Red Rods and a Visitor

I've been doing a lot of painting so the broad/brown stair/rectangular prisms and the red rods could be put into good use rather than waiting for paint in a big bucket. Well, the broad stair (brown rectangular prisms) are all finished and we've used them a couple of times, and the red rods, while not completely done yet (each rod needs another coat of paint on half), are usable. If you look closely, though, you can see the pencil marks I made for Dad telling him how long the rod is supposed to be.

(Yes - that is a rare photograph of me. Usually I'm behind the camera)

After we had organised the rods from shortest to longest, which was a pretty easy, we used the smallest rod (1 decimetre) to measure all the others to discover that they were 2 decimetres, 3 decimetres, etc., up to 10 decimetres (1 metre). We then proceeded to make the linear course, which we have done before with the mini red and blue rods, but it's so much more fun when you make a big linear course! With the small one, we used marbles to go through it... well, marbles and "little monster," but how much more fun to use big rods and be able to go through the course yourself!

If you're wondering what a linear course is, essentially you take the 1 decimetre rod and lay it in a central area. Then place the 2 decimetre rod at the end of the 1 at a 90 degree angle. Then put the 3 decimetre rod at the end of the 2, again at a right angle. Continue doing this with each successive rod. It's actually rather fun!

And to whom do those adult legs belong? (They're obviously not mine as they lack the tell-tale baby belly above the pants!) Well, we had a very special guest today at school: Auntie Janis is visiting! And oh, what fun we've had!

Auntie and Ella took turns kicking the ball through the course.

Then Mummy mixed all the rods up again, and Ella got to make her own linear course. Naturally, she didn't want to use the previous design!

She did, however, begin with the smallest. From there it went pretty wild!

The result were interesting, to say the least. But her course proved to be fun too.

And with a bit of pride, Auntie and Ella made it into the middle.