fiddledisticks i am behind!

so very behind that I’m going to do a blend of the posts from there till now. It might only be 2 weeks, but in that time we have had 2 more weds4ed, been and visited my parents and other stuff which of course i have mostly forgotten. So this post will be the 2 weds4eds and then anything else i have remembered, and another post will be visiting my parents, and i will declare up to date!

weds4ed1: science was cells, and there was totem pole clay work , making paint and maths

we had a new family join us, who will hopefully pop in on a monthly basis it is lovely to meet new families with older home ed kids, as the teen pool gets depleted as kids go to school to do exams. we are bucking the trend to do at home. [as are various of our friends]

so the cells we talked about the difference between plant and animal cells, looked at an animal cell [our cheek] and plant [carrot] under a microscope, having stained with methylene blue. cells comes up a fair bit in gcse biology, and i am hoping that pegging an experiment to match revision work which is deifferent to the speriment that pegged with the first review will hopefully help learn and have something to hang the knowledge onto. I didn’t take many photos tho, and of course none down the microscope, but we def all got to see what we needed to.

totem pole clay work with 2 clay types looked fun. we are planning to home fire them in a big pit or metal bins. em is v patient with them all, and all the kids put thought and effort into their designs.

The older kids are really enjoying the maths they are doing with B. It is proper get you to gcse maths, as J has his gcse this year and SB and B are def doing it next year. I am surprised at how well it is working as a group activity. The non mathsers worked with kfish to make paints from scratch – oil or egg based. I think the egg based ones look the most luscious.

weds4ed2: science was transpiration, more totem pole pottery and maths

unfortunately it was an extra short one, mostly to fit a science in for J and SB, both sitting igcse biology this year. SO not time for painting, but hopefully will do that next time! So science was wrapping around plants. a huge area to cover! DH had very proudly made me a working potometer so we used it to talk about transpiration, and bring in photosynthesis [respiration] , and phloem/xylem . the older group got to do worksheets as well including flower structure as this often comes up somewhere in an exam. it was a bit boring i think for the non – gcse-ers, so will think of something more exciting for the next one that all can enjoy whilst still wrapping around the next bit of revision. i guess it might be dissection.

the younger group were a bit grumpy to see the older group had a hairdryer to make the wind, whereas they had jumped up and down with fans but then, they werent doing worksheets!

more maths for the mathsy group meant that not all did totems, SB helped join the squares together but BB did another ring. I also took the opportunity of making an elliptical one to go on the totem. i hope the other mums do a totem ring as well