Planets, Plants and Robin's eggs.

We have been very busy over the last few weeks, lots of home ed visits, groups and gardening too. This blog post is a mixture of things we've been doing:

Girls are still loving the home ed singing group, they both were given solos on Monday and have been busy practising.

We had a scare with our Robin's nest, a big blackbird emerged from the conifer, both Robin's then left the nest and were flying around the garden, going to the nest, but quickly leaving.

Here is the sad little Robin. I normally can't get a photo, the Robin is so quick to get food and return, but after the encounter with the Blackbird, it hopped around in the back garden.
We looked for signs of eggs, but didn't find any. This photo is of a Robin's egg with contents probably eaten by a rat. We have found a couple of Robin's eggs like this in our big garden.
This is an hatched egg, much different from one that has been eaten by a rat!

We went to a home ed history forum about the industrial revolution. There were three planned activities, all very practical and lots of fun, learning about child labour, how land usage has changed (modelled with playdoh) and making a water wheel. In between the activities the children did presentations. We learnt loads about the industrial revolution -trains, production lines, farming. Immy and Mima gave a presentation about the invention of the hoover.
Child labour in action!
Baby plants been watered with a baby feeding cup!

We have planted lots of seeds, some in the ground and some in pots. They are starting to shoot up.
We also got a new camera this week, so hopefully no more blurry, blue photos!
And our first Rhubarb of the year, mmm, very tasty, it was made into Rhubarb and apple crumble.

Geoff took the girls on home ed visit to an Observatory. The event started with a slide show about stars and then they got to look at the stars through a telescope. The girls really enjoy going out at night to look at the stars.
We decieded to draw the planets to scale, using a compass the girls first drew the planets.

Cut them out
and then marbled them.

The marbling inks made a spectacular night sky!
The girls put the planets on the wall in order, but we had to take them down for building work. They used a mnemonic to remember the order
Last Saturday we watched the moon rise,
This inspired us do chalk fantasy planets.