Last Minute Homemade Halloween Costumes
What’s your favourite holiday? Christmas? Easter? Or is it Halloween? The day when we let our imaginations run wild and, instead of feeling that we have to prettify, we are encouraged to look as disgusting as possible.
I love Halloween, I love getting dressed up and playing games. I love bobbing for apples and grossing everyone out. Once upon a time we just threw on a sheet with eye holes cut out, those days are long gone. Now we consider our costume choices carefully. We co-ordinate, we plan and we get excited. You don’t need to spend a fortune on fancy costumes though, nor do you need to be an expert face painter. Here are a few ideas to get you started.
Science News – Solar Storms Due to Hit Earth
This weekend the Earth is due to be hit by a pair of solar storms that might affect radio and satellite communication. But how and why does this happen?
What Does Solar Mean?
Anything that is related to a sun is commonly described as being solar. Our sun is a typical medium-sized yellow star which is about 5 billion years old. Its surface temperature is about 5,500°C, but even that isn’t as hot as its superheated centre. Some parts of the sun’s surface are cooler, with a temperature of between 2,700–4,200°C, and these appear darker when viewed through specialised telescopes. These cooler patches are caused by fluctuations in the sun’s magnetism and are called sun spots.
Exploring Australian Alone
Sally-Anne was out and about in Australian, and took us along on a virtual trip. She shared her first impressions of the country, and then her love of the city of Melbourne.
In this report, she explains why she went to Australia alone, and what it is like to travel without companions.
If you’ve been reading some of my reports from Australia, you’d be forgiven for wondering why I haven’t mentioned any of the people I’m travelling with. That’s because there isn’t anyone, I’m on this trip all by myself. I wasn’t too worried before I came because I’m quite used to doing things alone. I live in my own flat, I went to a different high school to everyone I knew from primary school and I quite often go and visit places by myself, but I’d never travelled alone. In fact, I’d never been outside of Europe at all, even with other people, so the whole trip was a bit nerve-wracking, if exciting.
Falconry and the Tudors
When you write a book that is set in a particular period of history, it is important to get the details correct. This means that writers of historical fiction have to do a lot of research.
The first scene of Katharine Edgar’s novel, Five Wounds takes place on a hillside in sixteenth century England, where her heroine, Nan, is hoping to see her young merlin falcon make its first kill. Katharine had find out all about falconry and the Tudors – the keeping and training of falcons, and other birds of prey.
When I showed the first scene of Five Wounds to some writing friends, some of them asked a question I wasn’t expecting. ‘How rich is Nan’s family? They live in a big house so why does she need to hunt for food?’
Good question!