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Big Learning News 9-6-06 |
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| Big Learning News Karen Cole's Guide to Real-World Learning with Kids Issue 4:29 September 6, 2006 Visit BigLearning.org for past BLN issues, education headlines, and more! Subscribe! Send a blank e-mail to subscribe@biglearning.org.
Check out this week's sponsor! MrKent.Net Offers Free Resources MrKent.Net is a website designed to provide you with all your educational technology needs. Power Point lessons, classroom games, book reviews, great educational websites and information regarding teaching jobs in Asia are just some of the features you will find at MrKent.Net. Subscribe to our free monthly e-zine today and we will provide you with great education technology information and a number of our fantastic resources absolutely free. MrKent.Net: Education Technology Made Simple 100-year old Mechanic Ages 8-12 http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/britainagelabouroffbeat According to this article, Britain's oldest worker recently celebrated his 100th birthday. The man, "Buster" Martin, works as a mechanic. He tried to retire in 1997, but found life too dull to bear. So he went back to work. Show the article to your kids - it doesn't bother to tell you what year Martin was born, so help the figure it out. Write down 2006. Show them how to subtract 100 years to get 1906. If it helps them, they can think of these numbers in terms of "hundreds." 2000 is the same as 20 hundreds. 20 hundreds minus 1 hundred equals 19 hundreds. Young kids can have a field day adding and subtracting 100 years from any date. Ask them what year they will turn 100? How about Mom or Dad? If a tree was 500 years old today, what year did it start growing? To keep the place value lessons going, show them how to add 10 years to any date. Make a list of years one below the other like this: 2006 Have your child note the pattern in the tens place - the digits go 0, 1, 2, 3. Ask them what year comes next. Comment on this article or see what others have said Art for Kids We've updated our art resources on BigLearning.org. Check out our expanded pages, with quick projects, art book reviews, free drawing lessons, and art history and art appreciation for kids. http://www.biglearning.org/treasureart.htm Fun with Mirrors http://littleshop.physics.colostate.edu/onlineexperiments/Flatware.html Does your child like to look at his face upside-down in the bowl of a spoon? This page has several ways your child can play with flatware and learn about the properties of mirrors. For example, it suggests bringing the spoon closer and closer until the image is no longer upside down, but magnified. If your child is curious about how mirrors reflect light, here's a fun activity called "Spot Yer Mate" that helps explain it, using yarn to represent light rays. http://www.lightwave.soton.ac.uk/experiments/spotyermate/spotyermate.html There are more mirror activities on this page: http://www.lightwave.soton.ac.uk/experiments/experiments.html Here are more activities and resources for a young physicist: Double ball bounce activity Children's Miscellany: Useless Information that's Essential to Know by Matthew Morgan and Samantha Barnes (Chronicle Books, 2004) Ages 7-11 What kid would want to go through childhood without knowing the history of underpants? Or that a salt-grain-sized drop of the venom of the Australian Brown Snake can kill a person? Children's Miscellany is an off-beat book of lists, tricks, and kid know-how - for example, ten ways to be annoying (as if any kid really needs that list!) There are optical illusions, magic tricks, and life-saving tips like what to do if attacked by an alligator. Lots of fun. More tricks and trivia books Tips and Tricks for Junior Detectives Comment on this article or see what others have said
Letting Kids Roam http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/26/AR2006082600627.html Can we let our children play outside unsupervised? Some parents interviewed in this Washington Post article say no, the world is just too dangerous now:
Other parents think the benefits outweigh the risks:
The article includes a handy statistic to support the second point of view. Do you know how many stranger abductions there were last year in the whole U.S.? 115. I'm pretty sure any other childhood danger you can think of has a greater likelihood of happening than a stranger abduction. (Now let's pause briefly while I worry about all those more-likely dangers.) In his book, Last Child in the Woods, Richard Louv poignantly admits that despite his passion for nature, he still has the same parental fears as the rest of us do. Still, he says,
He offers five suggestions for keeping kids safe without raising them in a plastic bubble: - Spend time with your children and educate them about safety -- as in awareness and good sense, not constant fear. Read a Review of Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv. Recent Education News Commentaries Everything is starting earlier Comment on this article or see what others have said http://www.pestworldforkids.org/learninggames.html We had an ant invasion in our house recently, which may be why I found these games especially interesting.They teach kids about termites, ants, roaches, and other household pests. The overriding message is that from the pest's point of view, houses can be excellent habitats. To control the pests, a good strategy is to make the house less appealing as a habitat. Good science learning there. And from a parent's point of view, the games are good because they encourage kids to clean up spills and crumbs. More Bugs for Kids Product review: Bug Vaccuum Educational Game Contest deadline SEPTEMBER 15th, 2006 http://www.education-world.com/At_Home/student/student029.shtml Contest for kids 18 and under. GameMaker software for kids 10 and up, with help for younger kids. Education World is still taking entries in its educational design contest for kids. Kids use free software called GameMaker to create an original, working computer game - no programming language required. I downloaded the software and started to work through the tutorial. I'll have a more complete review soon, but I wanted to let you all know about it because the deadline is next week. Comment on this article or see what others have said
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Content meant for adults and provided for informational purposes only - readers are responsible for previewing all materials and activities for suitability and safety before sharing them with children. |
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