Saturday, January 12, 2013

Explosives for kids...just kidding!

Joshua is fascinated with explosives at the moment. He is constantly talking and scheming about how to make gun-powder and other explosives. So for homeschool this week he wanted to do some science with explosives. He has done the vinegar and bicarb experiments, but as a friend brought over pepsi - which we do not drink, he wanted to try the coke (or in this case pepsi) and mentos experiment. What he actually wanted to do was make a rocket airbourne, but it just did not seem to work out like that.
So the theory is... diet coke and approximately 3 mentos are combined and as you can see there is a bit of a chemical reaction. We googled a few versions of this experiment and found a great rocket version and a crazy car powered by coke and mentos.

There is actually a bit of science behind it all as well. Apparently this explosive recipe is not a simple acid-base reaction like the vinegar and bicarb, but is caused by the rough surface of the mentos disrupting the water molecules and creating bubbles as a result. We also discovered that diet coke is better than normal coke due to the effect of the sweetener aspartame which creates more of a reaction than sugar.

Resources
The science behind the experiment

Sunday, January 6, 2013

Sunday Kung Fu!


In our home the Sabbath day is a special day being the Lord's day and we try to teach this to our children. We encourage them to choose activities which help them grow closer to their families and to Jesus Christ. The following conversation was over heard today.
Joseph - "Do you want to play Kung Fu?"
Anna-Maria - "Yes, but everyone in the Kung Fu class has to be in the true church because today is           Sunday."

Today was Lily's blessing - performed by her Daddy and assisted by Grandpa and Uncle David (Brother Morris). Lily is such a cutie. Tane left us again for 3 more weeks of training in the territorials in Waiouru. I think he is in for another 3 weeks of PAIN!! Better him than me... motherhood is certainly makes me tired and grumpy at times but is not associated with that level of PAIN.

Tane took the boys for a hike up to the Pinnacles. It took them 5 hours to get up to the hut. The boys were so proud of themselves to have made it... and their Dad was even prouder of them. They had a great father-son outing and Tane had lots of opportunities to teach them skills and tips he learnt during his army training.
They slept at the camp that night and walked down the following day. They were so wasted the following day, but they really loved it. Joshua keeps saying how much he is going to miss his Dad and I think it is mostly because of the great bonding time they had together.






Thursday, January 3, 2013

Welcome Lily...Surprise Home-birth for Baby No. 5

We arrived back in Auckland on Sat 13th Oct from our year-long escapade in Australia. I was 38 weeks and 2 days pregnant. Besides me was my husband and the 4 children in tow ranging from 9 years to 22 months. As if that was not enough, we had 10 large suitcases, 2 car-seats, a double buggy, a port-a-cot, 5 carry-on cases, and a baby-bag.

The kids had been very well behave considering they had been travelling or transiting in airports from 12 noon on the 12th. The only hiccup we had was a few bouts of vomiting by Joseph in the last hour before we touched down in Auckland.

We unpacked at mum and dad's and I contacted my previous midwife on the 15th to ask if she could deliver my 5th baby. She was delighted. She came over to see me on the morning of the 17th Oct (Weds). I had been having some reasonably convincing braxton-hicks contractions earlier in the morning, but they had died down before she arrived. She did some basic paperwork and gave me a form to get some blood tests done. However... I never got to do that. Tane took the boys to get their hair cut and I was baking alphabet cookies. I rang my mum as she was out to ask her where the cocoa was and she said she was going for a walk and would be back in an hour. "That's fine" I said as there was no action in the baby department.

However, a few minutes later the braxton-hicks came back... or so I thought. I felt sick too so I went downstairs to bed. By this time Tane had come home so he watched Ella while I went and laid down on the bed, with Anna-maria, bless her, giving me sips of water between the contractions. Tane came downstairs to check on me and said we had better go to the hospital, I told him we had better wait till mum gets home... as she was not yet. As soon as she arrived he called the midwife and told her to meet us at the hospital, however when he came to get me I told him it was to late as the baby was already coming. In the meantime Anna-Maria was a good helper and put towels over the floor.

I have never seen him run up those stairs so fast to call the midwife to tell her to come to mum and dad's house. The midwife arrived about 5 mins later and listened to the heartbeat... all good :). She told Tane to get the towels out of the dryer as the baby was about to be born. I stood up for my next contraction, my waters broke and out came our baby. I caught her just-in time so she did not land on the floor. When Tane walked back in the room he was in shock... There I was standing by the door with the baby in my arms.
The kids were so excited and were in there to see the baby.



Love you Lily-Grace... our beautiful baby number 5.

Hand-Clapping Games


Today I showed Anna-Maria some of the hand-clapping games we used to play at playtime at school.
We played 'Miss Mary Mack' and 'Under the Bramble Bushes'. We also did 'A sailor went to sea, sea, sea'. She really enjoyed it and picked the up very quickly. I wanted to show her these games so she had some less boisterous games she could play while we are at social gatherings and there may not be much space to run around. It seems sad to me to see a bunch of kids huddled round a computer while one or two are engaged in playing, when they could be doing so many more things with their time.

Ella also had a great time trying to join in and we taught her how to do  pat-a-cake.

Resources
Funclapping is a cool website that has videos of children doing the clapping game so you can learn the tunes as well as the actions.