Around the World - Canada

What better way to start off a tour of Canada than with pancakes and maple syrup?  P and I told the girls all about the time we visited a maple syrup plantation near Toronto many years ago; how we watched the trees being tapped for their lovely golden sap, then saw the sap boiling away in huge cauldrons.  It was a lovely place and the whole process of turning sap to syrup was done in the original, old fashioned way.  While we ate we listened to some fantastic Cape Breton fiddling by the very talented Natalie McMaster.
We also baked a maple syrup upside down cake which was, surprisingly, pronounced "too sweet" by the girls. Poor Grandma, P and I had to eat the whole thing...

We read some books about Canada in the winter and learnt that if nothing is done to stop global warming, by 2080 there will be no more ice in Hudson Bay. Very bad news for polar bears!

We travelled with Billy Connolly on his Journey to the Edge of the World - a series about his adventures along the legendary North West Passage deep within the Arctic Circle.

On our last day the girls filled in their scrapbooks with many pictures from travel brochures (thanks to our lovely travel agent Claire for those), notes on the history and cultures of Canada, made some sweet snowy owls, and learned about some of their favourite Canadian animals.

snowy owls

Bits and Pieces

This week we had a great day out at Funfields with a bunch of other homeschoolers.  We had the whole park to ourselves and made some lovely new friends so it was well worth the 75 minute drive in peak hour both ways!
Our last library day was almost two weeks ago. This is what we've been reading lately:

Very funny and rude!  Reading this lead to learning about Chaucer's life and times.

R really enjoyed this but H has resisted reading it so far as she seems to have an aversion to the word brumbies for some reason...

R very proudly reads this to everyone on her own.

H's bedtime reading

Ahh, Horrible Histories. How boring life is without you..

 

 Absolutely hilarious and highly recommended for everyone

I've stumbled upon some useful links. With a huge range of international information, activities and crafts InCulture Parent is brilliant.  Another is Education.com and I've used it alot over the last two weeks for fun maths worksheets, colouring pages, and paper dolls from around the world.

Our Tadpole Watch is in its fourth week now. The Doctor is getting nice and fat. It shouldn't be long before he starts sprouting his forelegs.

R began her circus classes this week.  She tumbled, balanced, devil sticked and hula hooped her way through the hour and greatly enjoyed it all. 

Here she is fully dressed for her first ballet class.  She's growing up, my little girl.

H started up her piano lessons again this week after a six month break and we've joined up with the home ed choir again too. 

The pigs and buns are sweltering in the heat. Their enclosure is full of holes dug by Nutmeg to escape the heat. But they are happy and slowly eating up all the dandelions in Mitcham.

Saturday Science

Metamorphosis

An ongoing study of ours is watching our tadpole slowly growing and changing. On the last day in January we went to a local creek to catch tadpoles.  Four years ago we caught five tadpoles at the same place, so we expected a similar haul this year. Strangely this time the creek looked dark and unhealthy and we only found one tiny tadpole.  We've dubbed him "The Doctor" and he now resides in a bucket on our deck, feasting on lettuce leaves and mosquito larvae.

searching...

where we found The Doctor and where we'll release him once he's fully grown

week 1

week 2

week 3

Almost doubled in size, eyes obvious, and barely visible beginnings of front legs

Saturday Science

February 11

Silver Trees

Some metals are more reactive than others.  Zinc is more reactive than iron and this is why it is used to coat steel dustbins, steel bolts and corrugated iron sheets.  The zinc reacts with the air first and protects the iron from rusting. 
Copper is more reactive than silver (which is why silver makes such good jewellery).  In this experiment a piece of copper wire was covered with some dissolved silver (silver nitrate solution).  As the copper reacted and began to dissolve it displaced the silver out of the solution, which then sprouted beautiful trees of silver crystals.  The branches are so fine that the light scatters and they seem quite dull, despite being pure silver.
H and R enjoyed watching the this reaction under our microscope.

Around The World - South Korea

Inspired by Owlet's Worldly Wednesdays, we've begun our own journey around the world.  Each week we will pick a country at random in which to immerse ourselves.
Our first trip was to South Korea. 
We made passports and plane tickets, plotted our route on the world map, then flew there in our private jet.

Once arrived the girls coloured their flags and did some research using National Geographic Kids website.  We've learnt how to say Hello in Korean, listened to Korean music, eaten Kimchi and shopped at a local Korean supermarket for some snacks.  The girls made paper dolls and dressed them in traditional hanbok and also made a  Sam Taeguk Fan.
After eating our snacks we watched an impressive film called "House of Flying Daggers" which we were led to believe was a Korean film, but it wasn't after all. No matter, it was still a great film and we all enjoyed the story and the martial arts.
On our last night in South Korea we watched traditional dances and Korean cartoons courtesy of You Tube, and looked at some beautiful images of the countryside and city of Seoul on Google Earth. South Korea is definitely one place we'd love to see in real life!

not all too happy about spicy Kimchi, the girls picked out some other Korean snacks

more food and the girls' scrapbooks

Saturday Science

 January 27
Making compost

In this activity the girls were shown how to make good compost and how decomposition works. Their bottle of compost is sitting by the herb garden in the sun and almost two weeks later is coming along well.  It smells great - loads of microbes happily aerobically decomposing.

chopping up ingredients..

..and sealing the bottle.  Photos by RL

February 4
Making an Abacus

Saturday Science became Saturday Maths this week, as P wanted to show the girls how to make their own abacus.  In the end they made a soroban instead - the Japanese version which is slightly less complicated than the traditional Chinese abacus.

getting materials organised

adding the Earthly beads

Finished! 

 Our sorobans have seven Heavenly Beads and twenty eight Earthly Beads.

two million, seven hundred and thirty five thousand, four hundred and eighteen.