I’m doing a series called looking back, documenting learning the children and I did together prior to me blogging.  To be honest it’s more for my sake than anyone else’s.  Blogging is like having a scrap-book, but takes about a quarter of the time to stay up to date.

My latest offering is astronomy.  I’m not blogging about the whole Apologia book.  I basically did as I was told in the book, with few deviations – how far I’ve come! This was one of the first curriculum I followed coming off ACE and we loved it.  We did, as is normal for us, a presentation at the end of the year.  It was probably my favourite.  It was our second presentation and my brother, his girl friend and my mum came to see it.  I got to decorate the outdoor climbing frame in Turkey foil and bring it indoors to act as our space ship.  The children had written a very short play about man’s first landing on the moon and needed a space ship.  Enter the climbing frame:

I made a very special, very appetising (!) space meal for everyone.  I had large foil tins, onto which I stuck some magnetic strips.  I made some macaroni cheese in a metal dish, stuck to the tray by the magnet; angel delight mouse in a bag, sealed with a straw stuck into it for sucking it out, also stuck to the tray with a magnetic strip; orange squash, again in a bag with a straw and stuck by magnetism; and finally some proper space, dried ice cream:

T, 7 at the time, did his presentation on man’s first landing on the moon.  He gave a talk and then demonstrated, using a space rocket he made himself, how each section was rejected and burnt up in the atmosphere as it was no longer needed:

As part of his presentation he made a diorama of the moon:

I know he’s my son but, seriously, this was so cool.  The moon is made of talcum powder, and I think he flicked some on the black paper as stars out in the sky.  Here’s a close up:

C chose Jupiter to concentrate on and I believe, if I can remember correctly, she was a tour guide giving us a pretend tour around Jupiter’s atmosphere:

She then did a demonstration of a storm in a bottle, to represent the raging storms on Jupiter’s surface:

L would be our most competent (and quietly confident speaker).  She and daddy came up with a presentation entitled Pluto: a planet or a dog?  She did really well with the humour but also managed to make the talk factual and informative, discussing whether Pluto should be reinstated as a planet:

I just wish I was a better photographer, so I could do all their work justice.  Sorry kiddlywinks!