Grand Designs...

...A to B Different degrees...

Actually this is the first line of lyrics of a song of that name by a rather good musical trio from Canada; but in this case the blog posting is about Benedict's art project running with our dear Czech art teacher friend.  In this case he has been putting together an architectural model of his ideal house.

The civil and structural engineering was carried out in an earlier visit and now second fix joinery and painting have been carried out.

Kamila is a creative character and her art room is bursting with opportunities, in this case architectural adventures beckon...

 

 

An interesting lift shaft being installed provides novel access.  The weight of one person going down lifts up someone else.  Perhaps you have to eat lots of food upstairs and exercise the weight off  downstairs to provide a reliable mass difference! 

Detail of the lower door into the lift.

And as we pass through this desirable residence, we pass the kitchen in a tasteful saffron yellow, a frying pan of fish on the hob, and the bathroom in a refreshing aqua blue.

Whoops, we're sorry Kamila, we didn't know that you were having a bath!

 

No house is a home without some friendly multi-coloured pet snails.

 The garden area is perfect for relaxing in the sun.

 And afterwards, there is a nice outdoor pool with winding slide to splash in from.

And here are Kamila and Benedict giving their own tour of their project!

By the way, about that Canadian trio, you can hear them here

Magnetic Mischief

Today we had a look at magnets.  

We first made two lists of items attracted to the magnet and not attracted to the magnet. Along with the expected, such as a steel bar is and a pencil isn't, Benedict hit on the surprise that a pair of scissors did and didn't; they had a plastic handle and steel ends!  After trying two bar magnets together, we then considered the principal that like poles attract and opposites repel.

Dad's machining of cast iron on the lathe has produced a useful waste product, as the carefully collected iron chips proved to be quite acceptable as iron filings (chips from lathe work are actually larger than true products of filing).

We tried a bar magnet under a piece of paper with iron 

filings and saw patterns of the magnetic force fields

We then tested the effect of various magnets under the paper, a book and the table, to see the various effects.

Under that table, the bar magnet and the 

stronger horseshoe magnet had no effect at all

So we tried the heavy duty magnetic base from Dad's workshop

And from under the table, this had a definite effect!

Then we tried the effects of thick and thin glass

After that, we moved onto referred magnetism, using paper clips as the extending media

 the bar magnet lifts a chain of 3 paperclips...

the horseshoe magnet lifts a chain of 4 paperclips...

 ...but oddly, the magnetic base does no better, with only 4 paperclips.

Considering the range of magnets, we slid each magnet over a centimetric graph paper until it was able to attract paper clips which had were on the baseline.

The range of the bar magnet was 2cm

But the range of the horseshoe magnet was only just over 1cm

 The range of the magnetic base was the greatest at 5cm

Finally, we made a compass.  We magnetised a darning needle by stroking the strongest magnet along it.  The needle was then suspended from a piece of wool in a glass.

The needle had a tendency to align itself along a North-South axis.  When the glass was rotated, the needle tried to orientate itself again, however, the resistance presented by the suspension thread meant that a N-S orientation could not be obtained when the glass was rotated far.


The logical correction of this fault would be to have the needle on a cork, floating in a dish of water, but time ran out.




A productive work outcome!

After lunch it was Mum's turn to pitch in and Benedict worked on a cryptogram quiz for his spellings:

This was then followed by two pages of quick drill mathematics followed by another book from his reading pile:

Whilst Benedict and Pip were engaged in another craft activity, I took the chance to sneak into the garden and photograph my most favourite spot:

All credit to Sara for all her hard work in painting and thoroughly cleaning the greenhouse from top to bottom!

View from the greenhouse door.

Blooming flowers waiting to be planted!

A better view of my favourite spot!

Our twinkly, twirly bird scarers/sun catchers dancing in the breeze.

Whilst I was hanging the last of these colourful discs I was greeted with the presence of an unusual visitor in the garden:

My very own Indian brave and little sister squaw could be found here:

She's even sitting crossed legged too!!

As I type we are just about to embark on a craft activity present for one very special Nanna, who has a birthday on Thursday.

Turn Back Time and Other Happenings.

Using the BBC Schools Primary History as our resource we worked through the first few activities linked to the "Turn Back Time" project.  Benedict's first activity was to find the following list of objects:

carrot, leek, apple, banana, egg, cheese, milk, margarine,fish, medicine, sweets, nails, saucepan, bicycle pump, tinned food, CD, pair of shoes and a school tie.

Once the items had been gathered in his shopping bag they were duly arranged on the dining room table. 

His next task was to decide where the items could be purchased.  The teacher's notes hinted that some children might list individual shops but that others might resort to the umbrella term of "supermarket" for the items on the list.  I have to say I was relieved that, Benedict listed all the different places where these items could be found.  His answers are listed below:

 Using the shop signs included in the resource pack he placed each item in the appropriate shop and we noted some of the differences in words used, ie Benedict used the word Ironmonger and the resource pack label was Blacksmith.  Here are some examples of the signs and their corresponding items:

Once the items had been cleared from the table and returned to their respective homes we then looked at activity number two:

The Shop Front.

We discussed that even in Victorian times shops had a sign/advert outside the shop to explain what they sold and therefore encourage people to buy their goods.  Using an Onken Yogurt advert as our guide:

we looked at the main principles of a good advert and decided upon three main areas:

Clear lettering, colourful pictures and a catchy slogan.  Benedict had to then think of three adverts containing catchy slogans and here are his answers:

" You shop, we drop" - Tesco

" Spend a little, live a lot" - ALDI

" Because you're worth it" L'Oreal Paris.

He then had to brainstorm various shop names and settle upon one shop and design an eye catching advert.  His chosen shop name was "  Tippy Toes Dance Emporium" and her he is working on the design:

 and here is the finished product:

He did have a little help with the design layout!

After lunch he worked on solving and investigating math puzzles courtesy of the math sphere website as well as his weekly spelling list of ordering the words in dictionary format:

Once Pip had woken from her nap we re-used old CD's and turned them into bird scarers for the garden (although besides keeping birds of crops, we actively encourage some birds with bird feed!), this ties in neatly with our current geography theme of the environment:

Crafty chaos!

Busy colouring.

Glitter sprinkling.

The finished result!

Benedict's final activity for the day was self directed; Dave returned from B's old school with a new bag of reading books and some magnets. Benedict delved into the pile and read this book in no time at all:

Dad is on teaching duty tomorrow morning and the magnets are a clue to the chosen science topic!

Catechism, Craft and Craziness

Last Sunday was the feast of Divine Mercy so whilst Dad attended a service at our local Cathedral, Benedict, Pip and I worked on some post Easter crafts from the website Catholic Icing.

 Pip decorating her Resurrection Angel.

 Benedict choosing the colours for his second Angel.

Once the colouring had been completed the Angels were cut out and then stuck onto the ever useful empty toilet roll tube.  We now have two Angels standing guard over the Easter Hare and Fluffy Lamb at the top of the stairs!

Monday was still part of the Bank Holiday weekend, so we made use of the weather and incorporated a short trip to the seaside to purchase some much needed sunglasses for Benedict and Pip.

Naturally glasses are best worn upside down!  Pip loved them sooo much she wore them all day...

... even during the after tea treat of one TV programme, it brings a whole new meaning to the phrase "square eyes!!".

On Tuesday morning Pip attended Forest School whilst Benedict and I were with the diabetic team in children's outpatients.  It looks like we will be weekly visitors in the department for the next few weeks until we can stabilise his readings. 

We now however have a more worrying development on our hands, as Benedict is struggling to accept having the pump permanently attached to him.  This has led to peculiar outbursts of attempting to smash the pump against the wall, letting it drag on the floor and worse still disconnecting the cannula and line so he is without insulin completely!! The craziness has also extended to curtains being taken and hidden, items thrown from the loft window and a glass bottle smashed in the back garden.  Not his normal behaviour I hasten to add, so we'll have to see if the clinical psychologist attached to the unit can offer some pearls of wisdom.

On Wednesday Pip had her first encounter with play dough making and loved the whole process from start to finish:

 Mixing the wet ingredients and ...

... adding then to the dry.  Mummy did the hob work and then came the fun bit...

... squishy warm play dough just right for grabbing and pulling.

 On Thursday we had our usual trips to sing and play and Shein's.  Followed by an evening visit from our Crazy Canon, Fr L.  He has an amazing ability to excite the kids and Pip had great fun:

On Friday Benedict had his weekly art class with Kamilla.  He is making excellent progress in this area and we will be very sad to see her go when she returns to the Czech Republic in the summer.  B's current work in progress is a model house as an architect would produce, complete with individual rooms and stairs leading into a cellar.  His home work was to find items from the recycling box and re-use them in his design.  This ties in neatly with this week's Geography topic based on the Environment.  He had great fun on Friday afternoon working his way through an interactive site based around the four R's:

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Respect.

He had four missions to complete and crack the code associated with them.

We have a week of activities planned, which I hope will inspire learning and provide us with a springboard for regular consolidated learning.