A Net in Time

Curriculum and book reviews, faith, homeschooling and more!

STEM

STEM: Robot Hand

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My lad and I have been working our way through the Human Body using God’s Design Curriculum.  We are currently working through the lesson on Bones.   We’ve been supplementing as we work our way through as it’s good to take rabbit trails as we study things. 

As we were studying the bones and learning how muscles are attached to the bones using tendons, the lad looked at his hands and feet and said “mom, are those my muscles that stick out when I move my fingers and my toes or they tendons?”  I told him the lines you see are your tendons…but they help your muscles to work.  He was FASCINATED.  

To that end we found this video to help us understand how the muscles of the hand work.  It was a bit longer then what we wanted but gave us a ton of information.

 The muscles of the hand are so intricately put together its definitely God’s Design.  

To help us further understand how muscles work we thought we’d put together a robotic hand.   We found one on Mystery Science that looked doable.  We liked how it showed the finger curl but disliked how it worked/didn’t work as a whole unit.
On a positive note, it has the lad looking for a version that he thinks will work better!  🙂  He’s been scouring youtube videos for the rest of the afternoon, rejecting various ones.  He did find one using black tubes with wire that he thinks will work pretty good, just need to find the components… but he’s continuing to look in case he find something better. 
I am thrilled that my lad’s disappointment with this project hasn’t stopped his enthusiasm to learn and to find something he really thinks will work well.  I really hope he finds something, but in the meantime, he’ll be learning and that is a good thing.

STEM: PopCan Robot

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Fridays are our do it differently days, learning happens we just have fun doing everything differently.   One of the things we do is do some sort of STEM activity.

We had SO MUCH FUN putting this fellow together.  OH MY OH MY.

To make this fellow you need the 4M kit and one popcan…that’s it.

Add to that some laughs.
Lots of questions.
Scissors.
and a wish for a coverup for a can.

On to the joy and wonder of making a tin can robot.

One of the things I like about 4M kits is they are very clear about what the kit does and does not contain.   In this case we need to supply two batteries and one popcan.

The box is a nice size to store on a shelf, recyclable, and easy to open. .. HEY>> it’s good to know that stuff.. I’ve gotten kits before that opening them is a pain in the … well you know… but easy to open bags with all parts conveniently grouped.

The back of the box clearly indicates the parts contained which is a great help to know if it’s age appropriate or not.

OH.. I almost forgot… we did need to supply our own screwdriver.

 As you can see the instructions are clearly labeled, with colour markers to help with placement and understanding.   The lad found it very easy to understand and rarely needed my assistance.    It’s great to see his confidence building more all the time.

 This fellow currently resides in my son’s room and makes regular circuits up and down the floor during our night time reading.

You gotta admit, he is rather cute don’t you think?   🙂

As you can see.. he works!  We learned he works on smooth floors best, with couches working as well… but the carpet… never got him to like that.  We do wonder, what if we put traction on the wheels.. would that work better but we haven’t test that theorem out yet.


And the cat is well….unimpressed.

Others in this series
Salt Water Spider.
Solar Oven.
Sand Art.
Spy Case.
Practical Math.
Light Up Planetarium.
PopCan Robot.

STEM: Tinker Crate – Spy Case

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Kiwi crates sent us a Spy Case to put together. Boy oh boy did it teach us a lot!    Just so you know, affliate links are used in this post, which help us get more crates, and doesn’t hurt your bottom line at all.  🙂

First off .. .they didn’t stint with the spy paper they gave us.   The lad was mightily impressed.


They had us make a periscope, work with invisible ink, and more.  It was a fun kit to make and provided the lad with a reason to be sneaky! 

One of the things I love about kiwi and tinker crates is how they write the directions so clearly.  Unless you are deliberately not paying attention you really can’t mess it up.
 

 My son is becoming proficient enough with these crates that he can generally do them on his own now.  Reading through, making sure he’s laid out all the parts needed ahead of time, and then putting it together.  See?  All put together by one lad.  Mind…he initially put it together backwards, but quickly realized the error of his ways.   I have to admit, even though he can do it on his own, I love to sit with him talking about all the discoveries we are making.

 We were also able to see the affect of blue/red lines. How if you are careful you can hide words in them.   We even were able to write some of our own messages.  Can you see it?

My lad was delighted the invisible ink and the blue light, and immediately correlated it using lemon juice and a heat source.   Good to make those connections and see a lad’s brain at work.

Kiwi crates, making STEM materials around a theme, letting a child explore and create and cement the learning.   Coming once a month to delight, entertain and teach.
You can get your own Kiwi Crates eh?   A monthly subscription or just try a single crate. You can learn more about them here.

Linking up at Homeschool Highlights. 

RHM School Week Reviewed

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So this week, was better than last week health wise WOOT WOOT!!!   Getting tuckered still happens but I last longer than I did last week.  🙂

Schooling happened quickly this week oh my the lad was just on fire.   Most days he had his basics done before 1000 a.m. (Monday, Wednesday and Thursday)

Oh.. on Tuesday though, no schooling done.  He spent the day with a friend while hubby and I spent the day in Port Huron.  I had a package on gears delivered to the SCC down there (Free stateside shipping) and so went to hobby lobby, the fishing store, the outdoor store and a few other places.  Hubby came home with a new target for arrow practice and I picked up a few STEM activities for the lad.

We didn’t do much more than the basics this week though he did work on his book three days this week rather than one.

Wednesday we did the Foodbank and the lad managed to get his schooling done and help me too.  Which was really nice. 

Today we made this:

The lad had so much fun putting him together.  I’ll have a post coming up sometime soon for it.  The goal is to dress him up a bit so he looks better as having the ingredient list staring us in the face the lad would rather not have.

We also made some cookies today!   I want to thank Kym for her cake dough recipe.   It works a charm and a lad can make them completely on his own with just some support from his mom with the oven.  🙂

 Cookie making was followed up with the lad making a snow fort.  It’s not done yet so no pictures allowed.  🙂

I love this picture of boy and dad working together.  They were skinning ginger in order to make candied ginger (which dad and son love and I can’t stand).  🙂

Reading this week:

Snow in Hawaii (picture book review coming) 
Closer to the heart by Mercedes Lackey, one of my favourite authors
The Prayer Saturated family (non-fiction adult book review coming)
Miss Peregrines home for peculiar Children (book club read)

The lad continues to read through the warrior cat series by Erin Hunter

Reviews

The Christmas Angel Project.  A Christmas novella about friends and change.
This First Christmas Night.  A nice picture book about the first Christmas.

Word Prompt Posts

Now???   A Five Minute Friday post, a poem.
Days of December: Decorations.  Picking favourite tree ornaments.

Life and Faith

Edom is warned for their revenge.  Ezekiel 25:12-14
Moab and Seir Corrected for Wrong Assumptions. Ezekiel 25:8-11 
Do Not Mock My People.  Ezekiel 25:1-7
Sunday Sermon: Christ is the Answer to Doubt.



Field Trip to Niagara Falls.   
Art Series: Art Lab for Kids.
Recipe: Pizza Dough Apple Strudel.
Our Christmas Tree. 
Hymn Study: Joy to the World.  

 
Linking up at the following places.

Homeschool Coffee Break

Weird unsocialized homeschoolers

homeschool show and tell

STEM: Light Up Planetarium

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Since battling illness is the name of the game in this house lately, today I decided to switch things up for the lad.

“Do your reading and then we’ll work on a couple of your boxes okay?”   says I.

“GREAT MOM” was the enthusiastic response.  (good to have enthusiasm again)  🙂

Over the past year we’ve been working with kiwi crates, I decided to bump up the the tinker crates, and Light Up Planterium is the first one we received.     Below you will see my son unpacking the box.  It comes in the mail addressed to him.

 
Tinker Creates is a great way to teach and entertain youth from 9-16 years old.   I discovered that the instructions are different, they came as a fold out page rather than a booklet. 

My son had absolutely no problem following the instructions and figuring out where he wanted to go.  He was able to easily look ahead and problem solve before reaching the next stage as needed.

HA!!!   I made my first ever presentation, cool eh?

One thing I couldn’t figure out how to show you was how neat all those pin holes stars look against a dark ceiling.  Just couldn’t get a good shot regardless of what I did with the camera.

But seriously, tinker crates are a great deal of fun and you can take the learning from them into so many different directions.  Do them as is or put them into a small unit study.  We’re studying astronomy this year so this box was an excellent fit.  You can order individual crates from Kiwi Crates from what I recall, so give them a look see and figure out what you can use with your students.  🙂