Painting with light

Littletree has been learning about light – the speed of light, how it travels, waves and rays, which led to all sorts of discussions – tying in her love of astronomy when we talk about how long it takes for the light from stars to get to us, and then we got into photography.

Being a child of the digital age, Littletree has almost no experience with film or manual camera settings, but I studied photography in senior college – even had my own darkroom set up at one point, so we had long talks about shutter speeds and apertures and light.

And even though my camera is a simple compact digital jobbie, it still has manual setting options, so we got to playing with long exposure times and painting with light.

Littletree was instantly captivated

She spent ages experimenting with different long-exposures and different light-sources, and different inspirations.

I suspect these experiments are not yet over, but at last she managed to get the result she was after

Love.

Gingerbread

Littletree decided to make a Gingerbread House with her friend.

Was loads of fun, and a lot easier than I’d anticipated. And now we have loads of gingerbread to eat!

Science on the Beach

We had a super awesome homeschool group this week! We met down at our usual beach; it was a gorgeous sunny day with clear, blue skies. It was actually warm enough to take off all the layers and bask in the sun.

And there were dolphins swimming in the water, just a few metres from us!

There was a much bigger turnout than we’ve been having lately; lots of old faces came along as well as some recently-joined members, so we had eight families.

Bella organised a bunch of science experiments for the kids to do, which was great. Science is, of course, hilarious fun!

The kids learned about air pressure

And surface tension and heat. You can’t pop a filled water balloon with a lit match

Chemical reactions – so much fun that can be had with bicarb soda and vinegar!

How oils and detergents react

And made awesome swirly patterns in milk

Once all the organised experiments had been demonstrated and tried out, the kids went crazy having a great time trying out random ideas, messing with the leftover bicarb, vinegar, food colouring, milk and balloons.

The best part was seeing how a group of about 18 kids ranging in ages from 3 – 12 were all collaborating together. There was no need to remind anyone to share, no squabbles to sort out. The bigger kids helped the little kids, the little kids learned from the older ones. None of them felt they couldn’t or shouldn’t interact with anyone else simply because they were different ages or genders or levels of learning and understanding. It was just a group of kids having fun, and learning was purely incidental.

Eventually, they all ran off to build cubbies in the bushes, and whittle sticks, and build sandcastles, and fill balloons with sand to make “eggs” to put in “nests”, and splash in the water, and watch the dolphins, and run around enjoying the sun…

Hooray for unschooling!

Littletree’s Birthday Sleepover

Since Littletree will be in Israel for her birthday, she had a party with all her friends before she left. I think the pictures speak for themselves :)

Loads of fun!

Early Birthday Present

Since Littetree is going to Israel with Purple for her birthday, and I won’t be there, I decided to give her her birthday present early.

She had on her wish list: A charm bracelet, a historical book about dinosaurs, a little fairy statue, an underwater camera, rollerblades and a trip to India. I found a really cheap camera online and got her that. (sacrificing photo quality for underwaterness, but I think for her it’s a good trade-off).

Littletree was, naturally, super excited to get an early present.

The great unwrapping:

Even more surprised to see what the gift was:

Didn’t take her long to get it out of the box and all set up

And before too long she was running about snapping away

Here’s the first test shots she took

I figure now she can use her own camera for the hours and hours she spends making little videos with mine :)

Blue Mountains Rainbow Gathering

We’re all home from the rainbow adventure now and well unpacked. The gathering was spectacular! One of the most stunningly beautiful sites; and not just beautiful, but logistically perfect and easy – clean water, nice land, soft grass, no ticks, mozzies or leeches, easy access while not being too close to any towns… and awesome people!

Littletree and I drove down slowly, stopping on the way to see the Solar System Drive that you can read about HERE.

There were so many rainbows on the way there, it was almost like magical providence leading us home

We were lucky enough to get there early, before the road was blocked, so I could drive right in to the site to unload our tipi and the poles and everything (cars aren’t allowed to enter the rainbow site after the opening day), and since we’d decided to sleep the night on the road just before coming into the site, we arrived early morning and had plenty of time to find our perfect campsite and set up and get the car out before the day was over. Our faithful van Sunshine served us like a true champion :)

I had help from a couple of people to get the tipi up and was quickly rewarded by yet another rainbow

So we were settled in and ready to work on helping set up the gathering and build infrastructure

The gathering was so full of wonderful friends. I barely saw Littletree as she roamed freely with a bunch of other kids exploring the forest. They all made bows and arrows

and played all sorts of cool games

and made faerie crowns

and did face painting

and attracted butterflies

It’s such a supportive environment for children – no cars or roads to worry about, dozens of supportive grown-ups available, and freedom to roam and explore :D

A local theatre group, Living Light, joined the gathering to give a preview of their performance

I spent a fair bit of time in the kitchen, though not as much as I have in the past, which is pretty good

and we opened up our tipi for chai nights where I made doughnuts for everyone. I pumped out a few hundred organic chocolate-filled doughnuts, and cinnamon ring doughnuts. mmmm

I also did a lot of crochet – I added six new hearts to Littetree’s blanket, I held a couple of crochet workshops

 

and I even made a rainbow heart that slowly morphs into a square to be part of a patchwork community blanket; a free-form heart that becomes a square was no easy feat, I don’t think I did too badly, considering this was my first attempt.

Since there were several pregnant mamas,

I held several midwifery circles and did ante-natal check-ups

I swam every day in the creek

sang and danced in the magic hat parade

played capoeira and partied around the drum circle by main fire

enjoyed the sunset against the mountains

and watched the full moon rise

It was such an enriching, revitalising experience. To be in nature, to hold hands and chant AUM with 100 people before every meal, to sit in talking circles, and feel supported by my family. I was sad to leave, but I left knowing the consensus for the next rainbow in Australia will be just 2 months away, in January! details HERE

Of course, there’s no way I could fit the whole experience of rainbow into one (or even two) blog posts, and I took many photos, which you can browse on my flicker page HERE.