child-led learning

Learning Electronics from a Clock Radio

February 5, 2019 By Annette1 12 Comments

Do you remember we took apart a couple of telephones a bit back? Well, last week we started to dismantle a clock radio. Wow.. it was just so very interesting do to this, a great hands on way to learning electronics.

We only had the one clock radio, so we shared our discoveries with each other. Join us in learning electronics from a clock radio, won’t you?

Okay, so this is what we did. We took this clock radio and figured out how to take off the outside of it (basically just needed to undo some screws).

Once we got the cover off we took a really good look at the internal parts.

We took what we learned from the telephone and found the resistors, diodes and capacitors. We also found some… wire coil things we needed to look up. Learned they were inductors. And we found a transformer too! OH! and I mustn’t forget the really thin copper wire wrap! We couldn’t figure out how to detach it so are saving that for another day.

OH, that thing with the ON-tech on it? I looked up that number and learned it was a transformer. The lad figured how to get it out of its’ housing. It’s gone into our keep pile.

Digital Display

He was very intrigued by the digital display and managed to get it out of the clock radio. Unfortunately he was unable to get it to work. He wants to see if Dad can help him get it working as he has plans for it it he can!

Even though he couldn’t get the digital readout to work, he did check out what capacitors, diodes and resistors do. It was actually quite fascinating. Here is the capacitor one that he did. It’s not the best, but I tried.

Oh I should tell you what he used to test the components out. He has a battery pack with a black and red wire. He also has some resistors (I think) and he would simply connect the component he was testing to the wires and see what happened. No chance to electrocute himself or his mother. 🙂 The idea made him laugh though, and then he explained his reasoning really well and all was good.

In our Remaining Time:

What else did we have time for…. OH, it was a tough job but I managed to get the speaker unattached from the plastic housing. WOW.. it was stuck on with some rather tough glue. To get it off it took the two of use to pry a screwdriver underneath and break a clip. Then it was just a matter of brawn over glue. 🙂

See! We did get the motherboard (I think that’s what you call it) out of the plastic housing. The lad and I clipped out a d1 and d2, three resistors, and two capacitors. We hoped to get to the diodes but ran out of time.

The lower the resistor the brighter it made the led bulb. The capacitors made it gradually brighter and the d1 and d2 only worked in one direction.

That’s all we managed this past Friday, check out our resources eh? Maybe you’ll learn a bit more like we did! 🙂

Resources

We used these sites:

Role of a capacitor.

List of electronic components.

As well as our book:

I’m going to check if my library has these books, or at least books like them.

Battles of World War 1

January 19, 2019 By Annette1 10 Comments

I have to admit to feeling a bit surprised. I thought, battles of the war, how complicated could it be. BOY, was I wrong. Led to a rather fierce discussion between the lad and I about how I could be so wrong! But hey, we worked it through and have decided to divide this section into part.

Battles of the Western front, and the eastern front. Then battles of Africa. We’ll tackle sea battles and air battles. But last week and this week we are just going for the general approach.. just getting a bit of an overview of the battles of World War 1.

Battles of World War one. Soldier walking across a field. — Photo by Specna Arms on Unsplash

Movies Watched

To that end, we watched a few different movies. Flyboys. and The Red Baron. We tried watching The Trench (don’t recommend it). We have plans to watch Warhorse documentary and War Horse but so far we can’t get a stream that works.

Books Read

The lad read through these books below, just select pages that talked about battles of the war in generic terms, or as a broad overview.

The goal is to have him find a battle he wants to research from a Canadian point of view, but so far none of them are grabbing his attention.

We also read through a book called Vimy Oaks because I was just intensely curious. It took us a couple of nights to read through. Thoroughly enjoyed this book. We found it fascinating that the oaks from France eventually found a way back after all the destruction.

Videos Watched

Would we be us if we didn’t watch some videos as well?

Watching how the line moved so much at first and then just kind of stalled, reminded us of how HARD and kinda pointless trench warfare would have seemed to the men involved.

Resources Used

We used a variety of resources for this unit study. These include writing prompts from Bonnie Rose. Heather LeBlanc’s Major Battles and Events of WW1 and Military Geography from TOS. We used a timeline from someone but I can’t find a link to it… Might have been a free unit we picked up somewhere, I can’t truly recall.

Learning about Telephones

January 12, 2019 By Annette1 8 Comments

One of the things I am aiming to do is give my lad a taste of different trades he could get involved in. I don’t want to push him into the trades as he has the heart of a teacher/preacher/explainer of life. BUT as I tell him, if you have a trade that you can do, that you like it gives you options in life. You can work and make some money to put yourself through school. It can be a point of ministry if you work, giving you abilities to answer questions for people or help them with projects. If you can’t find work in your chosen field, you have a trade to fall back on. To that end, I’ve collected some electronics for my son (and I) to take part.

Today we started our Electronics Study with The Telephone. Stay tuned for a free worksheet!

Our basis for study

Or at least a background support and hopefully we’ll eventually work through it. Make Electronics.

First Project

We have some old phones that I collected. Did you know that people are awesome at Yardsales when you go around end of day asking if they have stuff to help your lad out? The stuff I collected that way is amazing! 🙂 But today.. Telephones.

We started off with two basic telephones. Then we examined their exterior noting what the cords were like and where they were connected. We noted the white one was significantly heavier than the black. later we learned that was due to bigger components and weights in the base of the phone.

I gave my son dibs on the phone he wanted to dismantle. He chose black. He cut off the telephone cord before I had a chance to show him how they just pull out.

Opening them up proved a bit problematic. We undid screws thinking that would open them up WRONG. We ended up using screwdrivers to pry them apart until we found hooks holding them together. Pushed those in until the upper and lower parts released.

Once opened we gave them a good look see. It was hard to take pics as we moved at different speeds and were fascinated with different things which of course took us in different directions. 🙂

As soon as my lad had the black phone taken apart he was fascinated by how the black number pad had sensors on the bottom that would react (or contact) with small computer sensors underneath. At least this is the supposition that we formed. 🙂

You see that grey thing at the bottom with lines running through it? We counted the press pads and the number of lines and we think that is how the older white phone communicated with the phone over what numbers were being called.

The ear listener part in the black phone was VERY firmly attached to the phone. We didn’t see any wires connecting it to the speaker part in the black phone. We did take the listener part apart (needed to put it through the vice grip to snap the seal.

Comparisons

Comparing the interiors, seeing the difference between just a few years in these telephones. How the computer sensors and electronic needs got smaller. So many less wires in the newer phone than in the older white.

We learned about capacitors and resistors, diodes, light emitting diodes and more. The older phone had more of these than the newer phone. A few things we saw we didn’t know what they were. It was fascinating to see how different the capacitors were.

Tools Needed

We saw a few things we didn’t find out our helpful resource sites but extrapolated what they were for. Like the part that hangs up the phone. The external part was obvious, the internal part somewhat less so until we did comparisons and saw the switches in action. The older phone had more click and hold features than the newer one.

As we hope to reuse pieces when we more formally study electronics we collected everything we could on a plate and later stored them in a small box. I forgot to mention we gathered items like screwdrivers, wire snippers and strippers before hand. We also made use of our vice grip to help with cracking seals and phone cases. We used a battery pack with wires to help test the phones.

Testing our Knowledge

Want to join us in testing our knowledge? I made up a sheet so you can find capacitors, diodes etc with us. You’ll find the link here. You’ll need to use the helpful resources below.

Helpful Resources

We used the book to give us ideas, but also googled. We found this page helpful. Electronics Club Components. As well as uCHobby and wellpbc.

The next stage

My son has a goal now, he wants to build an intercom using two old phones. He already knows that he needs to learn how to solder.

I hope you enjoyed our walk-through tearing apart two old phones. Have you ever done things like this? Figuring out how things work? Let me know in the comments below eh? Thanks!

Trench Warfare in WW1

December 14, 2018 By Annette1 4 Comments

Dry feet, new socks, dealing with gas, different trench designs, lice, rats, rain and misery. This is what made up the soldier’s life fighting in the trenches of World War One. A tough life for soldiers.

Trenches were 10 feet high with sandbags stacked around. Dug not only in dirt (like I thought) but also through rock, in sand etc. They went through coal mines, railroad tracks, streams and more.

Soldiers rotated through being in the front line to being in the support lines. Different counties had their own routine… anywhere from five days to one month.

They had a daily routine of protect the trench (stand to), hate, breakfast, weapon and foot inspection, daily chores, and a lot of boredom and at night “stand to” (protect the trench).

Life in the Trenches

Together we discovered this interactive website that taught more about life in the trenches.

Duckboard and Poetry

Duckboard was a new word to us and so we learned that it is a board consisting of a number of wooden slats joined together, placed so as to form a path over muddy ground or in a trench.

We read the poem Break of Day in the Trenches by Isaac Rosenberg.

We learned about the life of a Canadian Soldier in the trenches. It wasn’t an easy time for man or beast. A fair bit of time was spent examining the different parts to this section.

We saw photos of life in the trenches. Listening to people talk about their duties, adds realism, you know?

This video was very helpful in teaching us the terminology of the trenches.

This video taught us more about the support lines, and how the trenches were made. Explained where they were placed as well.

This video demonstrated why trench warfare was so very difficult. The armies, basically in a stalemate. Both sides got their positions and simply held them. Sometimes losing, but getting them back. Back and forth, back and forth. Not really going anywhere.

Of course battling in the trenches met fighting off pests like rats and lice (with could cause trench fever), and trench foot. We learned more about combating trench foot here.

Hands-On

We took a couple of approaches to our hands-on work for Trenches.

First we made models of trenches.

We have plans to make sample trenches of the German trenches as well. You can see what they look like on this page.

I thought it was important to truly understand what trench foot was like and how quickly it could hit the men. We took some pigs feet, one we left just in a sock, another was washed and dried with a change of socks twice a day, and another was washed, dried and had Vaseline applied twice a day. I will be writing up a post to tell you more about trench foot and our experiment.

Resources to further understanding

We made use of a couple of resources as well. Click on image to go to resource.

SchoolhouseTeachers.com has a section on World War 1 as well. It would be worth your time to check it out.

Animals in World War One

December 1, 2018 By Annette1 1 Comment

Over the past two weeks my lad and I have been learning about animals in the war. Camels, horses, dogs, donkeys, mules, cats, dogs, elephants and pigeons. I also heard about a monkey and a turtle that were morale boosters during the war. All these animals helped people in the war effort.

What Animals Served?

The imperial war museum tells of 15 animals that went to war. Bbc talks of some of the unusual animals like Winnie the Pooh! 🙂

Horses, donkeys, mules and camels carried food, water, ammunition and medical supplies to men at the front. Dogs served sentry, medical, messaging, and scout work, as well as raising morale. They also killed vermin. Pigeons carried messages very swiftly to high command. Canaries detected poisonous gas.

Great war animals in the world war. Elephants, dogs, pigeons and horses.

Camels

Camels were part of the war effort. The Imperial Camel troops that served in the Middle East. There were many good reasons to use camels in battle, but also some dangers as you can learn about at this site.

Horses:

Horses were used for a variety of tasks in the war. Pulling weapons, carrying officers, bringing in supplies and more. I knew gas was used during the war, but never thought of the need for horses to have gas masks.

Some of the pictures in this videos were hard to view. It was SO hard for the horses. They suffered terribly right alongside the men they served with. The soldiers did the best they could for the horses, but conditions were absolutely horrible.

Cats

Cats that were part of the war effort. Mostly as vermin control and morale officers, but some cats were trained to detect gas. Learn more about these amazing felines here.

Dogs:

Then of course we have the dogs of the war. Sentries, scouts, companions, mascots, medical dogs, message runners and more. Dogs were SO very useful in the war.

Stubby the dog “Sgt stubby an American dog” There is a cartoon version which the lad and I watched. It was pretty good. The full movie can be found on youtube.

We learned about a dog trainer in Scotland named Major Edwin Richardson. His name was mentioned in one of the videos so we looked him up. He started the first British War Dog School. Learn more here.

We also learned about other famous dogs of World War 1.

Elephants!

I have to admit I was shocked to hear about elephants in the war. It seemed that most of them were used for publicity stunts. None the less, elephants were definitely used in world war 1 by both sides.

Pigeons

Pigeon training, homing pigeons. The lad was curious about how you train a pigeon to race home or carry a message.

Pigeons in world war 1. In 1915, as stalemate and trench warfare set in, communication became very important. Pigeons became important to the war efforts and homing pigeons were used to carrying message to High Command. More than 100,000 pigeons were used. Some of them received medals. They overcame cut telegraph wires and other communication difficulties, though they did face their own challenges of hawks, shell-fire and more. Learn about some pigeon heroes’ on this page. A Story about a brave pigeon that may or may not be true can be located on this site. Some stories and pictures here.

We even ran across this innovative idea for gathering information.

In case you couldn’t guess, my son did his research paper on pigeons and how they were used in the war. He’s not quite done, but he’s been fighting a nasty cold this week and having a hard time managing his time.

Before I Go

This information was so cool to learn! Look at this: EVEN SLUGS were used!!!!!

Slugs
By the time soldiers noticed the presence of mustard gas on the battlefield, it was often too late. Dr. Paul Bartsch of the Division of Mollusks ……discovered that slugs could detect mustard gas well before humans could. The slugs would visibly indicate their discomfort by closing their breathing pores and compressing their bodies, and soldiers in the trenches would quickly put on their gas masks to protect themselves from harmful levels of gas. The “slug brigade” ended up saving many lives. Source.

It’s been a great couple of weeks learning about Animals in the war. I was surprised more often than I care to admit, but it was great.

World War 1: Soldiers in Training

November 17, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

Over the past week we’ve been studying soldiers in training. Getting ready for the battle field, and being fit to fight is an important part in the life of a soldier.

It was actually harder than we thought to research this topic. We couldn’t find a site that actually told us the training that soldiers had to undergo beyond the basics of physical fitness and drills. We still managed to learn a bit, some of this based on what my lad is learning in army cadets this year.

Videos:

This video reminded my son of a reenactment he attended, where he had to practice running in a straight line carrying a gun. I asked him, how would we practice this skill in real life. He thought a while and then brought up the air rifles we have. I suppose we too, can practice some of the skills to be soldiers in training.

Surprise! Horse training

One of the videos that popped us surprised us. Army horse training. In retrospect it makes sense, we just never really thought about how soldiers might need to be trained as well as the horses themselves. First train the men, then train the horses.

Gas Warfare

I never thought to think about soldiers in training having to focus on gas warfare, how to deploy it as well as how to protect themselves from it. Last night we attended Christmas 1914 at Fanshawe Village and there was a fellow who talked with us a great length about gases used and the products used to protect the men from it. It was hard and brutal and the knowledge gained was a big reason why it wasn’t used in World War 2.

My son said when it was on you couldn’t see anything and it was harder to breathe. Can you imagine trying to run and fight and carry a full load while wearing one? Just a hard job for those soldiers. Helps us better understand the struggles they went through. The video below shows German troops. While watching I wondered aloud how many times they would kill themselves. Apparently this was something my son had wondered about earlier and researched and the answer was YES, lots of times.

Being Canadian, we appreciated this video and we found ourselves talking through it, sharing knowledge we learned from our individual research. Did you know that Canadian soldiers were known for their ferocity during the First World War?

Modern day training! My lad is inspired.

We learned that training is there to increase skill levels and physical fitness but also to help the soldiers bond as they work together. This was part of the advantage of having “Pals” units as you had some of that cohesiveness already built in. I see this in my lad with the Army Cadet unit he is part of. The more the boys do things together, talking, working, exercising, the more the unit is coming together as a unit. Neat to observe. 🙂

Websites too!

Lest you think we only watched videos, we also took in a few websites.

Learning about the Canadians training at Valcartiers. We admittedly spent a fair bit of time at this site exploring images, delving into other topics etc.

We learned about the Kitchener blue uniforms of the british.

Studied a PDF of the American training program that gave us excellent ideas for our own training program. It’s LONG and we only looked the ww1.

Learned about elderly training officers in Britain and some of the problems that created.

Talked our way through the 8 steps to becoming a soldier in WW1. Which led to hearing some of the training done in the WW1. The lad was surprised to learn what PAL units in the war were all about.

We learned why soldiers drop and crawl when they are on an infantry line. Makes sense once you stop and think about it. See if you can discover why HERE.

We also looked back at our day for the World War 1. This was an excellent day for the lad with learning about order, disciplines, different aspects of the wars and so forth. He still talks about it.

Hands-on aspects:

We’ll be starting a training regime… physical fitness anyone?

My son and I were talking today about some of the things he wants to do. He wants it to be something that we do together. So starting next week he’ll be running around the block (I will walk as quickly as I can) and he’ll eventually catch up to me again. We’ll do (for me some modification) sit ups, planks, push ups, leg lifts and squats. Hopefully we can get dad involved as well. How to fit it all in will be a lovely challenge for us. 🙂

I am going to get him (hopefully tomorrow sometime) to put together a spreadsheet for us to use. Need to see if we are improving our abilities as that’s something that soldiers do as well.

Follow our studies:

Seven experiments for Science Co-op

November 6, 2018 By Annette1 2 Comments

I’ve been teaching a science class this current co-op season. I had a couple of books that inspired me The Element in the Room and The Electric Pickle. Here are seven experiments for a co-op science class.

We discussed hydrogen and oxygen and learned to separate them with electrolysis.

We learned the iodine turns purple when it connects with a starch. This also gave us the opportunity to discuss diffusion.

We had a lot of fun playing around with mentos and pop. We got a lot of different pops, let the boys figure out an hypothesis, and test their ideas, their goal.. figure out why mentos reacted strongly with some pop but not with others. They got pretty close to figuring it out too! We ended up turning to the internet for the answers. It’s a combination nucleation and the the gum arabic and gelatin ingredients of the Mentos, combined with the potassium benzoate, sugar or (potentially) aspartame in diet sodas. The boys were shocked that the no sugar pepsi had the greatest reaction and had traced that down the aspartame. And my son had mentioned the bubbles that form on the mint mentos. We actually took two class periods to research this.

The boys were delighted to test out chip bags in the microwave. They excitedly showed them off to a homeschool mom who asked “did you do those in the oven?” They told her the microwave and she asked about sparks. We learned that two seconds in the microwave works fine. It was NOT my idea to do one with the contents still in it, but the boys thought it pretty cool. 🙂

Magnetic fun

One day we played around with magnets. I hadn’t anticipated this one but came prepared in case they were curious. I brought four different kinds of cereal and some milk. They floated the cereal and determined which ones had the most iron in them. Fruit loops of all things!!!!! Crushed them and discovered tiny amounts of iron filings. This was a total eye opener for them. Then of course, boys being boys, they played magnet hockey…in the process discovering north and south, and how magnets vary in strength.

Our last experiment was in discovering the joy of black snakes. Working with carbon was very exciting for these two lads. It was a windy day so we struggled getting things going and the bbq lighter was a bit of a challenge to use.

Since we are on vacation this week I didn’t actually plan an experiment for day six. I expect the lads will be too busy just setting things up and I always have stuff we can play around with. 🙂