Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Children's Art: Pattern Painting again

Posted on 4/21/2015by with No comments
I know we did that before, but I wanted to repeat it with my little children painting group....

First we divided a piece of paper in fields using a pencil. The children painted each field in a different color using tempera colors.

After the work was completely dried they started to do the patterns.
This time we used Q-tips for the patterns and the children were asked to use different colors to overlay each field although I asked them to observe what happens if they cover to adjacent fields with the same pattern.

Here you see the results of our kids :-)

Insect Hotel

Posted on 4/21/2015by with No comments
We have one!! I always wanted to build one, but positively refrained from buying all the material necessary to build the house in the first place.

But...while searching for something completely different in the cellar, I found our old chute rack (I hope that is what you would call it in English...). And that turned out to be perfect!

We collected all kind of dry natural materials in the garden and filled every chamber differently.

Now we are just waiting for the first guest, who like to find shelter through out the whole year :-)


Weather Station

Posted on 4/21/2015by with No comments
I guess every child is more or less fascinated by the weather and how to predict it.
Last weekend we took the chance to set up our own little weather station.

 First we built a barometer to see changes in air pressure.
We tautened the wider part of a balloon over an empty jar. On this membrane we fixed a straw with a pice of tape.
We then positioned this barometer infant of a little wall on our terrace where we fixed a laminated white pice of paper. The straw has to point directly on this paper. To make sure, that the jar is not shifting we fixed it with an power strip.
The position of the straw is marked on the paper with a permanent marker. Overtime the air pressure rises, the straw will went up since the membrane is impressed. When the air pressure get lower than the pressure inside the jar, the membrane will vault and the straw will went down.
So far so good, now we only have to observe carefully and see whether we can bring the changing of the straw position in connection with actual weather changes.

Monday, April 20, 2015

Sunday, April 19, 2015

Common Dandelion (Taraxum officinale)

Posted on 4/19/2015by with No comments

This picture shows the first dandelion (Taraxum officinale) flower we have this year in our garden.

 This flower is native to the Northern Hemisphere. Plants found in the Southern part of earth were carried off there.

 The plant develops up 1m long tap-roots, which is ecologically very good for the ground. Since it is spreading massively it is still not always appreciated.

 Anyway we can not wait for the first blowball.

Since the blossoms appear so early in spring, it dandelions are an important food source for bees.
Flowers and leaves are edible

More pictures:





Waldsteinia

Posted on 4/19/2015by with No comments

Waldsteinia belongs to the rose family (Rosaceae). There are six species all native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere.
Waldsteinia received it's name to honor the Austrian botanist Franz Adam von Waldstein (1759-1823).

 It grows very well in the shadow, which is the reason we have it a lot in our garden ;-)

Children's Art: Watercolor and Salt

Posted on 4/19/2015by with No comments
Experimentation is one of the most exciting part in doing arts to me and the children are very open to it as well :-)
This weekend we tried out what happen if we put salt on fresh watercolors.
The best part of it was to watch it, while the colors on the wet paper and the salt were freshly applied! It is a bit like magic, seeing the colors spreading over the paper.

 Here are some results:


Friday, April 17, 2015

Fire-Colored Beetle (Pyrochroidae)

Posted on 4/17/2015by with No comments
One good thing of having a son who loves to sit on the ground is, that he finds things you would never have discovered....


In Europe live 8 of the 150 different species. Since they eat bark beetles, they are considered as beneficial organisms.

Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Monday, April 13, 2015

Children's Crafts: Platonic Bodies

Posted on 4/13/2015by with No comments
Since geometry is one of the favorite subject for both children, they tried to build some Platonic Bodies this weekend.

 Platon (437-347 a. Chr.) was as fascinated as we are of the regularity of the bodies. He assumed that the Patonic Bodies were the modules of the Creation and connected them to the elements: Fire (Tetrahedron), air (actrahedron), water (Icosahedron), earth (Hexahedron) and sky (Dodecahedron).
Only the five Platonic Bodies fulfill the conditions:
All areas are regular polygons.
All areas of one body are the same.
All edges are the same.
All angles are the same.

Centuries later the Swiss mathematician Euler (1707-1783) found the equation:
Number of Area + Number of Angles = Number of Edges + 2

All Platonic Bodies fit into the others.

And they are pleasant to look at, since they show ease and harmony :-)

Ikosahedron

Sunday, April 12, 2015

Firebug (Pyrrhocoris apterus)

Posted on 4/12/2015by with No comments

Yesterday Friedrich and I went for a stroll in our garden to take some flower picture. But he met someone else :-) : A Firebug (Pyrrhocoris apterus).

 In Middle-Europe there are only two species, P. apparatus and P. marinates, of firebug.
Since they eat the seeds of linden tress and mallows, they live commonly in large colonies at sunny places and beneath the trunk of linden trees.
Firebugs are harmless, but since their massive occurrence sometimes they are considered cumbersome.

Saturday, April 11, 2015

Primula

Posted on 4/11/2015by with No comments

Primrose (Primula vulgaris) the wild type,
growing on banks and verges almost everywhere in the northern hemisphere, most species in China.

Primula as ornamental plants.

 Primula in flat country bloom always yellow, whereas the species in mountain areas show pink, red-violet or blue blossoms. This circumstance is explained by the different insects attracted for pollination: Bees in flat country and butterfly in alpine regions.

Liverwort (Anemone hepatica)

Posted on 4/11/2015by with No comments

Liverwort (Anemone hepatica) blongs to the buttercup family (Ranunculaceae).
It originally grows in woodlands of temperate regions of the Northern hemisphere, typically under oak or beech trees. 
The name reflects the shape of the leaves, looking similar to a human liver.
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)