Christmas tree

On the first we put up our christmas tree. 

It was Lawrence's turn this year to put the star on the tree.

The tree without decorations

The tree with decorations.

Science

Here are some photos of some of the work that we do for science.

Lately we have been learning about crystals.

For this experiment we made model of a geode.

We made molds out of grape fruit skin and plaster of paris.

Then we made a saturated solution by dissolving alum salt in water and adding food colouring.

We than poured the solution into the mould.

Then we waited for it to evaporate and form crystals.

Here is the result of the experiment.

Here is a real geode

Here we are looking through a microscope at bacteria that we grew in a petri dish.

We have also been looking at food science.

In these photos we were testing for starch in different foods by using iodine drops which is normally a dark orange colour. If there is starch in the food it turns black.

The other test was testing for fats by rubbing the food on brown paper.

If the food leaves a mark it contains fat.

Digging for fossils...

Testing different soils for erosion...

We have had a busy term and we are looking forward to the holidays in 12 days time.

Snow!

Today is the first day of winter to have snow! 

I woke up hearing Lawrence shouting "SNOW!"

When I went to my window I saw huge snowflakes!

I looked at the weather report and it said that it would warm up during the day.

So we went for a walk to make the most of it. Here are some photos:

First Snowman of the winter.

When we got home most of the snow had melted but there is more to come this winter.

(Hopefully!)

Busy Weekend

Last Sunday I did a bicycle race with Dad.
It was nice because we had to go as far as we could in an hour.
I did one lap (12 km) in one hour and when I finished Dad carried on for another four hours.

These are the highlights of a lap.
It was very cold at the race but I warmed up when we started. It had rained all weekend so it was very muddy. Luckily it was sunny so that was nice.
After I rode for one lap Dad carried on for another three laps. When he was riding I got changed and got a hotdog.
When Dad finished his part of the race we drove straight to Wimbildon Station to go to Chelsea - Man City the game ended 0-0.  The Chelsea fans boo'd our new manager at the begening of the match and sang our old managers name!
It had rained so much during the weekend that the rails were damaged. We just got home before they closed the station.
The day before I had gone to my soccer practice in the morning and squash in the evening.
I am going to do another bike race in a month.

Dance Course

This is me Cameron and Lawrence after finishing a 6 week street dance course with our

certificates.

This is our second dance course that we have done at the home school group. 

We really enjoyed it and we will do it again next year.

Lawrence's Butterflies

One of Lawrence's birthday presents where some butterfly eggs.

They started out as tiny caterpillars and ate the food that had been sent with caterpillars. It was a nettle paste. When they got bigger they crawled onto the top of the lid of the container.

We expected them to start weaving themselves into a cocoon but instead one of their heads fell of.

    We realized that their own skin had formed kind of cocoon called a chrysalis.

When they came out of their chrysalis 

they were butterflies!

Here are some photos.

The black one hasn't come out yet. The white ones are empty.

This one is on Lawrence's arm.

We put the butterflies in a special tent that is made from transparent netting. In the tent they could fly around and we could watch them up close. At first we tried to feed them sugar water but they would not eat. Then I discovered that they really liked orange juice. I squeezed orange juice into real flowers and they really enjoyed that. We could see the proboscis sucking up the juice as though they were using a straw.

After a few days we set them free to go find some new friends.

The Royal Albert Hall

A few weeks ago we went to a concert with our home school group at the Royal Albert Hall. Here are a few photos.

This is the building from Hyde Park with the sun rising behind it.

We had lunch in the park. 

This is where we had lunch, it is a memorial for Prince Albert.

The Royal Albert Hall was also in memory of Prince Albert who was Queen Victoria's husband.

This is inside. It was a children's concert so there were mainly school kids and teachers.

This is the stage 

They put these on the roof so that the sound reflects back down onto us.

Lots Of Posts!

I will now be doing a post every week for english! 

  

Paralympics

A few months ago (When my blog wasn't working.) we went to the olympic stadium in London to watch the paralympic athletes doing athletics. It was very fun. One of the South Africans won a gold medal!
Here are a few photos:

Here is the stadium from the inside...

and this is it from the inside.

The Paralympic Flame!

This is the victory ceremony for the South African after wining a gold medal.