Caterpillars, rainbows and the rest...

Yesterday morning was very arty! Chiara's half way through a Giacometti art project inspired by other home educators posts I've seen all over the place now...

 

 

They all messed about with play dough too.  Naomi was particularly proud of her model of a cake and a candle...

 

Science: What attracts to a magnet?

 This is a really simple and easy experiment to try...

A very productive day!

This morning I was up before the girls.  No seriously, I really was!  This morning I managed: to get a blog post written; get dressed washed and ready; have a mini workout; dress and wash the baby; through Honi in the bath; feed the girls breakfast; do maths and Engish with Naomi; papier mache art with Chiara and Honi...

 

 

 

 

Painting with Harmonie...

Happy Father's Day!

Kev woke up yesterday morning around elevenish, I can't be sure of exact times and I'm sure he'll argue it half an hour here or there.  I woke this morning to my older two shouting at each other something along the lines of 'Shhh!  You'll wake Dad up and it's his special day!'  Ironic really.  Fortunately he didn't wake up and I managed to get them down stairs.  It was just gone 8am so not too bad for me either really. 

After breakfast the three older girls were keen to get out on their skates so Harmonie got on with some painting...

 

 

 

She loved it and finished it in the evening while waiting for her fish-finger sandwiches...

 

Science: Make a compass

This is the simplest way to make a compass that I've found...

 

All you will need is...

Thank you!

Thank you to everyone who voted for me in the Circle of Moms - Top 25 Homeschooling Mom's Blog contest!  It's such a big compliment that you would go to the trouble to vote.  I was added to the list late on but still came out 65th so thank you and thank you to the 2 lovely ladies who nominated me!

I just wanted to take the time today to say thank you to everyone really, all my readers, all the people who take time to comment, like, link up and share.  It keeps me going and makes me feel very appreciated, as well as motivated to know people really do like reading my posts.  I love to hear about and see how others have tried out the experiments and projects I regularly post on here too.

 

There will be, as always, more to come very soon!

 

 

The Grand Final of the 2013 Tour Series!

 

Today we had the calmest day of the week.  Naomi and Honi wanted to play out so I compromised and said if they did some of their workbook they could go out.  I have never seen those two work so fast and so well!  It was nice to have Harmonie and Chiara all to myself. 

The girls were busy finishing off all the things they're doing for fathers day.  Harmonie made the above picture for her daddy, we're going to get a frame for it tomorrow.

 

While I was busy getting glue and other things we needed for the project Harmonie drew a picture of me (see below).   It was her very first picture of me and it made me smile to see it.  I look grumpy but I don't think she's worked out how to do happy or frowning faces yet... I hope!

 

Science: fishing with magnets!

We're still mad about magnets at the moment.  This makes for a fun game whilst learning how magnets work as well as being able to integrate it into other subjects as well.

 

 

 

This is how we made ours and how to play...

From surgery to cake baking

This morning I woke up to Honi asking me to perform some surgery on her cuddly goose, Googles.  He had a hole in his side.  She was very pleased to see him well again!

 

The girls started their morning off writing poems.  

More ups than downs!

So today has been better.  There were moments but they were fewer and I haven't had my head in my hands nearly as much. 

We did do some lovely things today.  Well, we'll play properly tomorrow as we only really made it today but the girls enjoyed it...

Science: How strong is a magnet?

 

Honi has really enjoyed playing around with magnets for the last few days.  She has learnt so much about them so bit by bit I will share with you all the experiments and projects we've been doing.

 

We wanted to test how strong our magnets were so this is how we did it...

Science: Removing the iron from your cereal!

 

It's really easy.  All you need is to crush your cereal in a bowl, get a magnet and stir it around.  Pull it out and the iron in the cereal will be attracted to the magnet and the rest left in the bowl!

Still poorly!

Yesterday was all magnet madness!  We didn't get out, so to avoid siblings arguing over things like 'her finger touched my book' and silly things like that we watched films and I spent some time with my Chiara. 

 

 

 

Yesterday was full of sneezing and irritable children but only amongst the moments of laughter and fun. But today...

Science: Magically moving toy cars!

This mini project is great fun and entertained my younger two for ages!  I think I will need to get a few more magnets though as they argued over turns (as 3 and 5 year olds do).

All you need is...

Science: An introduction to magnets

Magnets attract only certain objects, those that contain, iron, steel, cobalt or nickel.  They have 2 poles, north and south. 

 

When to two magnets are pulled towards each other we say that they attract, when they push apart from each other they are said to repel.

 

If you let your child play with the magnets they will notice that when 2 north pole are put close together they repel and when 2 south poles are pushed together they repel.  This is because with magnets opposites attract.

 

The planet Earth acts like a huge magnet is inside it!  It has a magnetic field that acts the same as any other magnet.

 

Not my best drawing ever but you get the idea

 

I got Naomi to draw one of these out herself, being a visual learner she likes to draw to learn.

 

To see how this is similar to how a magnet works you can try this mini experiment: Magnetic fields...