raising the dead

well, that was the home ed lesson for today. quite a good one really!

it was a latinetc today, without the puddlegirls though. SO we had combined latin and games were played there, and the littlies did winter french – drawing pictures and then discussing what you could see in french. both language sessions were enjoyed by my respective daughters!

for the science bit today, I had loan of a resuscibaby from c’s badgers. so we did that. the younger group were v attentive to how to do it, and all had 2 goes each at remembering – the most vital bit for them being call for help! i wouldn’t really want to be in the position of them or no-one [but research shows really only 11+ or 13+ have the strength to actually do cpr on an adult], but I think learning about it, and coming back to it every so often is important. The older group were WAY more dramatic. for a minute I thought I was Merry asking them to act out a scene from casualty!! once I had persuaded a toning down of drama, we got on with it, and each of them successfully did cpr at least once, and practiced finding landmarks on each other – though we did A LOT of discussion on how you can’t actually do it for real on someone unless they need it! We did all the safety, calling for help, defibrillators and associated stuff. SO I think that was worth doing, and they did it well – all be it with ‘style’!

the other half of the science session was starting on bones. [thanks again sarah!] and we drew our own hand bones using an xray to model. we named and chatted about the different bones, and how we got our hand mvts. They decided not to label in chalk, so here are websites with the ‘real names’, so they can be labelled at home. Next time we are going to do the bone in vinegar thing, so will need LOTS of vinegar/ jam jars and chicken legs…

of course, a friend currently residing in the states had to go for a bit of one-upmanship, and their hE involved looking at strawberry DNA! luckilly she put out the ‘recipe’

1. Pulverize strawberries down to goo in a blender.
2. Mix 25ml strawberry goo with 50ml of water.
3. Add a pinch of salt.
4. Centrifuge for 60 seconds.
5. Strain out solids.
6. Add 15ml of liquid soap.
7. Centrifuge for 60 seconds.
8. In a test tube, mix 50-50 goo-you-have-made and ice cold isopropyl alcohol.
9. Gently mix (tip it back and forth a few times) and allow to separate. Broken cell bits are at the bottom, DNA is in the cloud at the top.
10. Pipe off a little of the top cloud. Put a drop or two on a glass slide.
11. View under microscope. DNA!

They used a kid’s science kit centrifuge [gulp!], and it didn’t seem to be going all that fast.

and now I am on the hunt for a cheap centrifuge!! This site also interesting! hmmm. It feels all exciting doesn’t it!

hermmm, well where was I before sundry flights of fancy??? Ah yes, after lunch, SB and chloe were keen to do some music, with G, but got started all on their own, and were being so fabbly autonomous with an EE mark that we left them to it. the were using the colour coded bells, and using felt tips, writing music for them [felt tip corresponding to bell!] we were v impressed!! Unfortunately we were all haring off, so i don’t think they realised quite how impressed we were!

home, SB did some piano practice, and drew some traffic signs for the next harmony arts assignment, and then did some sewing. BB watched some mona the vampire and then did some sewing also. SB had brownies – and we saw her make the promise, and she seems much happier in brownies than she ever did in rainbows, so that seems good. [maybe she is just a happier girl] she had judo, and a new boy is apparently a bit too rough, but the sensei seemed to have it in order. SO there we are!

in the rest of the week, apart from thinking about the future of HE in this country and getting depressed, political and activated, the kids have played – in snow, a lot with sindy/barbie and sylvanians. SB has done some maths and piano and is really loving reading her encyclopaedia of knowledge and coming up with odd facts all over the place. i have worked silly hours – must do something about that! Chris has baked cakes for Melrose.