Day 31

16th November 2021

STEAM Exercise

While our days are lovely, & we did commit to 3 months of de-schooling (at least), I found this cool STEAM activity (http://thehomeschoolyear.com/Skeleton) that I thought the kids would love.

Even though they’re really anti work sheets & text books at the moment, I printed out the instructions and thought it was worth a shot.

I didn’t care if they didn’t want to do it, I just wanted to try.

This task involved reading & following instructions. Lots of paperwork. So right away I thought I was just printing paper to light the fire.

I was wrong!

I casually got the worksheets out over lunch, (because food helps with everything), and told them to read through the instructions so they knew what to do, because I was heading outside to mow the lawn.

Surprisingly, this went down well. Lots of reading & chatter & dare I say it, excitement!

Was it because I was leaving them to do it alone & not looking over their shoulder correcting them as they went? Like at school? 🤔

So anyway, I left them to it, popping in every now and then to take a picture. (Given how LONG the grass was, emptying the catcher every 8 seconds gave me ample opportunity).

This is what I was dealing with. 😲 It took me over an hour to mow the lawn!! Spring what are you doing? Stop raining!!

(Worksheet huh. Hmmm. Skeleton, ok, I’m listening).

Fine motor skills at work.

Bending the wire was hard. I helped a little with this part. We ended up buying the extra JUMBO-sized paper clips and the wire was too thick & hurt our fingers. Ouch!

Mila’s running skeleton, take one! (Linc became distracted right at the end. Top effort though, given the obstacles).

Perseverance

This STEAM skeleton was a huge challenge.

I sent the kids to purchase the things we needed, as I had to wait outside with Pepe.

Our paperclips were too big, our jars were a little too big as well and this caused us problems.

We first made a mistake when we taped the ankles to the crank as the crank couldn’t turn. We amended the tabs & made more of a loop & this helped.

Lots of failing and persevering.

I was surprised every time I came in, that they were still going.

It had been over an hour of focused learning!

The last time, I popped my head in Lincoln was watching Mark Rober on TV, but Mila was charging on, totally focussed.

Tomorrow we will try again with the correct size jars & paperclips and see if we can get it working.

Meet Clarence

Clarence – He’s an English Setter. The softest, most delicious dog of the day. He was our favourite.

Mila was SUPER grossed out by the snot drool Clarence has happening at the moment.

Leek Growers

Aside from growing mushrooms, we are also growing a leek in an old egg cup. It’s just sprouted and we’re excited to see if we can grow a full leek!

Botanists!

Mila The Ham

We ate dinner in the freshly mowed garden, and Mila picked a passionfruit flower for her ear.

We explained that, had she left it, it would have turned into a passionfruit!

She didn’t care & began dancing around the garden.

Our zany Mila girl xxx

Ooh, and Lincoln lost a tooth! (There can’t be too many more to go?)

Farm School

I didn’t get to tell you what went down at farm school because of the meltdown in progress when they got home.

BUT, they tell me they bought 35 boxes of matches and cut the tips off and filled a paper cup and made a fuse trail, lit it and blew up the cup!!

And then a toilet roll! 😂

Apparently there’s a photo being sent out. I’ll keep you posted.

Wait, did I tell you this already? I’m so tired. 😴😴😴

Night.