Tower of Straws

Five doctor's appointments this week! In the mean time, it's been a long time since I've posted stuff on the children's activities. Here's something we did in August, before my surgery.

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Earlier this year, I gave Jo some toothpicks and playdough and had her make shapes. She discovered the tetrahedron's strength on her own.

This time, I gave my children and their friends a whole bunch of straws. Their goal was to build a high tower, that would be able to support a bag of beans. The first group, comprising of younger friends, built a really tall, wobbly tower, (which I called the tower of goo.) :)   The tower which was taller than 4 feet, stood for a while, and then twisted and folded like jelly. But they had lotsa fun building it.

The second group, had to build a tower, while taking note of length of straws (especially when cutting), stability, and I wanted them to incorporate the tetrahedron shape. They weren't too meticulous and the mums came in last minute to help even out lopsided sections. (And the mums had fun doing it too. :)  )

Building the base of the tower.

Tower getting taller (and really didn't get very tall at all). Lots of red tape, I think the children rather enjoyed the process of taping more than measuring!

Finally, the tower that started off well, began to become lopsided when they lost focus. However, it managed to withstand the bag of beans (in plastic bag on the top right corner),  for a total of 19 seconds, 1 second shot of the 20 second goal!! .:)

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During the weeks where my constant headache started, it was public hols, and so I kept the headaches to myself and continued activities as usual. One of those days, we went for a picnic at the Templers waterfall. It was great fun.

 Going behind the falls

Climbing slippery rocks carefully,  and just enjoying the cold cold water.

 A pretty damselfly dropped by

 Lots of fun just watching children build castles, catching tadpoles, collecting rocks,  shooting waterguns and just having fun. :)
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The trek to the falls though was heavily guarded by leeches! The brave children made it. :)
 A group of strangers who wanted to trek in with us (1 hour ++trek), freaked out when one of the teen girls got bitten. They screamed, jumped and ran off still screaming despite us shouting "Come back, come back!"  (and they didn't even look back or say thank you or goodbye, it was really like a comedy! :D) 
 So that left the falls entirely to ourselves.  (wink) Lovely. :)

@poundthegarlic.blogspot.com 2012
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