stealth science

So, quite without meaning to, we have had a sciencey kind of few days.

Wednesday morning there was duplo, drawing and over lunchtime probably far too much Minecraft. Tiny also watched Madagascar. In the afternoon, Small Clanger asked to watch a film. Having already watched one that morning I instead put on Little Stargazing which I recorded on Sky+ a while back. Within a couple of minutes Little and Tiny were both sat watching it too, and they all really enjoyed it.

Hypnovision engaged!

After that Little asked to watch some Mythbusters, so we put on the two parter which deals with movie heist myths - breaking into safes, pressure switches, heat sensors, laser systems etc. I like programmes like this because it doesn't seem to them like they're learning, but in fact they are - both about science and about life in general (ie, media bluffs which are done to make things look different to how they really are). Plus, Little Clanger thinks Adam Savage is hilarious. Anyway, here's her drawings of what they did in the programmes:

Air duct into pink room where there's a door with a fingerprint scanner lock, through to the green room with motion and heat sensor, then into the yellow room with visible red lasers and real life IR detection sensors (green lines), then finally into the brown room with a glass door to be broken without the alarm sounding, then stealing a golden head on a pressure sensor, and last, but not least, breaking into the safe to steal the golden wand thingy with gems on it.

Final, surprise part of the show was to use Adam Savage's suction cup suit that he built to climb up the air duct to clib up the outside of a 23 storey building up to a waiting helicopter. The dude hanging sideways at the bottom is Adam Savage. The TV, girl in the window and line of washing are what Little imagined would be there if it were a building that people lived in.

Yesterday we met up with another HE family, S and her girls M and K. We have known S and the girls father for around 10 years now - they were friends we knew when we first knew each other and started going out. In fact, it was S deciding to home ed M, alongside a neighbour we had for a while who home edded her kids for a year, who first introduced us to the idea of home ed! Thanks S! :)

Anyway, we met up in Halifax centre and went to Eureka. If you've never been to Eureka and you're not too far away from Halifax then you should definitely give it a whirl - it's fab! Although it can seem like a lot of money, the first time you go you can apply for a year-long pass which gives you free entry for a whole year.

We spent a bit of time playing outside in the giant sandpit first, and then went inside and worked our way around the various areas of the museum, stopping for lunch in the middle. The kids all had a whale of a time, and we left about 3pm to give ourselves enough time to get home again. Here's some pictures to savour :)

I didn't manage to get as many as I could have, but frankly I was too busy having fun! It was really nice to be there without having the place jam packed with immense numbers of children. Little spent ages playing guitar with a group of kids who were there on a school trip. We spent time in the under 5s sections too, and as it wasn't crowded the older ones were able to play in there too and were very well behaved and respectful of the younger children who were there. There is also a house with loads of rooms, which Little spent ages cooking in; a M&S store from which they pilfered a load of veggies and porridge oats in miniture trolleys to use to make their cooking sensations; and a global garden, in which Tiny Clanger correctly matched various items to where they came from (ie, tomatoes from tomato plants, bottled milk from cows, apples from trees etc). We were all exhausted by the time we got home.

Today we had a very lazy morning. We watched Ice Age 4 and as a result completely missed the mobile library which we were intending on visiting today! (And writing that reminded me to renew the books online as they were due back today!) After lunch the sprogits spent quite a while just playing until everything erupted into a massive argument about whether they could all play together in a little hidey place Little had created by pushing the rocking chair and computer chair together. The other two wanted to play with her, but she didn't want them to. So I said we could make a different den for them to play in instead, and between the three of us we created this:

3 blankets + kitchen cupboards + 6 dining chairs = impromptu den

Needless to say as soon as it was done and the other two were playing in it, Little decided she wanted to play too. Thankfully, Small and Tiny graciously said yes. So they put various small chairs, beanbags, cushions etc...

...and spent ages using it as a base for exploring and adventures around the house until Small eventually pulled it down in an earthquake or something. Before that happened though, Little came to me with a vexed expression saying "mummy, there's a stick with legs walking in the den". I admit I didn't believe her, but went and looked anyway. Upon excavating the beanbags out of the den, we found this...

...taking a stroll in the dining room, and trapped it in a roll of parcel tape (first thing I could find!) so we could take a picture before putting it outside. We have identified it as a Devil's coach-horse beetle (thanks Wikipedia!), and discovered it is a predator that is not usually seen this late on in the year. Must've gotten cold outside ;) I also apologised to Little for not believing there was anything there.

Finally, just because they're awesome, here's a picture of some Minecraft monsters the sprogits recreated in duplo: