Free Dyslexia Helps

• Google voice search For Chrome (there is also a version for Android phones)
• Open Dyslexic  Font - not enough good things can be said about this font
• Bookshare  must have someone certify the disability
• Ginger Software - standalone and for Chrome
•  Speckie Spell check add on for Internet Explorer

The Assistive Technology Blog has information on technology for many types of disabilities.
Assistive Technology Blog

Books Lists

1) African-American Authors of Books for Children and Young Adults

• Wisconsin Dept Public Ed's List
• Onondaga County Public Library

2) Latio Authors of Books for Children and Young Adults

• BookJoy
• About.com

3)  Asian-American Authors of Books for Children and Young Adults

• Colorin' Colorado
• About.com

4) Native American Authors of Books for Children and Young Adults

• Children's Literature Network
• RESOURCE LIST FOR TEACHING -TO OR ABOUT- NATIVE AMERICANS

Google Street View Parks

Since I've already confessed my love of Globe Genie , I thought I'd post something I just heard about on Google Maps.   You can now take virtual tours of a whole host of parks and landmarks.

Here's some I stumbled across myself:

• The Detroit Zoo, Detriot, MI, USA
• Balboa Park, San Deigo, CA, USA

The following (and many more) can be found on Google Map helps

• Liberty Park, Jersey City, NJ, USA
• Koganei Park, Tokyo, Japan
• Kensington Gardens, London, UK
• Ring of Kerry Golf Club and Country Club Templenoe, Kenmare, Co. Kerry, Ireland
• Casa del Campo Parque,  Madrid, Spain
  

Wordless Wednesday: Field Trips, the Best Part of Homeschool

Knot Tying

In scouts we do a lot of knot tying.  The downside of this is that the parents usually have to learn them first!  I don't know about you, but squinting at a lot of knot diagrams just doesn't always help.  That's why this site, animatedknots.com, can be a huge help.  Alternately, Boy's Life magazine has some knot videos online for the more common knots.

Knots have a lot of good uses and are a great way of building motor skills.

Homemade Butter

For lactose intolerant people, we have made homemade butter puzzlingly often.  It's been a favorite activity among many groups we've been involved with though.  I must admit it is easy and fun.

If you have never tried it, here's how it's done.

You'll need:

• 1 small container of  heavy cream
• Disposable mini condiment container or mini plastic storage container with lid (one for each person)

Steps:

1. Fill container with cream (or cream plus salt if you added it) about half full.  
2. Fasten the lid securely.  
3. Shake, shake, shake.  Don't get too vigorous.  You'll tire yourself out and it won't form any faster.  Steady shakes work best. 
4. Some people place a clean marble in the container to speed things up

After several minutes of vigorous shaking (think butter churn), you will get a solid glob of butter and some liquid (buttermilk).   Pour off the buttermilk and use the butter right away.  If you want to make a lot of butter to use later, you need to wash it or the buttermilk residue will turn it sour.  Instructions for that can be found here.  We've never tried this, as we usually hand off our butter to someone who can eat it!

• 
  

Cooking science links:

Dairy Science and Technolgy - Very detailed discussion of  butter making. Best for older students

Butter making video explains the science in a kid friendly way

Owl Pellets

Now considering my disdain for slime, why would I recommend an activity involving rodent bones and owl vomit?  Well, simply put it's a lot more fun than it sounds (and the pellets are sterilized).

Summer campers thoroughly occupied

The idea is to probe the pellets for the mice or bird bones and attempt to reassemble the skeleton to find out what the owl has been eating.  Owls eat prey whole but their stomachs can't process fur, feathers and bones so those parts build up akin to hair balls in cats and the owl spits them back out every couple of days.   The resulting pellet is less disgusting than it sounds though.  I've seen even squeamish kids get over it quickly and become enthralled by the tiny little bones hidden within.

Interested? You might try the following products.

For beginners:  Student Owl Pellet Kit*
Bulk for groups: Barn Owl Pellets, 15 Pack*





*Affiliate link

3D Snowflake

We tried this out today:

Make-a-3D-Paper-Snowflake:

Went a lot faster than I thought and looks really nice despite being a bit messy and crooked with the cuts.  It's a fairly forgiving project.   Considering we used half sheets rather than full, it is surprisingly huge, measuring about a foot across.  In light of my lifelong love of teeny origami, I might try to make some minis as Christmas ornaments.

This was recommended by a teacher friend, who says this is a favorite among her students and she ends up with a classroom full of these.

Link Post: Math Sites

Teaching Sites

• khanacademy.org  online exercises from basic to advanced, math instructional videos
• mathforgrownups.com
• coolmath.com

Worksheets 

• Times tables
• Various
  

Math Games

• apples4theteacher.com
• Timez Attack - an excellent software download, available in a full feature free version and a prettied up paid version.  Covers multiplication, division, addition and subtraction 
• fantasticcontraption.com/
• mathgym.com
• Math Jeopardy for team play
• Money Counting
• mathgoodies.com

Teaching methods

• teaching montessori math
• division-using-montessori golden beeds
• making Montessori materials

Online Quizzes 

• That Quiz

Tools

• Calculator and conversions
• Graph creator  cool way to graph and print out your data
• wolframalpha.com  "a computational knowledge engine"  - hard to explain, you'll have to try it out

Systems and Lesson Plans

• mathgoodies.com
• Sample math curriculum
• Lego Mindstorms
• Mindstorms store - middle school
• Area and Perimeter Lesson plan

Curricula

• Math You See
• Singapore Math
• Touch Math

It'll Be a Blue Thanksgiving without You

(In teeny origami)

Turkey 1 (left)

Turkey 2  (right)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Junk Mail CDs

This is filed under experiments I'm not sure about yet.   

So okay, confession time.  I am a lazy crafter.   As in capital "L" Laaaazy.  If  I have to hand sew, deal-breaker time, man.  But then there's the times where I could just run over to the machine and stitch a quick line, but oh, it means getting up out of my chair and changing the thread and what do you mean I don't have a bobbin wound in this color??  So then, somehow, hand-sewing becomes an act of laziness because the sewing basket with it's already threaded needles is in reach.

So with that background;  hating to let go of shiny things, I've been hording a lot of junk mail computer CDs.  Now I've searched all over for something to do with these things that is not the re-envisioned 70s bead curtain (so much work and so many parts),  the photo frame (been there, done that), the lets cover them with stuff or paint them (but what about the shiny?)  or candle holders (because with my lazy-crafting it would be step one: place cd on table, step two: place candle on cd. done!)

So I got "creative."  (Always scary.)  Within reach was 1) cd and 2) bag of yarn

this was so worthy of a visual aid

So, I taped some yarn to the not-as-good, not-shiny side.

tape yarn to cd.  tape was in reach too. 

Randomly wind yarn around cd.  I like the purple and white. Sort of looks like a sunburst to me.

At that point I floundered.  But what is it for, I asked myself.   Christmas ornament, perhaps if you put two together so it was shiiiiny.   

But I moved on.  And found, a tapestry needle.  

 blurry visual aids plus bad brand erasure = awesome. *sigh*

weaving totally does not count as hand sewing

Hmmm

So, I guess I made a trivet?  Wouldn't be a bad one if you wove both sides, used some more contrasting yarn maybe. I'm not much of a trivet person, plus I lost all my shiny so it wasn't really what I was wanting.  It was fun to do though.  It would be a great weaving activity for a child who needs fine motor practice.

I'm just going to leave this here and hope it inspires brilliance in someone else.  If you do get a brain wave from this, let me know.  I'd love to see it. 

Museum Exhibits: Miniature White House

A must-see US exhibit that makes of the round of presidential libraries and local museums is the Miniature White House.   We caught it last spring and it has to been seen to be believed. (And I took several dark, blurry photos of it. )

See photos of it here and here.   The facebook page of it's permanent home is here.

And a handy video from one of stops:

Slime

Who doesn't love slime?

ooey gooey science-y

**raises hand**

But it's inevitable isn't it?   I do recall getting slime out of gumball machines as a kid.  On purpose.  It seemed to the thing to do at the time.  There are two main varieties of slime: polymer and non-Newtonian fluid. So if your little grossologist must have slime, here's how to do it.


Polymer slime aka borax and school glue (pictured above):

Polymer Slime instructions
Science-y Explanation

Note: This is my favored slime.  It's not all that slimy, it keeps for a while in a baggy or my least favorite plastic storage container, and it generally cleans up and behaves itself.


Non-Newtonian slime aka cornstarch/corn flour(UK) and water:
Instructions plus science
A page with lots of silly cornstarch slime vids

Note: This stuff is a menace.  When it's being a liquid, it gets everywhere, it feels disgusting, and will destroy plumbing quick as anything.  When you clean up, use a bucket, outside if possible.  You need to thin the cornstarch/corn flour to nothing before it ceases it's starchy mayhem.

Home Made Instruments

We made this one for a scout merit badge a while ago so I have no in progress pictures, but it's pretty straight forward fortunately.   I don't recall where we first read about this, but it is loosely based on an ancient Egyptian instrument called a Sistrum.  (For a history check here. )

I was feeling a little lazy that day so when we found a similar project on Family Fun, we went with a more naturalistic version of that. 

Materials:

• a stick with a "V" end and "handle" end that fits comfortably in your hand
• wire or heavy gauge fishing line
• an assortment of metal bottle caps
• a hammer and a surface to pound on - scrap wood, brick etc.
• an awl or ice pick

Steps:

1. Remove any bark and extra twigs from the stick and sand it smooth
2. Flatten bottle caps with a hammer.  (Yes, kids can do this and they'll love it.  Just stand out of firing range and have them use a two handed grip for more control and to keep fingers out of the way.)  You may want to use eye protection just in case.  We managed to flip a couple of caps some distance.
3. Carefully punch a hole in the center of the each bottle cap with the awl.  Surprisingly, for us there was less mayhem involved in this step than the hammering one.  Just use your best judgement on who does this step.  It depends on the child.  
4.  (Optional ) use a file to smooth the edges of the holes.  Some of them can be sharp.
5. Using wire or fishing line, string the bottle caps like beads and tie or twist (if wire) the ends between the crook of the stick, hammock-like.  You can secure with glue or hot glue if you like.  

You could customize this basic design any number of ways:

• paint or stain the stick
• punch hole in the caps but don't flatten and place them top to top as you string them to change the sound.
• use more than one string of caps 

That's it!  Shake the stick and you have a jingly percussion instrument.  (Though, I did find a video on the official way to play a sistrum.)






As a bonus, I found this today online:  A homemade kazoo from paper tubes

Math Tales

I could spend all day watching this channel .

Note: While some of these are better suited to older kids (if you actually expect them to under the concepts behind them) they do have plenty of younger kid appeal to those in to drawing.

A Möbius strip story:




Fractal Doodles!! X2  (Yes, someday I'll get over fractals, I promise. )






In truth, I obsess over these things, because I love mathematics but I hate arithmetic.  And the fact that we don't commonly know the difference is the tragedy of math curriculum.

Three Ways to Appreciate Fall Colors

1) A fall leaf "bouquet."  Gather enough in a bud vase and they will look like a flower.  Choose the freshest you can find because they only last about a day even with water.

2) The wonders of Mod Podge.

3) The classic leaf rubbing.

Rock Candy recipe

So to recap, we read a lot instructions online for making sugar crystals.  We figured there's no beating science you can eat.   I found there were a variety of comments on some of the posts ranging from "it so easy!"  to "it didn't work at all."

We scrubbed an empty spaghetti sauce jar since it seemed like a good size for a long string of sugar.   I considered using string as many of the recipes stated, but it seemed very unappetizing.  Having eaten a great deal of  commercial rock candy on sticks, I decided skewers were the way to go.

Then I found the secret to successful rock candy-making in a couple of vids and comments.

1. Soak the skewer in water for a few minutes.  
2. Coat the skewer in sugar or in the sugar syrup you are about to make.   I'd recommend using the syrup because that worked well for us.
3. Let the sugar syrup cool and harden a bit on the skewer.  You don't have to wait too long.  My son was too impatient to let it sit too long.

For the syrup I based it on  this recipe.

• 3 cups (384g) of sugar
• 1 cup (128g) water
• 1/2 tsp (2ml) vanilla extract 
• a few drops of blue food coloring

Then:

1. Bring the water to a boil in a pot
2. Important:  add sugar slowly.  We (well, I say "we" but...) ended up dumping it all in and there was a lot of sugar that collected at the bottom.   If you add slowly you can see the moment the water is saturated because the sugar will fall to the bottom and no longer melt into the water.
3. Make sure you keep stirring so that the sugar doesn't burn or caramelize.
4. Once your water is saturated, remove from heat and use it to prepare the skewers as stated above.
5. Add the vanilla and food coloring.
6. Let the sugar syrup (or solution) cool.  We didn't put it in the fridge and we didn't wait until the recommended temp (again -impatient).
7. Pour the sugar water solution into the jar.  A funnel might help with this.
8. Set one or two prepared skewers in the jar.  If you use two make sure they don't touch below the waterline.

Now at this point in all the directions I read, they fussed a lot about not letting the skewers or string touch the bottom or side of the jar.  Nothing we did prevented that, so we eventually gave up and them rest on the bottom and lean against the jar sides.  We did cross the skewers at the neck of the jar and rubber band them together so they wouldn't touch each other. Then you need to cover the jar with plastic wrap or something to keep anything from falling into the open jar and any curious sugar-happy critters out.

Then you wait.  And wait.  We waited for two weeks.  Then we had these:

And they were very, very yummy.  And gone in minutes.

Tips: 

1. What no one tells you straight out is that, (stop and think about it) you are making a syrup that will be gooey, messy and somehow get everywhere. Also, much sugar may be wasted  in the process.  
2. Two few crystals may not be your problem, but too many may.  Our jar kept crusting over on top.  I elected to break them up and give the jar a gentle swirl so the crystals would form on the skewers and not on the surface.

Next time I may try a wider necked jar and several more skewers.  We got busy and failed to make use of the remaining syrup so it ended up being tossed unused.  I think we could have easily had enough solution for twice as much candy goodness.

Wordless Wednesday: What I'm Working On

Rock Candy

Next Project:  Rock Candy


To start we used these instructions for our reference starting point.

•  About.com cooking
• About.com chemistry
• About.com candy making
• Wikihow.com
• Exploratorium.edu

What we learned.

1. It's a lot easier than you think
2. Skewers not string
3. You will waste a lot of sugar until you get the hang of it
4. It takes time and patience
5. Vanilla extract + sugar is awesome
6. Food coloring is fun but not necessary

Watch this space for details in a day or two.

Theme for the Day: Fractals

Remember my earlier post on fractals?   Well, I'm truly hopeless at this point, so I need to share my obsession.

So what are fractals anyway?

Wiki says:  a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be split into parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a reduced-size copy of the whole, a property called self-similarity.

Well (for the non math people like me) that basically that means layers of repeated shapes that can be calculated by a formula.  But you don't need a formula to enjoy them.  Check these out:

• Fractals in nature and even in the garden 
• Fractal art gallery on Cool Math
• Also check out the wiki link for some lovely examples

Ready to make your own?  Try these cool (free!) online generators:

• "Snowflake" style - design your fractal with five straight lines
• Cool Math has five
• Easy Fractal Generator lets you draw a Julia or Mandelbrot set (or a custom one if you are mathematically inclined) and lets you export your finished work to a file for printing.  Nice.
• This generator is similar to the snowflake one above but lets you overlap fractals and export the finished work
• Sierpinski Triangle

Hands on and fun links for the younger kids:

• this pbskids.org    project 
• The fractal foundation project
• Sierpinski Triangle color page
• Sierpinski carpet (cubes) color page
• Sierpinski gear (circles) color page
• A youtube.com search for "fractals" will give hundreds of results
• Fractal your dinner with the unusual  Romanesco cauliflower (see the details here - scroll down)
• Fractal cookies!  (Okay - a brave parent will have to help with this)
• Fractals in clay  (again better to stick with fewer iterations- repeats- with the little ones)

For the older kids and the lesson planners:

• pbs.org has a wonderful fractal lesson from Nova episodes including:
• A generator
• An article on Benoit Mandlebrot
• A fractal lesson that includes an interactive and a   discussion of fractals 
• A working video link to an interesting story about fractal analysis of tapestries
• You might notice the link to the Nova episode Hunting the Hidden Dimensions which is no longer available on PBS.org.  It is available for free on Hulu however. 

• Hoagies has some recc'd some interesting sites also.

Downloads

• A caltech worksheet for the Sierpenski Triangle. Notice! This is a word doc that will want to immediately download.
• A PDF worksheet on fractal math from fractalmath.com, advanced HighSchool+
• A PDF worksheet from Randoff College for grades 5-8
• Open Source software to download. Note: I have not trialed, so use at your own risk.
• A trial copy of (not-free) fractal software. Note:  I have not trialed, so use at your own risk.