Sunday 8 September 2013

Autumn Ideas,Crafts and experiments for kids

Autumn has inspired us ...
 to do lots of fascinating activities!

 We made chocolate truffle conkers


 Yes, inspired by Autumn, not sheep droppings!

 We had lots of fun cleaning the bowl.

 Next, we added green food colouring to marzipan to make the 'conker' shell.

 Yummy dark chocolate 'conkers'.
We also made chocolate leaves by melting chocolate and painting onto rose leaves from the garden. They look great, but some leaves are poisonous, so check before choosing them.

We then did looked into the science behind autumn.

 We re-visited photosynthesis,

defining the relevant scientific terminology.

We found out about chlorophyll 
and the other pigments involved in the colours of Autumn.

The leaves have orange and yellow pigments, but during the Summer we don't see them, because Chlorophyll (the green pigment) is dominant.

 
 We made symmetrical leaves and then dipped them in marbling inks.

 Abstract Autumn leaves
made from layered tissue paper.

 Dipped water colour Autumn trees.

Dying pasta with Autumn colours,
string them to make bracelets and sticking to make pictures.


 We collected leaves from the garden, to separate the pigments in leaves using chromatography.  Tear up the leaves into a little surgical spirit.
We chose ...
 Green leaves
red leaves
 purple leaves

 Next dribble the liquid onto strips of coffee filter paper.

 Young Scientist!

 Wrap the top of the paper round a kebab stick or similar and place strip in a jar with about a cm of surgical spirit. Leave for a few minutes. We didn't see much from the leaves, so we tried with food colouring and felt tip pens as well.

And they gave a much brighter result!
Jemima could remember back to over three years ago to when we went to Weston Perk musuem for a Science afternoon. The girls did some chromatography (not Rosanna, she wasn't born!), and Geoff spoke to the professor - a conversation which led him to embark on his research studies!
Back to the chromatography, Jemima wondered if you could use water. Imogen thought this would smudge rather than separate the colours. Which led to more experiments.

We also enjoyed lovely Autumn walks, 
now with a greater understanding of what's happening.


19 comments:

  1. You have been busy! I love all the learning going on!

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  2. How fun! All I did was look at the leaves and take a few pictures!

    You have so much imagination....

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  3. wonderful. It looks like a lot of learning and fun was going on. I love autumn.

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  4. Sounds like a lot of fun! I'll have to try the pasta dying with my granddaughter -- she'd love that!!

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  5. Wonderful photos and creative ideas for the children ~ (A Creative Harbor) ^_^

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  6. A tasty and creative post! But so much more as you create memories of togetherness with the children...

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  7. looks like lots of fun! I'm jealous of the delicious-looking conkers.

    Zia
    singing-blue.blogspot.ca

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  8. You have quite an ambitious bunch! The photos are wonderful and you have so many creative things going on, Have a wonderful week and thanks for sharing!

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  9. Conkers!

    I adore that word!

    And I adore how you celebrate the seasons with your family in such a creative way!

    What wonderful ideas!

    You have a lot of creative energy!

    Thank you for sharing it!

    A+

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  10. What a great bunch of Autumn activities,and I love the chocolate conkers!

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  11. so many fun activities! looks like a blast!
    Helene in Between

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  12. How much fun, i'm your newest follower, would love if you could come by and follow back?
    Erica
    www.ericastartwalking.com

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  13. What great ideas! Looks like so much fun! I really enjoy your blog! Thanks for sharing your ideas! I nominated you for the Liebster Award! http://whereimaginationgrows.blogspot.com/2013/09/liebster-award.html

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  14. What a lovely unit of work. I love Autumn it's such a wonderful season.

    Thanks for linking to The Sunday Showcase.

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  15. What a great plethora of fun fall ideas. I love the poster you made for your science activity.

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  16. Thank you for visiting my blog and taking the time to comment.
    I hope you and your families enjoy the activities as much as we did.
    x

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  17. Great post! There are so many creative ideas here. Lots of fun and imagination for the little ones.
    Stopping by from "Sharing Saturday Link Up". Following you on GFC.
    Have a great weekend :)
    Bismah @
    http://simplemamaathome.blogspot.com/

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  18. Just found your blog through No Time For Flash Cards. I like the way you posed the question about what percentage of the earth is covered with water and then let the kids think to figure it out. It looks like you've done lots of great activities. Each Friday I have a blog hop called Entertaining and Educational. Please stop by and link up if you get a chance. Also, I really enjoyed your cell model as we did a big unit on the human body last year. Here the link if you're interested.

    Julie
    http://highhillhomeschool.blogspot.de/p/blog-page.html

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