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.

Autumn

Colour matching, under close supervision of Buzz!
Looking at moss under the microscope.

Looking at the anthocyanin in apples.
To understand what happens to the leaves at Autumn time, we began by looking at the process of photosynthesis. The girls drew diagrams of the process of photosynthesis.
At Autumn time, the chlorophyll production slows down and eventually stops. The remaining chlorophyll breaks down and the green colour fades, and the yellow carotene can be seen.
A layer of corky cells forms across the leaf stalk, ready for leaf shedding. This restricts the flow of sugars back into the tree. Sugars stay in the leaf and become concentrated, they are eventually converted to anthocyanin, a red/purple pigment.

Eygptian workshop

The pyramid look rather disappointing from the outside, being made of white plywood, but once inside it was enchanting. It had been decorated with paintings, hangings and lanterns. The leaders of the work were so inspiring with their music and story telling.

Men at work

Geoff catching up with some maths, Reuben busy on his laptop.

Reuben and his dinosaur jigsaw

Reuben really loves jigsaws at the moment.

Play days

The play days were great fun with the opportunity to try trampolining, rock climbing and donkey rides too.

Wentworth castle

Wentworth Castle is entering into our top 10 of favourite places.
We've enjoyed many walks with friends, bug hunting, fungus spotting (of course) and the playground is fantastic. Imogen sent an e-mail to the rspb with a question about the deers, her description was amazing.

hard hat and lamp

Sorry Rubes the mines shut about 20 years ago!

cannon hall farm

Reuben has a new favourite farm after visiting cannon hall farm. The new cow shed is amazing, a bridge over the top allows you to observe them from above. mmm and the cakes in the cafe delicious as ever.