Friday Fun Archives - A Net in Time

Ever since we build a hand out of paper and yarn my lad has been searching for something, almost ANYTHING that would work better. So imagine our delight when Tinker crates arrived and the topic was “Robotic Hand!”

With the use of elastic, brands, eye screws and foam…one working robotic hand was made.

I loved seeing the look of concentration on his face.

Tinker Crates give clear instructions on how to make their crates. As long as one carefully reads EVERYTHING you can make the STEM project without any issues. I find them affordable, and the lad likes putting them together so it’s a win-win.

It comes with a handy tinkerzine with greatly expands the learning done. We have a couple of other projects left in this kit to do. We just didn’t get to them today.

The lad has had a great deal of fun experimenting with the robotic hand.

I really wish I could have videoed the conversation between the lad and his dad afterwards.
Figuring out why the robotic hand doesn’t work as well as a human hand.
Seeing how they would change it to make it work better if they could.
It was just a great conversation and one of the top reasons why I like to do these tinker crates with my lad, the conversations with my lad.

That and this statement
“This isn’t homeschooling. This is fun!”

If you follow this affiliate link, you can get $10 off your first Tinker Crate eh?

Notre Dame took 200 years to complete, started in 1163 by Bishop Maurice de Sully. It was finally completed in 1345 It was built in the gothic style. The whole town seemed to get involved in the building, from the finances needed, to labour, to expertise in design and what not. It has become an icon of Paris.

Some facts about Notre Dame:

.1160 Maurice de Sully (named Bishop of Paris) orders the original cathedral demolished.
1163 Cornerstone laid for Notre-Dame de Paris; construction begins.
1182 Apse and choir completed.
1196 Bishop Maurice de Sully dies.
c.1200 Work begins on western facade.
1208 Bishop Eudes de Sully dies. Nave vaults nearing completion.
1225 Western facade completed.
1250 Western towers and north rose window completed.
c.1245–1260s Transepts remodelled in the Rayonnant style by Jean de Chelles then Pierre de Montreuil
1270 the Parisians watched over the body of the King, Saint Louis, who died in Tunis;
1250–1345 Remaining elements completed.
1302 King Philip the Fair opened the first Estates General of the Kingdom of France
1572, it was here that King Henry IV married Marguerite de Valois
1594 King Henry IV converted to Catholicism
1804 it is where Pope Pius VII crowned Napoleon I Emperor of the French
it was also at Notre-Dame that the Te Deum was sung at the end of the First and Second World Wars;

It is located on a small island called the Ile de la Cite in the middle of river Seine.

Notre Dame Cathedral which can also be called “our lady” is still in use
today by the Roman Catholic Church for Sunday mass and it is the seat
of the Archbishop of Paris. A notable and distinct historical artefact
which is very popular today is the famous bell that has been
redesigned to ring automatically. Any visitor to the bell tower should
be prepared to climb the 140 steps staircase, if desirous of seeing the
historical bell or have a glimpse of the city of Paris.

Also inside the Notre Dame Cathedral, among so many historical
artefacts, is the notable 17th century organ with all of its parts still
functional.

We learned a few things about Notre Dame and then we built it. 🙂 NO.. not the actual building took 200 years remember 🙂 but a 3-D puzzle of it.

We made this puzzle:

I liked how the pieces were clearly marked, and made on sturdy material. They were easy to punch out and match with the clearly marked directions.

Do you see how clear the instructions are? My son found them very easy to follow, and even corrected my decisions a couple of times. His only complaint about putting together this puzzle was that some of the slots for sliding the pieces together are a bit too small, but they were easily made bigger using the utensil it comes with.

Putting the puzzle together.

It was a lot of fun putting this together with my lad, even though at times, my somewhat ill lad would get impatient with the finickiness of some of the pieces.

It was a good way for us to connect again after weeks of illness and kinda just doing our own thing.

Once again I thought about Educents and how it’s having a sale this weekend and thought I’d see what they had about Notre Dame and France. It would appear that they have some 74 products you can choose from. Going to link up a couple just so you can see what they have. These are affiliate links that just help support us.