We signed up to the Young Scientist Kits a while back and the first one arrived today (a mere two weeks after the second one!) – it concerns recycling, in a rather lightweight sort of a way, so today we did it. I didn’t labour the points, mainly because i’ve got a heap of other environmental resources downstairs and i thought we’d use those tomorrow, so we just hurled ourselves into some mess making. Having Emma here was an excellent help and meant we could do plenty of sharing out of jobs and make full use of all mess making opportunities.
Started with composting for the uninitiated, thankfully something my girls do actually know about (wah, i miss my allotment this year, if only because i’ve got nothing to feel guilty for not going to!) but the tiny, swelling tablets of peat were fun to do. We put carrot renderings into one and some plastic bag into the other. Apparently it should decompose the carrot peel in a week. I’ll be impressed if it does.
Yes, you really can waste time watching soil drink water 😉
Then we ripped up lots of brown paper, made paper soup…
and then reconstituted it back into recyceld packing paper!
Josie was in charge of sponging out the water; she did an excellent job. She’s also going through another naked phase 🙂
Just for fun we made versions from a mix of orange stiff paper and pink sugar paper and then another from blue paper and all the kitchen towel we’d used in the process.
If i can find all the other stuff i have hoarded, we have plans to do a recycling poster tomorrow, hopefully using our remade paper to add some colour. Did make me think it would be fun to do some artistic paper making with them at some point – and then also to wonder if i could seek out a kit of that sort to sell on BM, as the range of “how to…” kits i have on there at the moment are selling quite nicely. On the other hand, business has been so slow today that i’m convinced i’m facing retail death – as usual 😉 I am rather chuffed that i’ve sold a few Beedibles though, as they are a quirk i acted upon for no very good reason. I just adore them, though i can’t work out why – i think it might be a combination of the smell of vanilla and the Animal Crossing-esque look 😉
Otherwise, the day passed off fairly normally; Maddy also bought a doll from me with her birthday money (i charged her full price, rotten mother that i am!) and she also astonunded herself by doing most of P&J 4a. I can’t believe i’ve had to buy P&J books from Amazon, we were missing 4a, i thought it would ramp up a bit in terms of difficulty (and i was right) so i bought 4b, 5b and 6b too, because we had the a sides of those other ones. But 4 was missing from the set – no idea why – i think i’ve only ever bought up to 3 (Fran was long bored by them after 3) and Alison gave me 5 onwards – so 4 was missing. And entirely unsurprisingly, Maddy loves them and wishes to work through the lot. Kind of amused myself with looking through this too though; i had no idea there were several editions. I’m always amazed by the detail of the drawings though – and i still prefer Peter and Jane to Tom and Kate, for all the snort worthy “Jane likes to help mummy make tea” stuff. They are certainly good for Maddy and it is great to see her confidence leaping forward. Still waiting for the “raspberry” moment though 😉
Fran did some EC and some more Charlottes Web – really proud of her for launching into a much more solid book. She’s managed to sign herself up an account on the CBBC Roar game and has been managing a zoo, playing neopets and doing something else fairly meaningful that currently escapes me.
Maddy has Fimo-ed, Hama-ed and played babies, along with drawing something or other every 10 seconds. Amelie made a start on a letters book with Emma. Josie was unbearably cute but is making the house smell of wee and i’m still shockingly untidy with a lot of stock to sell before April 4th.
Oh – and no offence, but about 400 people have now forwarded the email about making St Georges Day a Bank Holiday now; April has long been a month i hate and last year, St Georges Day was unequivocably the worst day of my life so far – so erm, please don’t feel obliged to send me it again. I really don’t want it to be a Bank Holiday at all. Like i say, no offence 🙂
Tomorrow – more on Recycling – how do you do a Recycling project without adding to your carbon footprint. Any ideas?
Very good stuff. I think our recycling topics have been neatly “taught” by Bob the Builder! She would love the paper making. Seems to have been a very contained project. Maybe we’ll try some paper recycling in the warmer sunny weather when I can take it outside!
How come you get 400 emails for something I haven’t received one of? In any event I think any extra Bank Holiday needs to be September/October time.
I’m in good company then. 🙂
It’s ok michelle, I’ve not had any St Georges emails either, in fact i was oblivious to the whole thing 🙂
Paper making was something that I reading/thinking about he other day as it happens.
Re the carbon foot print, what you mean like shipping a kit about recycling across the Atlantic 🙂
Our carrot decomposed. I had serious, serious doubts but I have found the kits work rather well.
Carol
x
lol – Chris, yes!
I’m getting george emails mainly from customers i think – i must be in a lot of peoples inboxes!
Not had any george emails either. Yeah we had a book about making paper which looked really good but I decided it was more of an outdoor summer activity – good one for Kessingland?