Saturday 16 March 2013

Questions, questions, questions

It's been a week of a billion questions. Maybe more. I've lost count. Think of how many questions from two children you can fit into all the hours in a week, then double it. Then double it again. Then treble it. Really. I. LOVE. IT! From how hair grows to the purpose of hair getting oily to what is gun recoil (which led to Newton's Laws) and do canons recoil and whether you can get zero-recoil guns and how big is the recoil of a Magnum pistol, from how lemonade is made to whether rock burns, whether all scorpions are poisonous, and how many babies are born everydayis there any electricity you can touch, how car gears work (we didn't need to look this up - the benefit of them having a mechanic for a Daddy!), how you know when to change gear, what all the dash lights and dials mean. Roadsigns have led to questions about mileage, distances and fractions, and the Minecraft dropper map led to questions about red and white blood cells. Geomag led to questions about magnetic fields, and this video of fun with ferrofluid.

When not asking questions, Sprout wanted to design a home, so we found Homestyler and he's had loads of fun designing his own place. He's also been designing levels on Mari0 and telling me about infinite loops and the build up of momentum. He's tried out both Slendermod and the Slenderman Minecraft mod, and has made a start on Sims Social and speedily despatched every stage of This is the Only Level. I've seen more glimpses of his blossoming reading skills too: he read the word 'romantic' on his new game, Sims 3; he asked me to rewind a new film to the screen where it says 'five years later', and he read this sign at a place we'd never been before... 

Also there (Wonderland, aka the theme park that time, sanity and customer service forgot), we got somewhat lost in a wintery maze...


...got wet socks in a *very* leaky bouncy castle (as soon as we got there, oh the joy! And the shiny customer service excellence medallion goes to the member of staff who, when we came out and said, "Did you know it's full of water in there? We've got soaking wet feet," replied, "Yeah.")...


...found what the boys decided was a fairy house...


...watched them laugh their heads off on the caterpillar ride...


...spent a hilarious few minutes with the children peeking through the character boards...


...and had multiple goes on the one ride where the staff actually seemed to like children.


After realising they hadn't bothered opening the 'diamond panning' that their website fanfared so prominently, which was the one thing he'd wanted to go there for, Sprout wanted to go somewhere fun instead, so we headed to the awesomeness that is RAF Cosford, where we spent a brilliant couple of hours playing with the usual stuff (Bernoulli effect, Cartesian divers, cargo drops, magnets, bearings, fibre optics) in the Fun 'n' Flight area...



...then watched their new 4D short version film of Fly Me to the Moon, looked at their Cold War gas masks,  bought some toy planes, and then Sprout marvelled at the outside of the building where a wall at one end became a roof at the other...


Squidge is still in avid construction mode, from lots and lots of geomag, to Hello Kitty Lego planes...


...to Hero Factories with giant legs and special powers...


...and Moppet's joining in too :)


Sprout's interested in the actual names for shapes that he makes.


Following the taste test he did on all the pop rocks a few weeks ago, Sprout wanted to do the same for different types of bread, so we went to the pick and mix bakery section at the supermarket and chose a variety of rolls and pretzels. The winner was a plain white crusty roll with a stellar score of 100/10 :)


He also put together this burger and demonstrated it to me with the words, "If you like a bit of cheese action, then you'll LOVE this!" Haha I do love that boy :D


He's also started taking more pictures again with his DSLR...


Squidge asked me to do a rerun of the teabag rockets, so we emptied out a whole box of teabags and took the staples out...


...and had varied success, about half the teabags actually went up in the air. We think the difference was that on some a bit of debris detached during burning (these were the ones that worked), and on others the debris stayed attached in a string like fashion (these were the ones that didn't work, we think maybe the debris weighed them down).


It's also been an artistic week for Squidge, he's mostly been painting Pokemons...




...and also Center Parcs :)


We also got inspired by Chris Adkins and did some 3D painting. Here is Squidge's...


...and Sprout's, which was more of a story in action: there was a volcano, and then some blue water putting out the volcano and turning the red lava into black obsidian, and then green life growing over the top. It was really rather beautiful! 


Along with Minecraft LAN get togethers at our house, we've also had loads of days out with friends to parks and play areas despite the freezing 'Spring' weather...


...and this lovely photo of Sprout mid-spin is courtesy of a friend :)


Moppet, meanwhile, has just been eager to get behind the wheel!




















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