From zero to infinity!

On Monday morning we said goodbye to Nana and Little Grandad, and after lunch we took advantage of the incredibly unusual for a Bank Holiday weather and headed out.  We went to Bradgate Park, unfortunately the world and his wife had had the same idea, so we did manage to park anywhere near where we'd planned, so ended up the other side of Swithland Wood.  That didn't turn out to be a bad thing though, as the wood was very pleasant and much quieter than the park turned out to be, not surprisingly really!  We had a lovely walk through the wood, then headed into the park as far as the tea room and visitor centre, where we had an ice-cream and a look around the centre, talking briefly about Lady Jane Grey (although her story is a bit gruesome for our girls' liking) and looking at the animal displays.

A & me by K

K & A

M running off because she didn't want to be in the photo!

On the way back through the woods afterwards, we stopped at a couple of what have become known in our family as 'nature's playgrounds'.  This generally means somewhere that the girls can climb about in water, preferably, but not necessarily, with climbable rocks and/or trees.  There was one that they decided would be ideal for Romeo and Juliet, as there was a 'balcony'.

M as Romeo and K as Juliet

While walking along, K & I started on working through the Maths book topics, starting with zero.  We talked about how it means 'nothing', that if you multiply anything by zero the answer is always zero, but also that when used for example when measuring temperature in centigrade, it has a value.  We also remembered that according to the book, if you divide any number by zero using a calculator, you get an error message.  We tried this out on my phone, but in fact got the answer ∞, which was the next topic!  

After we got home, we went straight out again for a meal at a local restaurant, as promised to M.  Last year for K's post First Communion celebration, we all went out to Pizza Express, something that wasn't really an option this year, as my mother-in-law didn't think my father-in-law would cope with that, so we had said we'd do so later.  We had a really lovely meal and while there, touched on the our next maths topic - infinity or ∞, as two opposite walls were entirely mirrored.

Today, as the first Tuesday of the month, was Fun Club and we had an activity with an outside provider.  It was making a coloured glass tile, using ground up coloured glass.  The children had a glass tile sat on top of a outlined picture or pattern, they drew around the tile, so as to be able to keep in in place, then painted glue onto the tile, before using a spoon to carefully tip the ground up coloured glass onto the tile.  When they'd finished a second glass tile was placed on top and the whole was carefully parcelled up to be taken away to be heated in a kiln.  

K's completed effort before the second tile was added.

There were several other activities available, including making 'stained glass biscuits', which both K & M did.  Then after lunch, given that the weather was still glorious (although unfortunately not forecast to last), we decamped to the park.

Over tea, we talked some more about infinity.  I asked K to draw the sign ∞ in the air and we noted that you can continue to do so indefinitely.  We also talked about what the opposite or inverse of infinity might be.  K mentioned negative or -∞, which I agreed could be a possibility, but also asked her to consider the idea of the fraction 1/∞, which would be so small it would be nearly, but not quite zero.  We also remembered the mirrors in the restaurant from yesterday and how standing between them, the reflections repeat to infinity.