Il y a de soleil (enfin)unplugged project

To celebrate the sun's belated return to a rather rainy south of France, we decided to experiment with a solar oven (rudimentary one), and cook an egg for this weeks unplugged project. First, Alexis painted a the outside of a tin can black.

Then he put some aluminumn foil inside

He popped the can in a hole in the sunniest part of the garden, making sure he didn't put soil in the can, he cracked open an egg and lost most of it on the soil (never mind)

He placed a piece of glass on top and waited....one hour later, nothing had changed ( temperature today in the shade 23°c) so we resorted to further measures, we attached one of Marie-Kate's mirrors onto a bamboo and orientated it, to have the sun's reflection on the glass.

Two hours later, no change, moved the mirror a bit more, now we'll wait.

A couple of hours later, no change, oh dear, never mind, doesn't anyone have an idea just how hot it needs to be to cook an egg using this method?

Even though our unplugged project didn't quite turn out as it should have, we're not going to give up. Next weekend we're going to attempt to build a solar oven using a pizza box.
Two hours later, no change, moved the mirror a bit more, now we'll wait.

Update, lunch-time the following day, the egg looks half-cooked, however, it could just be dry...

School's Out and Unplugged Science Volcano's and Sound

Youpi, May 2009

Friday was the last day of school for two weeks. We've been pretty busy with end of term meetings and outings, and now we have to prepare Marie-Kate's 5th birthday and a trip to London.

We did manage to do this weeks unplugged project, thanks to Alexis's monthly magazine "Youpi". This months theme was Volcano's.

Marie-Kate carried on this experiment because it was safe and easy. She made a volcano using some flour and soda.

She made the crater with her finger

The gas from the soda pushed the flour and the soda up and out of the crater, making it overflow like in a real eruption. Once the soda (magma)had lost its gas, the lava flowed down around the sides of her volcano.

I'd recommend this magazine to anyone, it's really super for children aged 5 to 8 years old. All my children have this magazine and loved it when they were younger. If anyone wants to swap some of our Youpi's for some something similar in English, that would be great.

Experiment N°2 Sound Waves





bowl covered with sandwich wrap

Alexis and Gabrielle decided to experiment with sound after watching a science programme for kids on Arte.

Scatter some rice over the top

Turn the music up ( Bryan Adams)



The noise makes the air vibrate, the noise is transmitted through the air, to the plastic. The plastic vibrates and the rice dances. The children loved this one.

Unplugged Project: Words

The children aren't usually short of words, but they are this week. The weather is unpredictable which elicits their hot tempers and irritability.... We're counting down the days until school breaks up for two weeks. Tomorrow is Wednesday, hence no school, so just 5 days to go ( Easter Monday, no school and no work).

Gabrielle decided like Alexis to do an Easter themed unplugged "word" project. Gabrielle, wrote a poem around her chocolate egg. Sorry, it's written in French, if you can't read it well on the photo, she wrote:

Les oeufs de Pâques?

Les cloches les emmenent.

Mais pas qu'eux!

Des poules, des lapins et bien plus sont bien cachés dans le jardin.

Alexis made a flyer to remind everyone (hmm, no need here) that we will holding our annual Easter Egg Hunt in our garden, Sunday. He thought of some different words that make him think of Easter and wrote them around and inside his egg (I said they were short of words...) .

(Weather permitting)

Six little words that Alexis loves

I bought some pastels for the children today, it was the first time they've tried them out, their pictures smudged a bit.

Unplugged Project: Books

For this week's unplugged project, Marie-Kate decided to make a bookmark, she's really into cats at the moment and she likes playing with her beads so this is what she came up with ( with a little help)

First she threaded a few beads on some string.

Then with some stickers and some glitter pens she decorated her bookmark.

She managed to punch a hole for her beads to be attached.

Now she can find her page quickly

Marie-Kate's favourite books up until now are:-

Little Red Riding Hood ( In English or French, with a many adaptations of this classic at home)

Goldilocks and the Three Bears ( in English)

Badjelly the Witch by Spike Milligan

and finally any

Winnie the Witch book by Valerie Thomas

and

I Swapped my Dad for Two Goldfish by Neil Gaiman

and not forgotting

Wher the Wild Ones Are ( a familly favorite)

I could go on......

Alexis didn't make a bookmark but he wanted to show his new favourite book character, Tashi ( written by an Australian author), so far he's read the first 5 books in the series and he's hooked. In France, children learn to read when they are 6, Alexis began in September to read in French, although he has been reading in English a bit longer than that.

He likes Tashi so much he painted him onto a tee-shirt that he did a couple of weeks ago.

Yaka l'fer..long project

We have fallen behind this week, but we managed to do this weeks unplugged project in the end.

We used a very long piece of wire and cut it up to make a couple of acrobates on a high-wire, (trying to copy the style of Alexandre Calder)

We cut each piece of wire into three segments, one for the bar, one for the head and hands, and one for the legs.



We made a support with some cardboard so we could hang our little acrobates, attaching them to it with coloured string.

We cut out little triangles and circles for their clothes

It's hard to capture them on photo....

Here's one waiting for his partner

Gabrielle's acrobate ready to go

Now they are ready to swing and do somersaults...mmmm... maybe not ours.

Floating and Sinking

Today the children (Marie-Kate, 4 and Alexis, 7) drew up a chart of things they thought would float and sink for this weeks unplugged "water" project. After finishing the list they filled up a bowl from the kitchen to see if they were right or not.

On their list they wrote a bottle top (in plastic), a marble, some plasticine, a plastic bottle, a glass bottle, an apple, a yogurt pot and some grains of rice.

They used a spot of paint either at the bottom on top of water to show which things they would float or sink.

They were right about the bottle top ( sorry, I forgot the photo, they did it too quickly!) it floated. Then they decided to sink it by putting water inside
and then by throwing it in the water.










Next up, they put the marble in the water, it sunk, they were certain it would, however, Alexis knew he could make it float, first he flattened some plasticine and made it into a bowl shape, this didn't float either with the marble in, but alone it did. He got the plastic yogurt pot and put the marble inside, it sank too. Finally it worked when he put a little water in the pot and gently placed it, with the marble inside in the water.








Both bottles floated, but they would sink if filled with water














Above is the finished chart, it's a bit messy as the paint smudged when Marie-Kate leant over it.

Later I'll add on what Gabrielle decided to do for her unplugged project.

Unplugged Biscuits...and Pizza's

This is our first "unplugged" contribution and my children all agreed that cooking and feasting were things that made them happy, so they made their own pizzas and Marie-Kate made some very well risen biscuits.

MK's cut out a butterfly pizza out of the dough (with a little help). Gabrielle made a capital "G" pizza and Alexis a fish-shaped pizza. Oliver and Charlotte were at school so I prepared XL for hungry teenagers pizzas.

"A Table" Marie-Kate

Alexis's pizza " My fish has swallowed an egg"!

Gabrielle's big "G" pizza(Our local farmer's first courgettes of the year were yummy).

Happy Biscuits in the making.

Quick, take a photo before they're all gone.