Fun with Forces and at Fun Club

The (almost) final thing that we did at Ironbridge was the Fun with Forces workshop at Enginuity, which was very good and catered for a wide age range of children from about 4 up to teens.

It was interactive, with lots of questions and audience participation, demonstrations and a good dose of silliness.  It covered:

Forces = pushes or pulls  - using magnets to demonstrate both of these

Gravity - using a silly attempt to turn it off by having everyone wiggle their fingers at some balls as they were released from a 'drop zone'

M helping by releasing the balls.

            - and using a slope to make a truck move by rolling down it

Friction - using a truck with wheels and one without on two different surfaces, smooth and rough
            - using a board and trying to push it, then turning it into a hovercraft and trying again
            - getting everyone to rub their hands together to show that friction produces heat and sound

S riding on the hovercraft.

Air resistance - using little plastic men one with and one without a parachute dropped from the 'drop zone'

Thrust - using some balloons

About to release the balloon.

           - using a couple of 'rockets' powered by air - pushed in by hand and by stamping
           - using fire to blow the lid off a tin

After the workshop, we popped in to have a fairly quick look at the exhibition that was next door to Enginuity, which was about the Postal service during the First World War.  Then it was time to have some lunch before heading home.

We got home in time for the girls to have tea before M went to Brownies.  They were both absolutely shattered by bedtime, and M got rather emotional about having "too much stuff" and with a birthday coming up shortly people were going to give her even more.  She explained that the trouble is she gets attached to things that people give her and then she finds it really hard to get rid of them, even though she has too much stuff.  We agreed that I would help her go through her things to try to have a cull and I've also suggested that she might like to sell some of her things and give the money to charity.

Today was Fun Club, as it's the first Tuesday of the month.  People usually take along a cake to share with everyone when it's their birthday that month and M was very unhappy that I couldn't bake one as usual because of the state of the kitchen.  We bought something from the Co-op on the way and also went to the health store to buy something that particular friends, who have various allergies/intollerances, could share too.

It was a games session today and the older children were playing a co-operative game.  We arrived rather late, but K joined in straight away and M did towards the end after playing a board game with some younger friends first.  The game involved making this out of sticklebricks.

However, in the team, only one person was allowed to look at the model they were supposed to reproduce, another was responsible for getting the correct bricks from a big pile, another was a spy who could see what other teams were doing and the final person built the model following instructions given by the first person.  Not as straightforward as you might think.  However most of the teams did a pretty good job indeed and it was interesting hearing them talk about the difficulties of the different tasks afterwards with J who had organised the game.

We headed to the park for a while after lunch, before coming home and watching another episode of The Human Body dvd, this one covering the time from birth until toddlerhood.  Then K & M listened to some more of Lemony Snicket on cd (having borrowed the whole series from a friend, I've been usurped since we took them with us to listen to in the car on the way to and from Ironbridge).  This evening was the first outdoor korfball session of the year - it's a very civilised sport, indoors for most of the year but outdoor in summer!  Then they returned home with the second Ruby Redfort book, borrowed from their friend J, so I read the first couple of chapters once they were ready for bed.