Friday 27 February 2015

Of Wales and Crystals

This week has been about Wales and crystals. Youngest Son started talking about sea water evaporating to make salt so we made our own salt solution and let it evaporate.

We then coloured two containers of salt water and suspended a string between them. This became more dramatic as the week went by.


 This is the initial appearance.
After a day.
After four days-yes, we had added a second string.

We also found a crystal set that had belonged to one of the older children so were able to produce copper sulphate
and sulphate of aluminium and potassium crystals.

In keeping with the Welsh theme, the children have heard, acted and rewritten the story of Prince Llewellyn and his faithful hound, Gelert. 
They have learned the hymn Guide me, O Thou Great Jehovah and watched a couple of videos about Wales. Links via Young Hosannas.
We finished Rainbow Garden.

Youngest Son had completed his maths book and I wanted to start him on a maths curriculum which we can use for several years. This week, we started to use the Centre for Innovation in Mathematics Teaching Curriculum. So far, so good! I like the way in which it is set out with a detailed lesson plan and the style seems to suit Youngest Son. Perhaps, a post on this curriculum at a later date.

What we have been reading:
The set of Jake books by Annette and Nick Butterworth have been a great hit. We've just finished the last. Jake is a mischievous dog who always seems to end up the hero of the day. These are simple books which have been appreciated by both younger children. 

I've been finishing How to teach story writing at Key stage 1 and using its ideas. Other reading

  • Twice Freed
  • I don't have enough faith to be an atheist
  • The other side of the dale 
I've been starting to plan for next year. I'm looking for a new science curriculum and shopping my house for books to go with studies of various countries. We have a fair few books so this has proved a useful start!

Please do share ideas for books to go with different countries. I'm looking for chapter books and picture books.

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4 comments:

  1. We were just talking this week about the time we did the salt water evaporation -- we did it on black paper and we were able to really see the salt. I like the string -- I don't know that I have seen that before but it is a great idea.

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    1. I like the idea of using black paper and might try that next week.

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  2. Beautiful crystals! Miss 12 tried something similar a few weeks ago and got nary a crystal. She used sugar and was hoping to get sugar cubes! LOL Maybe I'll encourage her to try salt, which seems to work much better.

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    1. Annie Kate, this was so easy and worked well-definitely worth a try. Interesting about sugar-I had wondered about trying.

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