The boys have been holidaying in Yorkshire. I switched my phone off for much of our holiday so there are no photos of the weekend sadly but we have visited loads of places and had a great time. We went to a massive playground, had lunch and watched the canal boats in Hebden Bridge; visited the sweet shop and apothecary and the Bronte Parsonage (from the outside) in Haworth; we saw the boats in Skipton though we couldnt get to the castle that day, we have plans for it on our next trip. We also visited the boys' Auntie Fiona and their four cousins, two of whom are with them below, another is playing cricket in front of them. They love their cousins so much and had a wonderful time with them.
Then on the way home we visited the Space Centre in Leicester. This is Caden looking at the Soyuz capsule which we learned is attached as part of the ISS. It is used as an emergency escape capsule and there is aways at least one attached to the ISS. Caden learned what the ISS was on this trip and that there are people on it orbiting the earth. Pretty awesome stuff!
There is a really good section on satellite imaging, weather and a huge Earth to look at. We spent some time identifying places on Earth.
Miles the space dog and his pet astronaut!
This exhibit demonstrated how the weather is formed. You spin the globe and the viscous liquid inside spins slower so you see the cloud like patterns forming inside the sphere. They had a lot of fun spinning it around and watching the clouds form.
They loved this next exhibit which showed the analogue representation of sound waves. I shouted and it barely reached halfway. They shouted and the waves were enormous. Clearly their yells are at a frequency that can be heard well. They yell very, very loud! I knew it! Ha ha!
This was an exhibit to gauge heaviness of two rocks, both metal based but one was a meteorite which felt heavy for its size.
We all did the Baked Bean Challenge. This was where we lifted each tin to see how much it would weigh on each planet. The one on the Sun was impossible to lift. We talked about how the size (mass) of the planet/star was relative to its force of gravity and this would make the tin of beans seem heavier or lighter.
There were concave and convex mirrors, great fun!
The boys weighing themselves to see how much they weighed on different planets.
Climbing by the asteroid belt exhibit, the kids liked knowing that a planet might have broken up in the past and was in orbit around the sun like the other planets.
Playing with shapes. The purpose of this exhibit was lost on me, I couldn't see the information nearby anywhere.
Caden learned more about meteorites. We did a programme on NEOs (Near Earth Objects) which was very interesting as we had to pretend we were tracking one and assessing its risk to Earth, we learned that as we got more information about the trajectory and size of the NEO its risk lessened as we were able to make more accurate calculations. We communicated with a base in Hawaii and reported our findings back to them. We learned about the NEO programme which NASA has ongoing to keep Earth safe.
This was a superb piece of machinery. It showed the positions of the Sun, Earth and Moon and their orbit paths. One revolution of the wheel in front of Caden, represented one day's orbit of the Moon around the Earth and a little shift in the Earth's orbit around the Sun. Really beautiful with cogs turning and lovely mechanisms. We turned the wheel over quite a few times, it was lovely to see the orbit paths demonstrated in this way.
This was a feature of the sun, it had a light that shone onto the Earth. We saw sunspots and looked at the places on Earth that would be dark (so the children would be sleeping there) when the other side would be light (where the children would be awake). They liked the idea that some children were having night time while they were awake and vice versa.
In the planetarium we watched a guided tour of the night sky. The narrator talked us through constellations, visible planets and tracked the Milky Way.
More tracking the night sky.
This was a game where you entered in your answers on a quiz and created your own alien. Caden found the end result fascinating.
Then we went to the section on the ISS and astronauts. We saw the tiny sleep pods, the shower pod and the food that astronauts eat that we didn't think looked very tasty. There were even vacuum packed m&m's. We saw the clothes astronauts
They tried on astronaut dressing up outfits.
We also looked at the rockets which are housed at the centre and saw a piece of rock from the Moon.
We were given a discount by the staff on entry and secured confirmation of a home educator discount for all which I will publish for dissemination on the HE UK forum. I will copy a photo of the price list for this blog. You don't need to show a card or anything, simply show up on a school day with your school age child to demonstrate you are a home educator and you will be entitled to the discount.
Home Educator's rates 2014
These rates are Term Time only
X1 Child = £8.34
X1 Child = Free (Additional adults = £9.00)
All prices are subject to change
Please note all Full Paying tickets (Adults £13.00, Children/Concession £11.00) are entitled to a free Annual Pass.
There is also the opportunity for workshops to be booked for all age groups. Any group of home educators could book these, there are charges and these seem to range from about £200 to about £400 per workshop split between up to 30 children. You would need to ring them to get specific details. I would certainly be interested in the KS1 workshops.
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