A science session.

Yesterday, having finished White Boots, K & M decided to stick with Noel Streatfeild and I started reading Ballet Shoes for Anna to them.  After setting the scene of a happy family with three children, parents (British artist father, Polish mother) and maternal grandparents (now settled post-war in Turkey), all but the children are killed in a massive earthquake, which did cause consternation, but not the distress it would have done not so long ago. We also went ten pin bowling with the girls' korfball club, which was really good fun.

Today we headed over to Asfordby, which was a 'bring a science experiment/demonstration' session.  There was a really good variety of things, including chromotography, crystal growing and cleaning of coins with different strength acidic fluids (e.g. rainwater, ketchup, vinegars).  It's something of a tradition for us to take a particular thing to any home ed group science session - a really brilliant demonstration of the centre of gravity of an object.

We also took a pair of books with the pages interlaced for folks to try to pull apart, but which due to the friction between the pages is impossible.  Finally, since we had a plank of wood hanging around, I grabbed that and a hammer to act as the fulcrum for people to have a go at balancing.

This was just about at the tipping point - thank you Z for taking the pic!

K did have a quick go at the chromotography, but I think I'll suggest we have another go at it at home, as both K & M prefer to play with their friends at Asfordby, which is fair enough.  They do dip in occasionally though and they were both happy to stop playing and come and look when I called them over to show them a hole in their hand.

After Asfordby we went back with E, P, C, L & J to theirs for a cuppa for the grown ups and a play for the children, before heading home.  At home we carried on with Ballet Shoes for Anna and M & I had a game of Forbidden Island, but this time we lost, although it was very close indeed.