An investigation station

Our occasional investigation station is back, and it has a new theme - the seashore. It was easy to set up thanks to the wonderful finds we brought back from our recent trip to Dunraven Bay in Wales. My two little nature-lovers have been tempted into this activity again and again simply by my setting out the equipment and specimens invitingly and leaving everything there, ready when they are. Here's what's available:

Samples

1. A collection of small rocks, minerals, pebbles and fossils.

2. A selection of shells.

3. A piece of drift wood.

4. Prepared slides with plant material.





Equipment

4. A mini-torch.

5. Hand-held magnifiers.

6. A microscope.

Resources

7. A handmade rock-pool I Spy poster (made on location in Wales).

8. A wild flower pocket book.

9. A copy of the Spotter's Guide to the Seashore.

It hasn't taken long for the children to work out that if you want to use the microscope successfully you have to have very thin slices of material to enable light to travel through. In other words, the pebbles and shells, it turns out, must be viewed using the torch and the magnifying glasses - not shoved under the lens of the microscope. 

But, whether using the microscope or the magnifiers, there have been ooo-s and ahh-s aplenty, and it's been a great opportunity to investigate our favourite bit of seashore on a very different scale.

                              

Brighton rhyme time

Have you got a number? Number One.

One helter skelter - in the sun.

Have you got a number? Number Two.

Two deckchairs - for me and you.

Have you got a number? Number Three.

Children and a pigeon paddle by the sea.

Have you got a number? Number Four.

Four beach huts - with colourful doors.

Have you got a number? Number Five.

Five yachts sailing - all in a line.

Have you got a number? Number Six.

Six painted pebbles, no sand or sticks.

Have you got a number? Number Seven.

Stripes on a tub - ice-cream heaven.

Have you got a number? Number Eight.

An eight-foot wave, so concentrate.

Have you got a number? Number Nine.

Pebbles in your pockets - it's skimming time.

Have you got a number? Number Ten.

10/10 - can we visit again?

Changing the words to nursery rhymes and traditional songs is my stock-in-trade - whether I'm at work, singing and rhyming in storytelling and teaching under-6s at the museum - or at home with my own children. This rhyme is adapted from a call and response number-rap that Buddy and Daisy know very well. I shared my version with Buddy this evening, and he loved it. He nodded along with the rhythm of the familiar, but was impressed with how it was totally about our visit to Brighton last weekend. Buddy loved the photographs too - credit must be given to Daddy here; he took the fabulous pictures for numbers Two and Nine.

I wonder what Daisy will make of it?