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!)

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).

Gundungurra geocache and a Dino garden

First, some reading in bed.

S1 English: RS1.5 Reads a wider range of texts on less familiar topics with increasing independence and understanding, making connections between own knowledge and experience and information in texts.

S1 English: RS1.6 Draws on an increasing range of skills and strategies when reading and comprehending texts.

S1 English: RS1.5 Reads a wider range of texts on less familiar topics with increasing independence and understanding, making connections between own knowledge and experience and information in texts.

S1 English: RS1.6 Draws on an increasing range of skills and strategies when reading and comprehending texts.

 These are the superhero books that Mulga got for his birthday. Very popular with the boys.

Off for a quick spot of geocaching: this cache was called Gundungurra in honour of the local Aboriginal tribe. "The territory of the Gundungurra tribe includes Burragorang, Katoomba, Picton, Berrima, Taralga and Goulburn, with the intervening country." 

S1 Maths: MS1.1 Estimates, measures, compares and records lengths and distances using informal units, metres and centimetres.

S1 Maths: WMS1.2 Uses objects, diagrams, imagery and technology to explore mathematical problems.

S1 Maths: WMS1.5 Links mathematical ideas and makes connections with, and generalisations about, existing knowledge and understanding in relation to Stage 1 content.

S1 HSIE: CCS1.2 Identifies changes and continuities in their own life and in the local community.

S1 HSIE: ENS1.5 Compares and contrasts natural and built features in their local area and the ways in which people interact with these features.

S1 PDHPE: ALS1.6 Participates in physical activity, recognising that it can be both enjoyable and important for health.

Then off to the Mt Annan Sustainability Centre to plant a dinosaur garden.

Waratah enjoyed learning about the succulent plant varieties and drew diagrams of them on the blackboard. The top one is Mother-in-Law's tongue, and the bottom one is the Jellybean plant.

S1 HSIE: ENS1.6 Demonstrates an understanding of the relationship between environments and people.

S1 Science: ICS1.2 Creates a range of information products and communicates using a variety of media.

S1 Science: LTS1.3 Identifies and describes ways in which living things grow and change.

S1 Science: ESS1.6 Identifies and describes ways in which people and other living things depend upon the earth and its environments.

S1 Science: INVS1.7 Conducts guided investigations by observing, questioning, predicting, collecting and recording data, and suggesting possible explanations.

S1 PDHPE: COS1.1 Communicates appropriately in a variety of ways.

S1 PDHPE: INS1.3 Develops positive relationships with peers and other people.

S1 Creative Arts: VAS1.1 Makes artworks in a particular way about experiences of real and imaginary things.

Boronia enjoys a spot of gardening too.

Mulga engaged in some imaginative play with the little kitchen, and took a turn at the chalkboard - this was a picture of a journey accompanied by a complicated superhero narrative.

Day trip to the beach

We had an Ebay purchase to pick up on the north side, so a trip to Dee Why Beach was added into the journey.

Boronia seemed to like her first touch of sand and seaweed.

Mulga had a fantastic time playing sandcastles.

Meanwhile, Yeti and Waratah went for a long walk... if we looked very carefully, we could just see them enjoying themselves in the distance.

Veggie Gardening

A lovely sunny winter's day - time to get out in the veggie garden... Boronia enjoyed being more mobile and able to explore areas she could not get to before...

And the boys helped weed among the broadbeans (using some not-so-traditional gardening tools). Did a great job, though!

Sugar, scones and snowflakes

And now for an update on our sugar crystal growing experiment. This is the white sugar crystal we produced.

This is the white crystal again, with the raw sugar crystal next to it. We observed and discussed why there might be differences. We thought the more refined white sugar produced a more even textured crystal and there was far more crystallisation in the cup of the raw sugar, it wasn't just on the stick.

This is the raw sugar's cup (our experiment continued as we spent another few days after this trying out ways to get the crystalised sugar out of the cup...)

Here are Mulga and Waratah making cheese and carrot scones for lunch...

Waratah likes to measure the ingredients for us.

The delicious finished product.

Another of Waratah's snowflakes, this time the picture was a stained glass window.

Soccer

Winter is soccer season for us. Here I model perfect soccer mum attire LOL

Boronia is snug and keeping out of the wind on the sidelines.

Mulga with his adored coach.

Waratah, "eagle-screeching" at the opposition as he prepares to attack the ball. 

The boys' enthusiasm for lego has waned somewhat lately, which has allowed Boronia to step in and explore - literally. Her favourite position is inside the lego box.

I made one final effort to interest the boys in the 2D lego challenge - here I have made a picture of Gollum to illustrate The Hobbit, which we are currently reading. He is lying on his rock in the lake, with his precious and a fish to eat.

Flat out!

A miscellaneous collection of photo records of learning today :)

This is a close up of the raw sugar solution. We have been discussing what makes the brown colour, how it is less refined that white sugar, and how as a result it contains impurities which are really left over bits of the sugar cane. This has been graphically illustrated with our raw sugar solution where we can clearly see the "impurities" and how they could be refined out through filtering processes. 

Boronia is recovering very well from her operation to remove the pyogenic granuloma on her forehead. No ill effects from the anaesthetic, thank goodness, and the wound (which we have been asked to leave open to the air) is very clean - not bothering her at all.

This week's lego challenge was to build a flat (2 dimensional) image. The boys were not sure how to go about that, so I made some demonstrations and we discussed the differences in their construction and the effects produced - using lego to make a top down view...

and a to make a side-view picture.