FTHL Granville Island Field Trip!

We packed up early and caught the 8:30 ferry to town to meet at Granville Island, where we explored:

• the Crystal Ark, with its polished rock room, petrified wood, and countless amazing minerals
• the great playground and waterpark (even dry, it's still fun to run around in!!)
• New-Small & Sterling Glass Studio demonstration (WOW!!)
• Granville Island Broom Company broom-making demonstration
• awesome lunch with guitarist outside the market
• ...exploring!! After which, some of us went skating at Robson Square, too. :-)

We love our community, and we love the ability to gather for such wonderful, beautiful adventures!!!
Herewith, photos:

The sand mixture is heated to a glass in the kiln, and is pulled out on the end of a blowing pipe.

He had Tali take a pinch (with pliers!) of the molten glass, and then pulled it all the way to the back of the room, hooked it over a kiln and brought it back again, leaving an extremely long thin trail of glass, which then hardened.

Then he passed around a piece of thin glass for the children to feel.

He got another blob of glass and gave Sorcha a try at blowing a glass bubble. It was so thin it looked like a soap bubble!

Then he demonstrated his own technique for making a goblet. He rolled a blob of clear glass in some coloured glass pieces...

...then blew a small bubble and shaped it ...

...and blew and shaped it a few more times...

...until it began to look more like a goblet.

Then he melted the bottom a little, attached that to another rod, and cut the goblet from the blowing pipe, leaving a nice edge, which he smoothed and shaped.

Ta da! This goblet then went into an extremely hot kiln, where it would "cool" until the next day, so as not to become too brittle.

Next up (and next door): Broom making! The wet broom-corn was tied onto the stick using this very strong cord and a foot-controlled wheel, to keep it taut. This broom was a "quidditch broom" destined for a Harry Potter display in an American Museum. Traditional broom-making is a rare art, these days, and they are working with antique machinery.

After been attached to the stick, woven, and tied off, the brooms (or at least those that are destined to be flat) are put in this vise and sewn flat.

Those leather straps she's wearing on her hands have a steel plate on the palm which she used to push the giant needle through the broom.

Then, those brooms destined to be blunt-ended (like most house-brooms) are trimmed in this guillotine-style machine.

Broom! This one has a hockey stick handle. :-)

FTHL Field Trip: Cypress and Capilano Fish Hatchery

What an exquisite day!!

We went up out of the amazing fog quilt we began under, and emerged in the bright sunshine on Cypress Mountain, where we played in the long grass and then went for a lovely walk in the mushroomy woods.

Driving down out of the sun and into the fog (actually at the end of the fieldtrip).

Wow. Fog. That bit of buildings just left of centre is SFU. The Lions Gate Bridge, downtown buildings, and even Mt. Gardner were completely buried.

We homelearners, however, were up in the warm sunshine!

What a beautiful time we had!

Then we went for a walk in the lovely sun-speckled woods... where we found this outhouse!

We also found loads of very pretty mushrooms!

...And then... we went back down through the fog and visited the Capilano Fish Hatchery!

Looking at fish jumping the ladders, down below...

View down-river.

View up-river.

View under-river!

The brailing pen.

Thanks to everyone who came for such a lovely adventure!!

The Self-Drawing Paper

I made this animation!

 

Mila!

This is a baby called Mila who I got for Christmas!
I love her very much!

This is Mila looking at a book her sister (Ganga) is wreading to her.

Here she is jumping on a chair.

And here she is taking everything out of my bag!

She had alot of fun at cristmas dinner!

My Scary Experiment

In December, I decided to do electrolysis to make hydrogen.

I attached two alligator clips to the terminals of a 9-volt battery, clipped the other ends to some pieces of carbon, and put them in a container of salty water. This splits the water molecules (H2O) into hydrogen and oxygen. 

The hydrogen comes off one carbon, and the oxygen comes off the other. I only collected the hydrogen.

the hydrogen bubbling into the bottle

more hydrogen bubbling 

AAH! Super concentrated chlorine!

once they discovered what I was doing Mama and Pappa had to dispose of it very carefully!

Animated History Fieldtrip

                                                  The Epic Journey Of Joseph                                                                  

On November 27, 2012, the younger class and some homelearners went on a fieldtrip to the Vancouver Museum.

It was a workshop!!! When we went in, we went into a special part of the building, and then we got shown an intro and a demo. After that, we got put into groups and were handed a scene. We started making little people out of paper and stickytack, and backgrounds and a whole load of stuff all out of PAPER!!!
                                                                                                  
Then after we made our sets, we went to a desk with a camera and computer. All we had to do then was take pictures and slightly move the props and characters in the scene.

Then we took a break one by one and ate lunch. Then we went back to the room and were handed another scene.

After we finished our second scene, each group went and did sound effects (crashes, voices, booms, etc.).

Then after that, we made little flip books with folded paper, and a pencil to move it. Look up for movie.

                                     The End!!!
  








 

IDLC field trip

We went on the aquarium aqua lab IDLC field trip,  first we held hermit crabs.

This is a tank of sea animals that look like plants, the tube things on the right are tube worms.

A closed sea anemone. The white things in the picture above are also sea anemones.

This is me holding a sea urchin. This sea urchin has just been put in the water and it is starting to stick out it's purple legs, but when it is out of the water it looks green or gray.

Then we did experiments with hermit crabs and wrote down the results.

The hermit crabs where in plastic bins.

We watched the beluga show.

We saw a dolphin throwing a pice of meat in the air and catching it again (over and over).

This is my friend wondering why there are two different types of jellies in one tank.

We looked at the sting rays.

This is the golden tree frog.

This is a boa constrictor.

This is a arapaima.

These are bats eating bananas.

This is a sloth. (awake for once!)

                                                

These are monkeys, the mother monkey (saving the baby's worm from predators) baby monkey (eating the worm) and Mr. steal (trying to steal the worm).

These are the parrots.

                                                              

                                                         It was a very fun field trip!