Reverse Engineering

My youngest son is all about engineering right now.  He wants to know how things work and why they work that way. He wants to be an inventor. He is a master of Lego and Minecraft.  To help him develop this interest, we are doing a course in "Reverse Engineering".  Each week I stop by a local thrift stores.  While there, I scour the shelves for mechanical items. 

He has a nice toolbox with a selection of tools already, so he just need the things to take apart.  The first thing he "Reverse Engineered" was an electric can opener. He took it apart as far as he could, then reassembled it and it did still work!  Then he took it apart and kept pieces like the cord and motor, screws and a few other parts.  He plans to eventually build something from all the useful parts he scavenges from these sacrificial projects. 

Lego is perfect for future engineers and their siblings. We spend was much time as possible with them. 

Reverse Engineering is even better when friends are visiting!  Here they are dissecting a food scale. Lots of learning happening and LOTS of fun!  I have a toaster ready for the next session and have my eye out for a rotary phone. I am also watching for a weed whacker or a lawn mower for small engine repair practice.  Next year, I hope he's ready for appliances! 

Practical skills are SO important in todays world! Seeing how things work is an integral part of practicality.  

Other resources:

The Way Things Work

The Way Things Work Now (on our wishlist)

How It's Made (I can't recommend this series highly enough!)

Thing Explainer 

Friedhoffer books (this one and others!) 

Engineering for Kids (I haven't used this yet, but we will watch this series this school year.)

Lego Technic (We watch for clearance sales and have even found some in garage sales!)

Lego Mindstorms (if I was rich! LOL)

Incredible Crafty Paper

How's this for a handicraft?  This entire video, sounds and all, was created with paper.  What incredible creations could your children dream up with paper today?  Inspire them!



The Human Body (stop-motion!) from kellianderson on Vimeo.

For those less interested in innards and guts, perhaps quilling would be more to their liking?




Don't think that simple paper and glue isn't enough to capture your child's imagination on a rainy winter afternoon.  Get crafting!

Thanksgiving Mini Unit

It's nearing Thanksgiving! Time for the little ones to learn all about pilgrims, Native Americans and turkeys, right?

Books we read:

Mousekin's Thanksgiving

Cranberry Thanksgiving

On the Mayflower

Samuel Eaton's Day

Sarah Morton's Day

Tapenum's Day

Three Young Pilgrims

We read portions of Turkey, Pilgrims and Indian Corn.

We listened to real Turkey Calls and watched some videos of wild turkeys. We compared their lives to that of factory turkeys.

We made the Cranberry Bread recipe from Cranberry Thanksgiving. That was a lot of fun! I also made a Gluten-Free version so I could enjoy it, too. I also want to try the grain-free version. I'll blog pictures of the baking later on in their own post.

I printed off a few coloring pages:

Turkey

Pilgrim's Give Thanks

Mayflower

Feast

There are, of course, many crafts ideas for Thanksgiving/turkeys. I am NOT fond of arts-and-crafts. When we actually do a crafty thing, the Little really enjoy it, though. Now that the Bigs are big, they can run crafts, and they enjoy it! Hooray!

The Black Widow

My friend Ginger over at Frugal Freeda mentioned this course. DrawSpace.com is a full art course for the beginning student through the advanced level. My eldest daughter is SO happy with this find! She loves to draw, and now Freeda just supplied an elective credit for her 9th grade year.

EmBlem looked over the course and assigned herself the Intermediate designation. She did read a few tips and hints in the beginners lessons that were helpful. She chose to begin with a Black Widow Drawing, since we have so many of the dears around here. Here's the Lesson. Here's a picture of her finished piece.

We'll be shopping for the more specialized pencils that are called for in the lessons this weekend. She did this with a plain old 2B Ticonderoga (the best writing pencils in the world, by the way) on basic copy paper bought from Costco. Didn't she do a marvelous job?

A Worthless Piece of Junk? Never!

We had two non-functioning CD players hanging around. Before throwing them away, Polly and Jack decided to explore them. Out came some of Daddy's small tools and the magnifying glasses. I didn't note the time, but they probably spent more than an hour taking those players apart and marveling over the tiny pieces that were inside.



They compared the two and found the similar parts and noticed the differences.



Should I count this as "mechanical engineering" or "de-construction skills"?

Watch Out For Chicken Feet In Your Soup!

I bought this cute little book at the last library book sale. It's a sweet little autobiographical story by Tomie de Paola about one of his grandmothers. I read it to my five year old son and eight year old daughter yesterday. They wanted to hear it again today. That's the hallmark of a great book, right?

The book has a recipe in the back for the Bread Doll that was made in the story. My young ones were excited to make a Bread Doll for themselves. Warning: lots of pictures of Cuties follow!

They scalded, poured and measured.




They mixed, cracked and kneaded.









They waited and waited for the dough to rise...which it didn't. I don't know why, but it rose only a little. Oh well, it tasted good regardless.

They rolled, they chose their egg color (our eggs are brown, blue, cream and pinkish), and helped braid the dough. It smelled wonderful, even before baking.



At last ds did the egg wash and helped pop The Dolls into the oven.

Forty-five minutes later......ahhhhhh.







It was a good day at the Crew's Preschool.

A Boy's Handicraft

(Originally posted on my other blog 10-9-2007)

My eldest son, Vic, has had a new hobby the last few days. He has been disassembling our old VCR. It was nearly dead, and refusing to give up a VHS tape that it had inside. My Honey asked him to take it apart and get the tape.
He used a screwdriver and pliers and enjoyed himself greatly!
Dad got in there and explained how all those things worked together to make the VHS play.