Project 222: Myths and Legends

The local country park had a home education workshop on myths and legends, so we decided to make it the project for the week as it'd been three and a half years since we'd last visited the topic (see Project 53: Myths and Legends).

The workshop involved finding pictures of different parts of animals, and putting them together to create your own mythical creature. They then made their own Green Man head to go on a tree of their choice. 

We also made use of a lot of Twinkl myths and legends worksheets. They did some charcoal mark making:

A create-your-own mythical creature game and some worksheets on Pandora's box:

Next Project: Sound and the Ear

Project 221: Electricity

As we had had an electricity project way back in Solomon's first year (see Project 30: Electricity) we decided to revisit the topic for the other two children. 

Once again we made use of the Electricity Master lab, and rewatched the Zap, Crackle and Pop video from the Royal Institution. 

We also read a short book about electricity....

...and did a number of Twinkl worksheets about the scientific symbols and drawing of circuits. 

We also did a static electricity experiment from Usborne's 100 Science Experiments:

Next Project: Myths and Legends

Project 220: Birds

Serendipitously, our fourth participation in the Big Garden Birdwatch (see Project 20: Local Wildlife and Birds,  Project 68: Birds of the World!, Project 120: Birds, birds, birds) coincided with a home education workshop to create a bird box and a bird of prey centre, so it was a very busy bird-centred week. 

Unfortunately we didn't spot any birds in the garden for this year's Big Garden Birdwatch, but the children all enjoyed partaking in the (attempted) bird spotting:  

The children all enjoyed making and painting the bird box at a Ferry Meadows workshop, although the workshop was primarily leaving you to it with a bunch of wood. 

The home education event at the Herring Green Activity Farm and Birds of Prey Centre was a big hit however, as the children learned how to tie a falconer's knot...

...and even got to hold a kestrel and a harris hawk. 

 Next Project: Electricity 

Project 219: Random Science

We had a lot of science projects left over from the 'Crazy Scientist' advent calendar (see Project 212: Christmas Crafts), so we had a science focused week to catch up on them all.

Along with the detailed commentary on the science behind each experiment in the accompanying booklet, we read up on each topic in our illustrated science dictionary. 

As the 'Random Science' title suggests, there was no real theme to the science, but it included everything from creating a vortex and the conservation of energy...

...to looking at the pH scale, a facet lens, and static electricity. 

It was a really good advent calendar, but just a bit too intensive to do one experiment a day in addition to other project work in the run-up to Christmas!

Next Project: Birds