Some of our younger children have been creating their own fantastic 3D space pictures using pastels as they near the end of their topic.
Space Art11-07-2020 | 18:46:02 | Comments Off on Space Art
#WerringtonSTEM Bubbles, pondweed, plants and unusual uses for usual items10-07-2020 | 10:13:35 | Comments Off on #WerringtonSTEM Bubbles, pondweed, plants and unusual uses for usual items
Good science all around yesterday. We started off by exploring surface tension in viscous liquids…
Bubble paintings
The finished products
What can you see here? It’s like cloud spotting (the scientific name for which is pareidolia):
A bush fire? 
An X-ray of a heart? 
A man pushing a boulder, leading a ghost by the hand?
We proceeded to some botany and zoology…
Planting lobelia & making friends
Molly’s new pet: Sammy The Slug. 
There is a spider here. Can you spot it?
We also did a touch of ecology…
Clearing the yucky, slimy weed from the pond
We also found froglets, toadlets, waterboatmen, pondskimmers blood worms, leeches, water spiders, water lice…
That’s not to say all we did was fling dirt around all day; we did also do some high-octane thinking. Here, in a continuation of our previous morning task blog, are many uses for two household items (both presented in the form of Kenning poems, for added spice):
We’re Mayan now…08-07-2020 | 16:01:05 | Comments Off on We’re Mayan now…
Finally, our Mayan vessels are finished!
And the final results (which are hard to truly appreciate in a 2-D form):
#WerringtonSTEM – Nets & Dancing07-07-2020 | 17:27:52 | Comments Off on #WerringtonSTEM – Nets & Dancing
A varied afternoon today, with a continuation of our work on 3-D shapes from this morning:
Platonic/regular solids
Molly’s uncontrolled mathematical joy at the pure beauty of an icosahedron. 
Will this net produce a hexagonal prism, Chloe? 
I think this one will… 
How about this for a net of a cube… nearly there? 
An icosahedron inside a dodecahedron, alongside a truncated tetrahedron. That’s so cool.
Er… NON-Platonic, most definitely IRregular solids
Cat face 
Night-vision goggles 
Er…. rhino? 
Tacos
We also found the time to create a dance. How many moves can you spot from David Bowie, Mick Jagger, the 1960s, and MC Hammer? (Can you identify the mystery dancer at the window??)
A trio of testing technical tasks #WerringtonSTEM03-07-2020 | 13:03:40 | Comments Off on A trio of testing technical tasks #WerringtonSTEM
A scientific afternoon on Thursday, with not one, not two, but three tasks designed to help us explore a variety of concepts including:
- the controlling factors in sound production on a string under tension;
- propulsion via the use of pressurised gases;
- creation of rigid structures.
Translating as:
Kazoos
Balloon rockets
Jude spent a great deal of time developing his design. A natural engineer. 
We’re aware that this looks more like a giant Cat’s Cradle. 
It turned out, the knot tying was the most challenging element of this task. 
Newspaper towers
Molly and her Evil Giraffe 
Daniella delights in her triumph after building the tallest (and certainly most elegant) tower. 
Gracie lends a hand with the sweeping up. 
Always the first to make the best of a bad situation, Jess shows love for her self-named Cube of Failure. 
An ‘organic’ design, which plainly turned out less interesting to its creator than the newspaper itself. 🙂
And finally, on a non-science note, here (from our morning task) is what the children think is contained in the boot of my car:
My name is mud…01-07-2020 | 16:42:21 | Comments Off on My name is mud…
We’re likely quite unpopular with those who do the washing in the house today. In the morning, we finally embarked on our Mayan pottery, covering ourselves in clay…
Jude carefully crafts a simple, repeating pattern. 
Ever-careful, Phoebe prepares to faithfully recreate her planned design. 
Molly has been waiting so loooong! 
Careful cutting from the senior Owen sister. 
Jess goes for the big reveal on her tree design. 
Gracie blurs with unbounded creativity. 
Painstaking detail go into these… 
First to the construction, Jude gives it a double thumbs-up. 
Molly proudly holds aloft the first of her 3D elements. 
The well-known Success Dance. 
Tense times as Phoebe joins her vessel. 
Gracie’s flowers are in danger of damage during these delicate procedure. 
Carefully, now. 
This is no laughing matter. 
Seriously. And you have clay under all of your carefully-cultivated nails. 
The finished products.
And in the afternoon, we rolled up our sleeves to set our shoulders to 8 metric tonnes of top soil…
White socks were, perhaps, a mistake. 
To be clear: tools were provided 
Yes, Jess, it’s tiring , dirty, dramatic work… 
Lovely, friable stuff. 
Children reflect that, on consideration, climbing onto the soil was possibly not the best plan.
What we can assure you is that we had a great deal of fun, exercise, and learning. So, hopefully, the washing is worth the payoff.
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