This day in history - Mount Vesuvius erupts

On the 24th August 79Ad Mount Vesuvius erupted and buried Pompeii

pompeii is in Italy. The country shaped like a boot.

The flag is green,white, and red.

We made a volcano and made it erupt. To find out more check out my post by clicking on the image caption.

erupting paper mache volcano

I explained that Mount Vesuvius erupted and buried a whole city called Pompeii. Everyone forgot about the city and it was not discovered until nearly 2000 years later by a archaeologist.


What is a archaeologist?

An archaeologist is someone who tries to find out about the past by looking at things people left behind. They look at  skeletons and fossils and artifacts.

These are the things archaeologists found in Pompeii

Setting up a  Archaeology dig 

We made some clay (4 cups of flour, 1 cup of salt, and 1½ cups of water) and made a city. My children are really young so they were basically balls with there thumbs pressed into one side to make a door but they were aware of what they were and thats all that matters. We also made some bracelets and some vases that were broke in half (so they can be pieced together at the dig). We placed them in the oven  at 180°C for 1 hour and then painted them.

I placed the houses in the bottom of the sensory table and covered them with sand. I then buried the other pieces we made along with lots of 2p and 1p coins. I kept half of the table empy so that they could move teh sand across later.

City before we buried it.

Becoming Archaeologists

A true archaeologist needs the right outfit and tools. We made some cardboard fedora hats using this fabulous tutorial by justjonty on instructables and equipped ourselves with spoons and toothbrushes.

Unfortunately I did not have time to paper mache and paint our hats but we will definitely be doing this later. These are fab to add to the fancy dress box. The children did not seem to mind they were quite happy with just the cardboard.

The dig!

We used the spoons to search the sand and used the toothbrush to rub the sand of the items before putting them into a tub. I explained that digging at a site is slow and careful work to make sure they don't miss or damage anything

I originally set up a archaeologist tent using a hula hoop, shower curtain, and ribbon. Inside was a table with boxes for them to sort out the things they find. It was too windy to use the tent so we had to make do with just the table :(

We used the pink tub for items and the black for coins. Once we got near to the bottom we started to uncover the city. We had to be really careful. We used our hands and the toothbrush to brush the sand away from the buildings.

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Erupting paper mache volcano

For the base I used a box with a small edge to catch the lava when we erupt our volcano. I then sellotaped  a small box in the center to give the lava chamber height. I made the lava chamber by cutting a milkshake bottle in half.

We then glued loosely scrunched up newspaper around the frame and then secured it with masking tape.

We mixed some paper mache: 2 cups of flour mixed with 2 cups of water. We then used it to stick strips of newspaper all over the volcano. We covered it in 6 layers. We applied the first three layers on day 1 and left it to dry a little next to a hot radiator for a hour between applying each layer. I then left it to dry properly over night. In the morning it was completely dry and we did the same with the last 3 layers.

After painting it and allowing it to dry we took it outside to make it erupt. We filled 1/4 of the center with  baking powder and then added  4oz of vinegar, and a drop of red food dye.

When the lava dried it gave the volcano a awesome effect.

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Magic Icecubes

   A lovely simple little activity which gives you the opportunity to teach children about primary colours, mixing colours, and different temperatures.


First of all we filled our ice cube trays with water and added a couple of drops of red, yellow, and blue food dye. My children love playing with water so this went down really well. We put them in the freezer and left them for around four hours.

Once the ice cubes were ready we talked about how the cold had made the water into solid ice and then popped two different coloured cubes into a glass of water and watched the water change colour. My two year old was really excited seeing the water change and my four year old was hyper guessing what colour the water would turn with different combination of ice cubes.

Oxygen experiment

 Oxygen comes from plants. Like us plants need food to give them energy. The  plants use sunlight, water. and air to make a sugar. They use this sugar to give them energy to help them grow. This is called photosynthesis.  Once they have finished making their food there is some oxygen left over. They release this oxygen so we can breathe it in. This little activity will let you see the oxygen that is released from the leaf.


We cut a healthy leaf from a plant and placed it in a glass of water and placed it in a sunny spot. 

After a hour we could see lots of little oxygen bubbles all over the leaf and the glass

We observed our leaf every few hours by the end of the day there was a lot of bubbles around the edge of the glass. We gave it a little shake and watched them float around.

Check out my blog on Joseph Priestley to find out more activities on oxygen and air.

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What is Air?

Air is a mixture of Oxygen and other invisible gases. It is all around us but we can't see it. So if we can't see it how do we know it is there?

I used a empty pop bottle to demonstrate the existence of air. What is in the bottle?

Nothing? Right?

I squeezed the bottle onto their faces so they could feel the air blow out.

Macey squeezing the bottle so Drew can feel the air.

The air can also make things move. We can see the leaves rustling on the trees and our washing swaying on the line.


We blew through a straw to make balls of cotton move around the table.

Macey figured out she could also use the empty bottle to move the cotton balls.

Wow! Look what I can do :) 

We then made paper windmills and watched the air blow them round in the garden.

We also filled a carrier bag with air and squeezed it back out.

Filling the bag with air.

Catching it

Squeezing it out :) 

Check out my post on Joeseph Priestley to find out more activities on air and oxygen.

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Yummy Mediterranean Lamb

We had Mediterranean Lamb for tea last night. Its one of my children's favourite meals and it is also super healthy. 

Serves 4    

Ingredients

700g lean lamb fillet chopped into bite size pieces
2 red onions, peeled and cut into wedges
1 courgette thickly sliced
mushrooms thickly sliced
400g can chopped tomatoes
2 tsp dried oregano
salt and ground black pepper

Hedgehog potatoes

12-16 small potatoes
rosemary (or herb of choice to flavour potatoes)
sea salt and ground black pepper
Low Calorie cooking spray

1. Preheat Oven to 200 °C
2. Place all the ingredients in a ovenproof dish and stir to jumble everything up 
3. Add 200ml of water. Cover and place in oven 
4. Reduce oven temperature to 160 and cook for 1 hour.
5. Check half way through. If there is a lot of liquid cook uncovered for the last 30 mins

Potatoes

1. Place a potato in the bowl of  a teaspoon and slice down approx 3mm intervals, slicing down until you get to the spoon. This should slice nearly all the way through so that the potato is still whole (together)
2. Spray potato with low calorie cooking spray and season with salt and pepper
3. Poke rosemary into the slices or season with herb of choice. 
4. Bake in the oven for 30-35 minutes or until soft and golden.

Rainbow Celery

This experiment is pretty awesome. Rainbow celery  is a fun visual experiment to show children how plants absorb water through their roots through a process called Osmosis.

Select the shorter sticks of celery that has lots of leaves for the best results. Chop around a cm off the bottom (the bit that is white) and place them in a glass with water and food dye.  I have found that blue and red seem to work the best. Over the next 24 hours we observed the colour of the leaves.

1hr later

One hour later and we can already see a tinge of blue on the tips of the leaves.

2hrs later

Sing along with Elmo

My kids love singing the alphabet song with Elmo!!

The Tiny Turnip

My children love  The Gigantic Turnip. It is one of their favourite story books.  I used this book as inspiration for last nights meal. It is very important to me to teach my children about healthy eating  but I try do it in a subtle way. My children watch and help me cook.  Its part of everyday discussions and I try to include it in some of our activities.

I read the story then asked my children to find a turnip in the fridge. They were very disappointed that it was very tiny unlike the gigantic turnip in the story.

'We can call ours the tiny turnip' - Macey

I don't like to just tell them fruit and vegetables are good for you I like to give them a reason why so I usually pick one item from our meals and give them one example of why its good for them. In tonights meal I told them the tiny turnip has lots of fibre to help our tummies digestive system run smoothly. 

On a fine March morning, the old woman sat up in bed, sniffed the sweet spring air  and said,

'It's time to sow the vegetables!' So the old man and the old woman went into the garden. 

They sowed peas and carrots and potatoes and beans. Last of all they sowed turnips.

We used the same vegetables that the old man and woman sowed in our recipe. We added peas and carrots with some mince turkey, parsnips, and vegetable stock and plopped some mini dumplings on top. We made turnip and potato mash and served with green beans. 

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