fact was dancing to the music and audience clapping at the end of the show with it's rider looking quite amazed! The fast pace of the Mongolian horse team performing many stunts on the backs of the Arabs was Ben's favourite with many laughs and whoops of joy coming from his direction during this little section of the show. The practise and confidence it must take to ride two horses (and then control a further three), do an extremely fast and advanced "around the world" type display or literally slide around the belly of the horse as it cantered, is not for the faint hearted!

After this, with extremely excited but also very tired kiddies in tow we headed home with one of Katie's friends for a sleepover. They tootled up to bed about 10.30, rather exhausted I think as we didn't hear a peep from them until 6.30 the next day!

Saturday we had a family firework session and with the wonderful mild weather, cooked sausages and burgers on the bbq.

Yesterday Katie, Ben and I headed to a friend's house for a fun evening with some members of the HE group. A huge bonfire to keep us warm (and to burn one large Guy and our three small ones), fireworks, grub and plenty of warm drinks. It rounded off the celebratory weekend perfectly. Thank you L for arranging such a lovely evening.


I don't think I've ever seen a Catherine Wheel before. Obviously the camera didn't pick up the wonderful colours and patterns that changed throughout it's performance.


Glow sticks and Ben's home made torch Lightsaber made for wonderful Star Wars fight simulations!