Free Range Education : A spring in our step!

This week we began a chemistry main lesson block.
This particular block focuses upon fire. I'm using a guide I found online as a foundation for our work. on Monday in conversation we reviewed different branches of science .zoology , botany ,physics ,astronomy ,geology and human physiology .
We concluded that chemistry was the knowledge of what substances are made of and how they can be combined or altered to make new substances. we then went on to discuss fire safety precautions, before touching upon the Greek theory that the whole world was made up of the four basic elements of fire, water, air and earth .
We discussed the unique quality of fire and how we can't enclose it. Charlie and summer simply had to try this out.They jumped up and fetched a bread candle and a glass jar. Of course upon covering the lit candle with the jar once all of the oxygen was used up the candle flame went out.Charlie thought this was so much.fun and was able to tell me that if he had a bigger jar the flame would take longer to go.out and if the jar was smaller the flame would go.out quicker.
We read a Hindu hymn about fire and talked about the way every ancient culture thought of fire as a direct contact with the gods/God as flames and smoke rise towards the heavens above.
we also decided that the first humans to ignite fire to make heat and to cook were probably preforming the first chemical reaction experiments!
Finally we (with the exception of Jasmine who had lost interest by this point) had a great time burning things and recording what happens.
I sent Charlie, Gypsie and summer outside to find a dry item from the plant world .
Charlie chose a twig, Gypsie a rose hip and summer brought in a leaf. we burnt each one paying close attention to the smell,sight and sounds that were made. They recorded their findings in a chart .Gypsie and Summer also created title pages in their main lesson books.

Today lesson was very short by comparison .we discussed the use of fire in. religious ceremonies and then for hand writing practice the girls wrote out a poem in there main lesson books .The poem was all about the way in which a tree uses the sun to grow and over hundreds of years turns to coal and is then burnt and its smoke rises up towards the sun again .

Charlie has been continuing with his maths block. we read a maths story from our waldorf essentials curriculum , we have also worked on some calculations using multiplication and division .Jasmine has been doing some maths as well, solving some word problems.

We have been spending our afternoons outside .
Monday afternoon Gypsie planted pumpkin seeds , summer helped me dig and plant onion bulbs.Charlie helped me plant peas in the raised bed and we moved all of the other seeds that's we had planted in tiny window propergators in to the new mini greenhouse. We worked really hard and im hopeful that we will have lots of lovely flowers and veg and herbs to enjoy this year!