New Music Treasure Trove

We're taking a break from our usual collection of activities, web sites, and books to announce...

Our newest Family Education Treasure Trove....

Music for Kids and Families
http://www.biglearning.com/treasure-music.htm

This page tells you where to find great music for kids, free music lessons, tips for parents, great music web sites and games, creative composition activities, and music history and cultural resources.

As a Big Learning News subscriber, you'll get the first peek at this page, so tell us what you think! Do you know a great site we left out? A whole category you'd love to see on the page? Make a comment to let us know.

Horse Fun

http://horsefun.com/

Here's a fun site for younger kids (up to age 8 or so) who like horses. It has quizzes, facts, puzzles, and a club you can join. Some of the links are broken but still worth a visit.

News: The Trouble with Boys

"The Trouble with Boys"

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10965522/site/newsweek/

Everyone's talking about this article, it seems. It says that boys are falling behind girls in school, and it's because they have to sit still too much and besides, their brains develop differently.

I don't really like the article's take, that a narrow, test-driven definition of academic success harms primarily boys, and that boys need to be taught differently, even if it means segregating kids by gender (that separate-but-equal thing - where have I heard that before?). One-size-fits-all education and narrowly-defined assessment systems harm everyone, and I don't think you can predict a student's needs based on any one characteristic, including gender.

The article has seemed to touch a nerve though.

Woodshop for Kids

Woodshop for Kids by Jack McKee, illustrated by Rusty Keeler (Hands On Books, 2005)

Adult

Sometimes you open a book and say, "This is it! This is the book I've been looking for!" That's what happened to me when I opened Woodshop for Kids. I'm pretty much a rank beginner with woodworking, and I'm still a little scared of power tools. But woodworking is a true Big Learning experience - full of math, science, art, history, and more - and therefore irresistible.

So this book tells you exactly what hand tools to get and how to use them. If you have stood at the hardware store wondering if you wanted a coping saw or a keyhole saw, this is the book for you.

It also explains wood selection (and where to get it cheap or free) and basic building techniques. It explains how to set up clamps, what a jig is and how to make one. It explains how to teach proper tool use to kids, and how to keep kids safe without doing every thing for them. I love his sample speech for kids about using a low-temperature hot glue gun. "Hot glue is HOT and if you get it on your finger it will burn you...If you accidentally get glue on your finger wipe it off quickly and you will not get burned. If you do get burned it does hurt but not for long and you'll probably survive."

The book also has 52 projects that run from very easy (a two-piece spinning top) to moderately complicated (a tool caddy). I think the projects would all be fun to make. Where the book falls down is in the photos. The black-and-white photos of rough-looking kid-made projects are never going to make your child jump up and down and say, "Please can we make that one?" But, I bet if you set them up and started making them, your kids would jump right in.

I also love McKee's Big Learning attitude. He encourages a lot of creativity with the projects rather than defining everything step-by-step. The projects also offer kids opportunities to craft a project until it works - how to add weights to a top until it spins evenly, for example.

Buying Information

More Kids' Woodworking Resources

Rubber Band Illusions

Rubber Band Illusions

Here's a trick almost any kid can learn. A rubber band magically leaps from two fingers to the other two fingers of the same hand. Amaze your kids and then teach them to amaze their friends. This site tells how to do it:

http://www.covenanthealth.com/parentingfair/magic-4.html

A little more complicated but still cool is this one. You take an index card, fold it, draw a fish on one side and a fishbowl on the other. This site tells you how to use rubber bands to spin the card rapidly, making it appear that the fish is inside the fishbowl.

http://www.pacsci.org/education/si/demos/sciencefun.html

Artist Paul Cezanne

Artist Paul Cezanne

http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/2006/cezanne/index.shtm

The Smithsonian's National Gallery just opened a new show, Cezanne in Provence, with 117 works by Cezanne. This site is a great way to learn about the artist and his works. It showcases 12 "motifs" - locations that inspired the art. The motif pages include information about the place and Cezanne's relationship with it, photographs of the place, and several examples of works Cezanne painted there. Kids, who will find the text too dense and technical, will love looking at the art works. They can explore the works by zooming in on particular parts.

Winter Olympics Torch Relay

Winter Olympics Torch Relay

If your kids are excited about the upcoming Winter Olympics, help them brush up on Italian geography by following the path of the olympic torch as it makes its way around Italy.

Here's an article about the torch relay:

http://teacher.scholastic.com/scholasticnews/indepth/winterolympics/torino/index.asp?article=torch

This site has a nice interactive map:

http://www2.fiammaolimpica.it/

Toy Review: Bumparena

Bumparena by Cranium

Ages 6 and up

A fun game that teaches physics? In this game, you can actually watch your kids developing important intuitions about balls, ramps, and bumpers.

The game board is a wide ramp, with a row of starting blocks that hold balls at the top and bays for balls to roll into at the bottom. Kids take turns adding plastic bumpers to the ramp, with the goal of getting released balls to roll into their bay. Whoever gets six balls first wins.

The game is fun! Players draw cards at each turn. Some cards allow you to add a bumper to the board, some allow you to add balls to your choice of the starting blocks at the top, and some allow you to change the direction of a bumper already on the board. Draw a "release card" and you get to throw the switch and release all the balls that have accumulated at the top and see whose bays they roll into.

My kids, when they're adding bumpers, try to predict the path balls will take with the new bumper in place. I can see them tracing with their fingers, testing out different scenarios. Sometimes, because the balls are bouncy, things don't go as they predicted but the surprises make the game fun too. The game says its for ages seven and up, but I think even younger kids would enjoy it too.

Photograph your pets

Photograph your pets

http://www.nyip.com/tips/topic_pets1199.html

Photography gets kids thinking about important art concepts like composition and artistic message before they have the dexterity to use them in drawing or sculpture. This article provides tips for photographing pets. The tips range from technical - how do you get your pet to hold still? - to artistic - how can your photo reveal your pet's unique personality?

Accuracy of Groundhog Day Predictions

Accuracy of Groundhog Day Predictions

http://itotd.com/articles/448/

Here in the U.S., February 2 is Groundhog Day. On that day, groundhog "Punxsutawney Phil" emerges to greet the day. If he sees his shadow, that means six more weeks of winter. If not, spring is just around the corner.

This article is a thoughtful and entertaining exploration of the question, "How accurate is Punxsutawney Phil?" Share it with your kids to help them develop their abilities to think mathematically about real-world questions. For example, mathematically, how would we define a correct prediction? Are Phil's predictions better than you would get just flipping a coin every year?

Finally, if it seems to you that Phil always seems to see his shadow, you're right - see this page:

http://ona.cabe.k12.wv.us/paux.html

It shows he sees his shadow much more often than not.

More Math for Kids