Today in science we have been exploring our senses of taste and smell. Before we munched into some fruit for an experiment we observed closely and recorded what we saw. Here are the children's pictures. R's pictures on the left, L's pictures on the right.
The schools go back tomorrow for term 3 - thank goodness we won't have to put up with school kids crowding everywhere for a while. We have already been doing home-school for a week - our machines project you can read about below. Tomorrow we will get back into regular activities. Here are some of the things we will be covering this term:
Tables, counting, calculations
Money, measuring, time,
Fractions
Shapes, angles, symmetry, coordinates
Spelling, phonics, sight words, grammar
Reading
Poetry and report writing
Human body, senses, organs, skeleton
Nature study
Gardening
The human form in art
Painting, drawing, printing, sculpture, collage
The ancient Greeks
The Olympics ancient and modern
Places in Australia
Computing - word, excel, power-point, internet
Ball and movement skills
Basketball, swimming
Piano, music appreciation
Cooking
We also have our regular weekly home education hangout and workshops. Perhaps the highlight this term will be our home-school camp with our friends to Dubbo; it's famous zoo, jail and flying doctor service.
Keep an eye on the blog and make sure we really get all this done!
Today we finished off machines week by studying levers. First we read the book to get some information and ideas.
Then we experimented with levers lifting weights. The children changed the position of the fulcrum (pivot point) and noticed how more or less force was needed to lift the blocks. We used weights to find out exactly how the amount of force needed to lift the blocks changed when the fulcrum was moved.
Only a few weights needed when the fulcrum is near the load
Lots more weights needed when the fulcrum is far from the load
The number of weights needed (in each pile) to lift the blocks depending on the position of the fulcrum
To finish off the week R and Dad dismantled a bike using a variety of tools. They looked for the machines such as wheels, gears, and levers that we have been studying. There was lots of talk about how each piece on the bike works.
Whilst visiting the science centre today we couldn't resist a walk on nearby Bulli beach; even if the water was rather cold. Of course we collected more stinky sea shells.
Today we looked at pulleys and gears. Again we read through our library books for information and ideas.
Firstly the children used their Gears, Gears, Gears construction set to investigate the direction that connected gears turn.
Next we found out how to use a belt to connect gears and make them turn the same way.
Then we investigated changing movement from horizontal to vertical.
We looked at how gears can be use to change speed of rotation.
We went outside and examined our bikes to find the gears and watched them working. Later on in town we found a rotary whisk and had a go with that too. Next we moved onto pulleys and we constructed our own simple one with a cotton reel.
We had a look at some toys which use pulleys.
Later this week we will go to the science centre to have a go with their multi-pulley experiment.
