Rocket Science

Wombat's choice of what to do this morning - just a bit of rocket science smile emoticon He is watching documentaries on journeys to deepest space and future spaceflight technologies, and using an app with realistic orbital physics to create and test his own rocket designs.

The app is Simple Rockets: "Kepler wrote the equations 400 years ago, and SimpleRockets uses those equations to model extremely realistic orbital physics. Players will learn about rocket science and astrodynamics while they are having a blast exploring the solar system."

Here are some of Wombat's creations.

Scorpion!

The other day my Mulga yelled out that there was a scorpion in the sandpit where he and Boronia were playing. It was not at all aggressive and I was easily able to gently coax it into a jar using a stick. 

Being homeschoolers we transferred it into our mini aquarium to observe overnight. We also happened to have a UV torch on hand. The next day I carefully transferred it back into the jar and we took it for a bushwalk and released it on our property well away from the house. 

I posted some pictures on facebook and was astounded by the number of people who did not realise we had scorpions in Australia - let alone this close to Sydney. I believe they are quite rare as this is only the second I have seen in 20 years of living out here. 

We are members of the museum and Wombat wanted to make sure we shared it to so we sent an email to them.

We think it might be a Mottled Scorpion from our research (http://www.foundation.qm.qld.gov.au/Find+out+about/Animals+of+Queensland/Other+Arachnids/Scorpions#.VPgEXPzLfYg).

From our understanding it would give a painful sting to an adult and may be deadly to a young child. We are hoping the museum will confirm our hypothesis. (Mulga got double pocket money for protecting himself and his sister by alerting an adult and keeping them both away.) 

NPWS volunteers

Spent a nice rainy day at Bent's Basin as NPWS volunteers. We were making flaps which were to be placed at the entrance of wombat burrows to test the effectiveness of this method for delivering medicine to treat mange in the wombats. Unfortunately the rain stopped us from going out to put the traps in place, and soccer has now started so we are unlikely to get the chance to go back and see how they worked unless they do a weekday run - but it was a great homeschooling experience nonetheless and one we enjoyed heaps.

Here be Dragons...

Today we varied our usual fare of dinosaur documentaries by watching a work of docufiction:

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This very entertaining presentation used the same CGI and animatronic techniques which are used to bring dinosaurs to life on the big screen to give the same credibility to dragons. This sparked a lot of interesting questions about how difficult it is to know if what we are watching onscreen is real, the way in which fictional stories can be presented as non-fiction, and the difficulty of knowing what is "truth" when we are thinking about things that happened millions of years ago. (We concluded that only God knows what actually happened, but that it is fun to speculate!)

African drumming workshop

Today we joined in with an African drumming workshop with other homeschoolers. We learnt about how the drums were made and the materials they are made from, and the boys learnt to play some increasingly complex rhythms. Boronia and the boys had fun playing with the other kids afterwards - Waratah even learnt how to play handball.

Praying mantises and particulate matter

Sprouted wheat seed which we used to make Essene bread. This is bread which uses only one ingredient, and is cooked at a very low temperature - it can even be cooked by the sun. Our first try was not a great success as we had difficulty grinding the "flour" fine enough.

Hard to see, but this was our experiment in particulate matter. There are 4 materials in the bags: wood, wheat, salt and sugar, each material having a large, medium and small particle size. The boys were challenged to identify the materials. We sorted them into materials and particle size, discussed how the various particle sizes were created, and why they might be needed (eg wheat seed for planting, cracked wheat couscous, grinding flour to make bread; wood for building, wood shavings for animal bedding, wood pulp for paper...). We then examined the materials under our field microscope and challenged ourselves to identify the difference between the finely ground salt and sugar crystals.

Waratah's latest pet. We have researched habitat and diet, and identified his gender (males have 6 segmented abdomens, females have 8).

Building a play space

The boys have been using logs left over from the big wind storm that brought down the top of one of our trees, and spare bricks and pavers to construct a play space to their own requirements. Both like to use it as a quiet space to sit and think, and rake designs into the dirt.

Garden design

Waratah has been using the GardenMap app to design his perfect garden, using measurements based on his actual garden patch.

Lorikeet drawing

Waratah's latest artwork. He asked Daddy to draw the outline if the bird, but the rest is all his own work, using pencils and oil pastels. He used a google image search for the placement of the colours. When finished, he cut out the bird very carefully and pasted it onto a separately drawn background.

Waratah's mandalas

I installed a copy of InstaCollage on Waratah's iPad and he has been using it to further his interest in sacred geometry, symmetry, mandalas and graphic design. These are combinations of photos he has taken himself, images he has googled, and work he has done in other apps (such as Geoboard).

Sprinkles

After a morning of soccer, we stopped off to grab another geocache: Sprinkles in Campbelltown.

The grass in the park was soft and thick and lovely to lie in!

(Boronia is trying to balance a rock on her head so she can have a fancy hat like Waratah :D)

Super smiles

Super Mulga getting some exercise on the trampoline - while trying to fly.

Then a spot of balancing beam for some more gymnastic skills.

While Boronia shows off her beautiful toothy grin :) 

The Camden Line - Currans Hill Platform

Picked up a quick geocache between soccer games :) No pics, unfortunately. Forgot the camera! Here's one someone else took:

Interesting to talk with the boys about the old train line that used to run through here. No sign of it now!

"The branch line from Campbelltown to Camden was authorised by an Act of Parliament on 28 April 1880 an construction commenced in June 1881.

The line following the contour of the land, running beside the road to Narellan, and climbing Kenny's Hill on the steepest grade in New South Wales (1 in 19), This would sometimes have the passengers disembarking from the train and walk alongside it, leaving their bags on board. 

The line, called the Camden Tramway, was opened by the Minister for Works, Hon. John Lackey, on Friday 10 March, 1882.

Currans Hill was opened in 1882 and like other stations consisted of a short wooden platform. An additional platform was added in 1904 and it was closed in 1963 when the Camden Line was decomissioned due to falling passenger numbers."

Mt Annan Sustainability Centre

Mulga making a "cuppa" in the kitchen...

and offering it to Fiona, who graciously accepts.

Waratah interacting with his friends.

Boronia exploring.

Mummy's birthday

My 40th birthday was 11 August, but we decided to postpone for a few days to allow Boronia to recover from her tiredness and get used to being home after spending time in the city with me at my Negotiation seminar. It was a lovely birthday and well worth the wait.

Flowers and trees

One of Waratah's favourite rainy day crafts is to pull apart artificial flowers and remake new blooms from them. Here is one of his magnificent creations.

It was definitely a day to stay inside. A big wind storm came through and brought the tops of several large eucalyptus trees crashing down near our back stairs.

Dragon city

This is another popular game which the boys have and are enjoying. It provides them with maths practice (reading numbers and time), reading practice, and they need to consider that different kinds of dragons require different environments and plan their world accordingly.

City lights

Boronia sitting on the wide windowsill at the Great Southern Hotel, watching the city lights come on, and enjoying Japanese takeaway for dinner.

Negotiation seminar

Boronia helping with the planning for a negotiation scenario at UTS, and entertaining herself pulling coloured scarves from a repurposed tissue box.

Packing

Boronia saw me packing my cases to take into the city for my three day Negotiation seminar at UTS. She decided to lack herself to make sure she wouldn't be left behind!