Photography - Nature

By L

This week in photography we used our macro setting to get some great shots with a nature theme.

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Photography - Pets

By L

This week's photography lesson was on the rather more difficult subject of pets. The children had trouble catching the cats being still near an appropriate light source. Here are the best shots.

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Photography - Everyday Objects

By L

The children have been studying photography. This week they were photographing everyday household objects. Luckily we have some quite unusual things in our house!

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Lanterns

At our co-op we are preparing for the Joondalup Lantern Parade. We were joined by artist Charlotte O'Shea who showed the children how to make these cute animal lanterns from old soda bottles.

Alcoa Mine

Today we joined some friends for a free tour of Alcoa bauxite mine and refinery. The tours are free and anyone can book in. We saw some huge machinery including the massive mine trucks (above) and the rock crusher (below). The rock crusher is capable of "walking" to new locations whenever the miners need to establish a new pit.

We learnt about the conveyor (bottom left in the photo above) that carries the crushed rock 35km to the refinery. As we drove through the mine site we found out how the landscape is returned to its natural state once the bauxite has been extracted. We saw areas that had recently been replanted and other areas where the vegetation had fully grown back and you would never know a mine existed.

The refinery was spectacular with pipes twisting in every direction. Unfortunately we were not allowed to take photos in this area so here's one from Yahoo that doesn't do it justice.

Robots

We have been attending a robots club at our library with our friends. We recently got our own Edison Robots to experiment with at home. These are easily programmed with either printable bar-codes or by using the free software. They are compatible with Lego so you can build onto them.

A favourite game is wrestling robots.

They can also be made to track a line. We made our own track with black paint.

Bears

The children made these bear collages at co-op. I love their expressions!

Looking After Backyard Wildlife

The children have been learning about birds and insects at co-op. They made these insect hotels at Bunnings DIY store. I'm hoping they don't become snake hotels!

L made these 2 bird feeders.