The Transit of Venus

The weather was kind to us today and gave us a glorious sunny Winter day to witness the Transit of Venus.
Many telescopes were set up on the Observatory Lawn at the Botanic Gardens for the general public to use.  We spent quite a bit of time going from one telescope to the next to see that tiny little black sphere do her thing.

The photo of the Sun and Venus was taken by photographing a white screen onto which was projected a magnified view of the sun through a reflector telescope.

After a spot of lunch at the observatory cafe, we walked past the Shrine of Remembrance, rolled down the lush grassy hills many times, then caught a tram to the National Gallery where the children went on an excellent adventure and posed on the enormous letters of Napoleon's name.

Despite witnessing a once in a lifetime event, this was possibly the most enjoyable part of the day!  The writing came out a bit small so in case you can't read the speech bubbles it says:

Where can you find Napoleon Bonaparte in the supermarket?

In eggs aisle!

 

Fun in Outer Space

Some days ago R told us about a wonderful dream she had about floating around in space with aliens, rocket ships, planets and other amazing things.  I decided to seize the moment and under R's supervision we are transforming her room into Outer Space.
She wanted the top bunk to be her spaceship and the wall opposite to have a large mural.  After a trip to Resource Rescue, Spotlight and Bunnings this is what we created.

Painting the outline for the mountain range silhouette

it has a decidedly Moominland feel to it

the stars and spaceships are coated with glow in the dark varnish

we are also making a robot costume

Right now there are several planets waiting to be hung from the ceiling.
Next week we will visit the Melbourne Observatory to witness the Transit of Venus.  What great timing for our spontaneous Space Studies!

The other night whilst sitting in her room in the dark watching the glowing stars, we brought out her fibre optic lamp thingy. I haven't a clue what these things are called!  It looked amazing in the dark. Very spacey.

Scenes from the Aquarium

Another fun day out at the Melbourne Aquarium. This time with more friends!
H asked me today what our theme is for this year. Last year was The Elements.  This year, due in part to our newly aquired aquarium annual pass, will have to be Marine Biology!

Saturday Science

Marbled Nail Polish

Inspired by our friend K and her Scientriffic magazine, we attempted to create some dazzling marbled nails.

 

The girls created their very own marble nail design by dropping nail polish onto water, dragging a point through the circles of polish and then inserting their nail. The swirled nail polish adhered to the nail, resulting in a unique marbled design.

Why is it so?  The oil always floats to the top because it is less dense than water. Oil and water don’t mix because water molecules are more attracted to each other than to oil molecules.

Molecules of water are strongly attracted to each other because they are polar. Oil and water molecules are not attracted to each other because oil molecules are non-polar and hydrophobic or ‘water-fearing’. Oil has a lower density than water, so it always floats on top.

While we were busy with nail art, the TARDIS dropped in for a visit. It's always nice to see the Doctor.

Always learning

Despite the girls spending alot of time doing this ...

... their brains have been in overdrive since we got back from our holiday.
R is suddenly checkmating me at chess, spontaneously spelling words off the top of her head and contantly sharing insights that are beyond her years. 
H is immersing herself in all things bookish, learning about grammar and her spelling is taking off too.
At a recent trip to the aquarium they shared all their knowledge about marine animals with our friends.  I am amazed at their ability to retain and explain all the facts and figures they soaked up at Heron Is.  What really impresses me is that they don't need to write things down to remember them. They hear it, find it interesting, file it away in their brain somewhere and that's it. Done. Remembered. For ages!  Unschooling does indeed rock!

Botswana was the next destination on our Around the World trip.  After the decidedly "meh" attitude whilst in Mexico it was a welcome change to go to Africa.  We watched our Wild Africa DVD a few times, read a book by Alexander McCall Smith about Akimbo and the Lion, and listened to great music via the AccuRadio app.  H enjoyed spending our virtual money on airplane tickets and a two night stay at the Mashatu Game Reserve in Botswana. She also did some extensive research on the country, typed it up using her emerging typing skills learnt here and printed out copies to paste in their scrapbooks.
R was keen to do some writing and made some puppets of an African man, meerkat and a crocodile.

Here are some snippets of life around here.

Clockwise from top right:  Happy Birthday P!; chess anyone?; currently reading about Marco Polo's adventures; chilling out with good friend W; Nutmeg the bunny; beautiful colours from our prism on a sunny morning; spot the real animal; what's going on behind those beautiful big blue eyes?;  another doodle.

Dinner with friends C and W turned into a henna tattoo night:

Around The World

Mexico

We took a short trip to Mexico some weeks ago, flying with Delta Airlines and staying at the Plaza Suites in Mexico City.  Then after doing some research we decided that staying in Mexico City probably wasn't the best idea seeing as it is one of the most polluted cities in the world. 

Mexican books and movies were a little hard to come by, so we made do with a screening of The Three Amigos and a taco night at home.

The girls also made some mexican paper dolls, did a Mexican Symbols word search and learned about the flag's very complicated symbols of an eagle eating a rattlesnake while standing with its left claw upon a nopal cactus, with a half circle of green oak on the left (strength) and laurel branches on the right (victory).  All this is from an Aztec legend in which the god Huitzilopochtli described to his people where they would find their promised land. And they did find it, exactly as he described. They named their home Tenochtitlan ("Place of the Nopal Cactus").  It is now Mexico City.

Our next stop is R's choice - Botswana.

The Fall of Dasamuka

On June 8th 2012 Permai is proud to present a Wayang Kulit of  'The Fall of Dasamuka', an episode from The Ramayana.  Here's the flyer:

We've been practising hard. It's going to be a great event!