Curriculum and book reviews, faith, homeschooling and more!
Did I ever show you what my lad made the other day?
He was searching for something to do for his Friday project and decided to make a cat toy for our new cat Lizzie.
I was surprised at the good work my lad did, taking things that Miss Lizzie liked and incorporating them into a toy that moved, had interesting bits, and actually intrigued her.
He used green craft wire, pom poms, pipe cleaners, hot glue and yarn to make a safe, but effective toy for a very curious cat.
Chicago Review Press puts together these wonderful books that are well done unit studies. Today I would like to talk to you about Albert Einstein and Relativity for Kids. Imagine a book that does all the work of researching for you and then provides 21 different activities to help cement the learning in your children’s minds. Hands-on activities to help you figure it out and see what Albert Einstein was talking about.
Albert Einstein and Relativity for kids is a softcover book divided into 8 chapters with different 21 activities. Some of these activities are familiar, and other take regular household items and add a teaching element I wouldn’t have considered otherwise. Most are hands on, but some are writing assignments. It is written by Jerome Pohlen.
Chapters are:
The tome is well designed, with text balanced well with images. Written at a level good for upper elementary to high school students. It is a well written book that is engaging and interesting. I appreciated the timeline at the start of the book to give me a good overview into his life.
I love that pictures and images are strewn throughout the book, bringing into focus places and people that were part of Einstein’s life.
This is an excellent book to teach your children about Albert Einstein and the Theory of Relativity. Engaging text that gives the facts without being boring. Excellent graphics that break up the text with good experiments to help you to understand concepts. This would be a great book to use within a homeschool setting and easy to adapt to using in a co-op.
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Albert Einstein and Relativity for Kids His life and Ideas with 21 Activities and thought experiments. Jerome Pohlem Chicago Review Press Unit study, history, biography, hands-on learning Softcover, 128 pages. Reviewed for Chicago Review Press. Where to find: Amazon Link. |
Other Chicago Review Books in this series:
Marine Science. Michelangelo. Marie Curie.
Today I have a different sort of STEM learning. I picked up this kit oh..a couple years back on Amazon cause it looked interesting and thought the lad might be interested in it at some point. I got it at a great price too! 
Anyways, it’s made by TinkeringLabs.com… I call it “the gear box” but the official title is Tinkering Labs Electric Motors Catalyst STEM Kit.
It’s a series of challenges plus the gears, wood pieces, motor, and sundry pieces to make it all fit together. The inventor is not told HOW to do the challenge, just given the challenge to do.
My lad has been having a lot of fun with this kit. So far he’s made two of the challenges (each time making them as hard as possible). I let him fiddle away on his own unless he asks for help, and then I ask him questions without giving him any definitive answers. It’s great watching him figure out the challenges.
The box comes with a handy little book that if you wanted to you can look through for ideas on how to do builds, my son prefers not to look at this book though. He wants very much to make his own design. He currently is ONLY using what is supplied in the kit, but when I looked through builds on the TinkeringLabs site I noted children often completed challenges using other items. I think I will have him look at the site so he knows it’s okay to do so. The point is to be innovative and meet the challenge yes?
So far my lad has made two of the builds. He dislikes having to take them all apart when he is done, but he’s building and creating and learning how different combinations of gears and motors work together. Finessing the details is all it takes sometimes to make it work.
I don’t know if this kit will come on sale like it was when I picked it up a couple of years ago, but it’s worth keeping your eye on. 🙂 If you do pick it up, have fun with it. Watch your young engineers innovate!
My son was very excited when he watch the trailer for NatureGlo’s eScience MathArt courses. The idea of combining math with art, science, history and more was very appealing to him. The MathArt Online 4-class bundle is proving to be just the ticket for him.
Gloria Brooks developed these classes with the idea of encouraging students to ask questions. As such she doesn’t say you have to do this, and then this, and then that. But rather sets out the teaching aspect and then encourages her students to follow up with what they want to learn more about. There is a lot of freedom in her classes and she builds the learning up one step at a time.
My son has been busy learning about Fibonacci and the golden ratio. How it can be found everywhere in the world. He’s been enjoying this mostly on-line program with PDF’s.
This course includes
#1: Introduction & History of the Golden Ratio and the Fibonacci Numbers
#2: The Golden Number & Fibonacci in Art, Architecture & Nature
#3: The Fibonacci Numbers in Nature
#4: The History & the Golden Ratio of the Great Pyramid
#5: Phi & Quasicrystals
#6: The Mathematics of Music
My original goal, based on watching the overview and the free sample, was to have my lad do two lessons per week. We downgraded my expectations to one lesson a week, once we truly understood Gloria’s methodology. We chose to spread out the workload thereby allowing my lad to really dig into the parts that he was most interested in. It was great to be able to slow down and research terms we were unfamiliar with. To break down the lesson into the bite sized pieces that my lad so enjoys. It’s been so interesting watching him learn and what has peaked his curiousity.
The first lesson, my son required a fair bit of hand-holding as he figured out how the program worked and that it was okay to stop and just research unfamiliar terms. It was a hard lesson for us, but we learned a lot! We actually emailed Gloria and told her what we were struggling, and then had the joy of seeing how responsive Gloria was to questions from her students. She reworked the first lesson plan just to help my lad better understand some terminology. Isn’t it wonderful when a creator is able to do that?
Mondays my son would watch the video or read through the slides.
The slides were basically the video without the audio component where she would read the slide and basically talk her way through them. As you can see, the slides are very clear.
He would read through project possibilities and start to work on them. Either by doing some research, watching videos and/or printing off materials needed and working through them.
The student is able to pick from a variety of options for their project. They can either choose to do a big project where they do a little bit every week, OR they can choose to do a smaller project every week. My son chose the options of working on something smaller every lesson.
One of the projects my son chose to do was making this tool to demonstrate the measuring for the Golden Ratio.
My son made me laugh. We discovered the quizlets…and he sits beside me excitedly telling me that he beat his last score! “Mom, do you think I can get down to 10 seconds?” As you can see from the picture below they have different quizlets: Match, Learn, Test, Flashcards and Spell. Each of these quizzes teaches or tests the material the student needs to know for the lesson test.
I love having all the PDF’s, being able to download them and save it all the computer. Being able to print off JUST the pages that I want. My son enjoyed being able to print off the tests as well as being able to do them online. He didn’t like that the online tests would mark the answer as wrong if you capitalized the word rather than leave it as lowercase.
On the otherhand, he loved it, if he got an answer wrong, that it would tell him what the correct answer was.
I found that the PDF’s were very thorough. From the student workbook delineating projects for the class, to the study guide that goes through the powerpoint presentation, and lesson quiz (along with the answers), Gloria covers all the bases that she can.
When looking for the course you want and you can’t see it, click the “all courses” button. 🙂 For me, since I also have the free class listed as one of my courses, the all courses button screen looks like this:
Each class (Math Connections with the Real World, MathArt in Ancient Cultures, Mathematics in the Arts & Sciences, MathArt – Patterns in Nature) is six weeks long, my son is thinking he’ll work through the ancient cultures one next.
Make sure you utilize the side panel. Makes working your way through the course a whole lot easier. As you complete each lesson and mark it off, the colour fades and gets crossed out. This does not mean you cannot refer back to lessons. Each link remains active.
NatureGlo’s eScience program is something a whole family can do together (at least the students 10 and up). One price for the whole family. It can be used by Christian and non-Christian families equally as origins are not discussed. It’s interactive, and self-paced. You can see where you are in the course and go back and forth as many times as you need to. You get a slideshow with PDF downloads showing those slides one page at a time, as well as great study guides and workbooks to help you work through the material. It all builds upon each other. Gloria is very responsive to inquiries which is completely wonderful. Content is provided for students who want to work beyond what is presented. Students can approach this course in a manner that best suits them.
It’s organized in a way that my son can mostly work through the material on his own. He tends to call me in when he’s working through a test, or trying to confirm just what a project is calling for. I loved that his first journal project included a topic he loves… he found the Fibonacci sequence in spiders! He was so delighted. 🙂
“Natureglo, so far I like it. I like that I can either watch the video or I can just go through the slide show pictures on my own. Sometimes I like to listen and other times I like to just read.”
“One of the things I would have liked. With the slide show videos, because she did them live, it would be nice if she could edit out where the students are circling things.”
“I really like that it gives me a choice as to what project I can do.”
“I plan to work my way through all these courses Mom, I really like them. Make sure you tell them that!”
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NatureGlo's eScience.
MathArt Online 4-Class Bundle.
Gloria Brooks
Class length vary.
Four Bundle unit of online combination math,
science, art classes
Pricing: See here.
For PC, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android platforms.
One year subscription.
Ages 10+
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70 families from the Homeschool Review Crew Checked out NatureGlo’s eScience courses. Click here or below.
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The other day my son had a lot of fun putting together the spin art machine from Tinker Crates. He made a simple spinning machine using the motor and disc, and then was able to create some different art effects.
Watching my son drop paint in to the Spin Art Machine
My son explained why the camera didn’t pick up the spin from the Spin Art Machine.
I really wish I could have shown you the spin, as it made some really interesting colour patterns as it whirled around. But Alas was not meant to be. The art looks way better spinning than being still art.
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The concept was fairly simple. Make a machine that spins, in this case it has three different speeds. Insert the paper you want to design on, then drop paint on it quickly or in single drops. My son also experimented with some markers held lightly on the paper (just barely touching) which had a really neat affect as well, but I never managed to get that in video or photo.
It’s one of the things that I like most about Tinker Crates is the questions it opens up for him. The What if I try this? Or I wonder what will happen if… I love how I can just see his brain working away. And reading the tinkerzine? Ah.. it’s a good thing that. And then when he takes what he’s learning and turns to his favourite learning mechanism.. YOUTUBE and does more research.. even better!
It is such a gratifying thing to hear when a lad expresses an interest in physics and how motors work and what causes different things to happen. I love it! And this to me is the biggest benefit of Tinker Crates and their lovely TinkerZine. The broadening of horizons and the questions it poses in a lads mind. It’s a grand grand thing.
If you want to see questions posed in the minds of your children, check out Tinker Crates.
Other Tinker Crates you might be interested in as well: 3D viewer. Spy case.
A great place to find other science information is SchoolhouseTeachers.com. Check them out today. The Ultimate Annual membership to SchoolhouseTeachers.com is just $179, and that gives you access to over 300 courses, all the record-keeping and parent resources, the entire Video Library and World Book Online. And that’s for your entire family, no matter how many students you have. Not sure? How about a 30 day trial for just $5 – use the coupon code TRIAL on the Ultimate Monthly Membership for that special price and see what you think!
I recognize that it’s a bit beyond Ground Hog Day but you know… life gets busy eh? I figure it’s better late than never right?
Anyways, for groundhog day we watched the movie GroundHog Day. This movie is from 1993, and stars comedian Bill Murray. It also stared the groundhog Punxsutawney Phil in Pennsylvania.
As part of the day’s focus I gave the lad a challenge. Told him he needed to use up some of our stale marshmallows and ANYTHING ELSE he wanted to use. His goal.. make a groundhog den. However he defined that was entirely up to him. I know I had a thought in mind of what he would come up with …but he admittedly went in a completely different direction than I thought he would.
We also looked up the various groundhogs that are named around Canada and the USA.
In Canada we have the following groundhogs:
Wiarton Willie… Wiarton, Ontario
OilSprings Ollie…near Sarnia, Ontario
Shubenacadie Sam…Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia
Balzac Billy… Balzac, Alberta
Gaspésie Fred… from Quebec
This year they all had different predictions, which makes sense given their geographical distance from each other.
Anyways, on to my son’s definition of my instructions.
He took the marshmallows and his spray bottle that we have for the new cat to help her learn some manners. Grabbed a plate from the kitchen and started to spray the marshmallows so he could stick them together and form a basic shape.
“It’s winter mom, we won’t be able to see the den”.
He then stuck that in the freezer.
Every time it froze solid he’d bring it out and add more marshmallows until he had a solid mound of marshmallows with an opening so Wiarton Willie could come out and look for his shadow.
I have to admit I never got a final picture of the project. Apparently there was a collusion between Dad and boy and well…. “Mom, It was a mess”. In the picture above this was step two, the opening is on the side facing away. It was in and out of the freezer three times with some marshmallows added in different places in each stage. It would melt and fall apart quickly.
The end result “this was fun to do mom!”
If I had been inclined to I could have given him a unit study or worksheets to fill out, but meh…when he did this we were still recovering from the effects of a VERY nasty flu that hit our household. Therefore this was just enough knowledge and activity for the day for him.
If you are so inclined to do a unit study on GroundHog Day, these are some that I found that are free:
Life of a homeschool mom.
Meet Penny.
Homeschool Share.
DIY Homeschooler.
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I thought today I would talk with you about some of my lad’s favourite crates that have come to us via kiwi/tinker crates. He’s done a lot of crates so it’s a tiny bit hard to choose. 🙂 Suffice it to say, he’s had lots of opportunity to do STEM projects.
First up: DaVinci’s Clock. You know a good crate when it’s still being used long after it was made.
There’s the planetarium, which he uses to light starts up on his ceiling at night. I still remember his joy when he got it all put together.
I haven’t written about this one yet, but the lad still plays games with the Tinker Crate Arcade game. And some how unbelievably I can’t find a good picture of it to share with you! GAH!!! Sometimes.. oh sometimes I just want a different camera. 🙂 But hey… trust me.. he plays with it. It’s like the toss the ball to get it into a hole…. except he’s made all kinds of interesting rules to go along with it. 🙂
What else does he still do stuff with?
There’s the claw and the fuzzy minions. 🙂 (at least that’s what I call them). This made up a carnival type game where you have a claw and try to grab a stuffie. These fuzzy minions have been a lot of fun in our household.
The Fibre-optic Constellation he was quite pleased to have managed to figure out. It was quite complicated to build. Took him much longer than most build. You probably can’t see how the stars light up, but it looks very neat in a dark room. It’s another light he puts on while reading before bed.
Ah before I forget, I must not neglect to mention the Spy Case. This provided a lot of fun for the lad, sneaking around corners and peering into things. 🙂 And how doesn’t like writing in invisible ink?
Anyways, Tinker Crates have been a boon to our household, and I hope you’ve enjoyed this peak into some of the favourites of my lad.
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