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