Wednesday 22 October 2008

Thank you Robert Krampf

We subscribe to a lovely science site. Robert Krampf who owns the site has a wonderful gentle sense of humour which has us giggling as we watch.
You can get free videos
http://krampf.com/members/experiment-videos
but after belonging to the free site for a year we decided that it was worth the very small subscription fee to get all of them.
We have done some very enjoyable experiments based on chocolate but the one that recently caught Beth’s fancy was for making ice cream without a freezer.
http://krampf.com/members/experiment-videos/ice-cream-science
There seems to be a (junk) food theme going on here.

Making ice cream 1

Making ice cream 2

Making ice cream 3

Making ice cream 4

Making ice cream 6

Making ice cream 7

Making ice cream 8

We had a lot of messy fun doing this. Being an expensive ice cream fan myself the result didn’t really appeal but Beth loved it and we learnt about keeping the crystals small by agitating the mixture, about raising the freezing temperature of ice by adding salt and about the heat transfer process that this initiates that takes the heat out of the mixture and makes it into ice cream.

Tuesday 21 October 2008

An Early Birthday Present

I spent Sunday at Eden Hall Day Spa with Jo as an early birthday present from her. Since she returned from six months of travelling we have not seen as much of each other as we would have liked because of her VERY demanding job and a complete ground floor renovation due to a burst pipe. So it was wonderful to spend so much relaxed time together.

We enjoyed the pool and spa

eDSC_3198

Had a lovely lunch

eDSC_3199

Some much needed relaxation

eDSC_3208

And chilled after our facial


eDSC_3214

eDSC_3211

And I even fitted in a yoga class.

A fantastic day, thanks Jo.



Monday 20 October 2008

I’m not a supporter of children stabbing each other

But I had to laugh when the BBC showed the clear instructions that a Nottinghamshire head teacher had sent to the homes of his pupils on how to make the very implement he didn’t want the kids to make.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/nottinghamshire/7672735.stm
It is not surprising that an inquisitive eight year old decided to try and make one too. He has been excluded, how great it would be if his parents could discover home education. Then his impulse to learn and experiment would not need to be demonised and punished in this way.
Inspired by this news item this is how Beth very happily spent her morning.

Fixing the pencil

Part way there

Equipment

Thank you BBC



I trust her implicitly not to want to use this to hurt anyone; if she cuts herself we will deal with it, this sort of minor damage is an inevitable part of life. If I didn’t want to get burnt I would have to give up cooking!
She has done this to:
see if it works
see if she can do it
She will use it to:
cut up cardboard
cut up plastic
sharpen her pencils

In use

And who knows what else. But I know she will not use it to inflict damage. Why? Because I know her and believe me she is not an easy kid, not a well behaved kid by average standards, but she is beginning to feel understood, she is beginning to uncover her competencies from the mountain of failure heaped on her by the school system. She is beginning to have happy as her normal state of being, she has no reason to hurt herself or anyone else. And I know that and do not need to punish her, scare her or try and suppress her normal curiosity just in case.
And of course she had to add her own touch in the pencil on the other end and a rubber in the end of the cap.
Now to solve the problem of how to sharpen the pencil on one end with the knife on the other!

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