Day Forty of LOCKDOWN!

It's been 40 days and 40 nights of lockdown, and although we home educate, life has been very different as we're usually out at study groups/meet ups/days out quite a bit through the week.

Jory redrew some microbes from memory - looks like we have Influenza, Staph and Vibrio!

This morning we reminded ourselves that yeast is a very useful single celled microorganism and we made some dough ready for a special treat tomorrow!

We enjoyed a walk in the valley park near our house...

We collected mud samples for a microbe-related science experiment later that afternoon 

Jory scoops up the mud

Everyone was keen to have a go

Stopping for a little rest (they ran most of the way around)

Mummy went down to the stream to collect water

On our way back

They couldn't resist the bike racks on the way back

We picked dandelions from our neighbour's garden for a special lunch...

Today, we enjoyed a 'prebiotic' lunch - i.e. foods that encourage the growth of the good bacteria in our gut and help keep us healthy.

These foods included: oat bread, cucumber, carrots, peppers, pumpkin seeds, apple, banana and a special 'treat' of fried dandelion flowers! (they weren't huge fans of the dandelion or seeds, but they enjoyed the rest)

Tasty!

Trying the pumpkin seeds

Other prebiotic foods include cocoa and berries; we enjoyed a dark chocolate fondue with fresh berries for our pudding!

They gazed longingly

They were all quite keen!

Showing off their dirty fingers and faces

Ptolemy built a funny looking tower

Zachary answered questions about viruses and bacteria

Tahlia continued with the virus colouring

Zachary spent a long time checking out the global stats on Coronavirus

Jory coloured his bacteria

We shared a prebiotic afternoon snack

They played an online game called 'Germ Hunter'

We made a Winogradsky column: a basic incubator for cultivating soil bacteria

We added extra food for the bacteria - egg yolk (to add sulphur) and newspaper (to add carbon)

Crushing the boiled egg yolk

Making a mud 'milkshake'

Tahlia 'grew' a sunflower

Zachary really enjoyed setting up this project

We put the finished column in the warm sunlight; over several weeks the different types of soil bacteria should move to their preferred environment within the column, separating into coloured layers for us to see

Day Thirty Nine of LOCKDOWN!

We continued our microbiology project today, but first it was PE with Joe...

It was fancy dress Friday and they were pleased to see Joe dressed as King Arthur (with a couple of mini dragons too)

Ptolemy was thrilled to receive a new Batman figure from Bumble (although they were all convinced it was Black Panther)

Zachary finished his microbes comprehension

The others continued with colouring pictures of microbes

Daddy came to assist in his break

We watched a video about Coronavirus

Jory had a go at his mini 80 piece puzzle of a sports car

Watching baby shark singing about washing your hands

Daddy came to help

Complete! (except we've somehow managed to lose a piece!)

Making our own models of a flu virus using play dough and painted cotton buds

Ptolemy admires his creations

Tahlia's virus

Jory enjoyed having a go too

Finished!

We played two microbe related running around games, firstly the white blood cells had to track down the virus to kill it; Tahlia was annoyed that she was found quickly

It took a while to find Zachary when he was the virus

Daddy was very good at hiding - they found him in the wardrobe

The second game involved the virus trying to replicate by catching and tagging host cells (who then helped catch other cells)

One host cell was hard to catch

We watched a Mystery Science lesson about doughnuts

Jory loved colouring viruses so much he decided to replicate them

Tahlia's daily challenges won her a pair of glasses for her character

We did some of our own experiments, mainly related to helping stop the spread of disease

Spraying some coloured water onto card to demonstrate how the saliva can spread out as it travels through the air when you sneeze

We mixed cinnamon with oil and rubbed it on our hands (the cinnamon represents virus particles)

We tried to wash it off with just water, but the particles stayed on our hands

Soap was very good at getting it off and we managed to remove all the particles

Next we demonstrated how microbes are transferred to other things very easily, using flour

Washing the wedgits in the soapy water

The pepper and soap experiment: here we applied soap to the end of a finger and dipped it into a bowl of 'viruses' (black pepper on water)

We poured paint onto paper and blew through straws to spread it and talked about how just breathing close to someone could spread a virus

Our finished works of art; Ptolemy is keen to turn his into a monster

We played an online story based virus puzzle game

We printed off some hand washing instruction sheets to put up in our bathrooms

We played a game called 'Bacteria in the Cafeteria', which involved answering questions about microbes

We learnt more about cells

Tahlia was very pleased to receive her new journal in the post today; she'll be using it to practise her writing each morning