SuperHero Inquiry - Turning an obsession into creative challenges

“There is a Super Hero in all of us. We just need the courage to put on the cape.” - Superman.

It is hard to imagine a childhood without being enthralled into the world of Super Heroes. I still have vivid memories of watching He-Man on Sunday mornings and being carried into an imaginary world. However I had been avoiding introducing Super Heroes to Sid and Nidhi since I believe that children below six years old need a strong grasp of reality, to understand a world of fantasy. Maria Montessori said, "by introducing concepts and images that had no basis in true reality the child could be misled into illusions and these illusions had nothing to ground them. Instead of extending understanding and learning possibilities fantasies could inhibit the child's natural development.”
Every time we come across a movie we talk about it being real or not. Slowly they are able to distinguish fantasy from reality.
During the Summer reading program at the library, children’s section was overflowing with Super Heroes. Sid and Nidhi started immersing themselves in these books. And watching Spiderman Homecoming movie on a movie night was just enough to turn this interest into an obsession.
I know this is very common and I have discussed about this interest in kids with my friends and family. Each have addressed the obsession differently. Most by buying kids costumes and props to pretend play, some buy figurines and legos of their favorite Heroes, some read more books and watch more movies.
Here at our house, it took the most common route - pretend play. I didn’t buy any props to support their imagination. They came up with their own Super Hero characters and made their own costumes and props out of paper.
Sid pretended he had eyes that will shoot out fire at the villains and Nidhi’s super power is to freeze the villains by shooting out ice cubes from her wrist on pressing a button.

 Both also came up with their robotic side kicks BB5 and BB9.

 They put on show for me wearing their paper costumes. They had to come up with characters,stories, dialogues and theme music which required lot of collaboration. They also came up with reasoning for their costume choices. “I need a cape because I have to fly.”- Sid. “I don’t need a mask because I don’t want to hide who I am.” - Nidhi. 

When their paper costumes couldn’t withstand the repeated usage, Sid and Nidhi’s attention turned towards just storytelling. They wanted to make comic books. This presented a challenge. They didn’t know how to draw super heroes in different postures. “I want to draw Super Man looking like running towards me.”, “ I need help to draw my Superhero flying.”- Sid. I presented them with my grandfather’s published book on “How to draw cartoons”. They learnt to draw people figures in easy steps and made lots of comic strip stories.

Their interest again turned towards acting out their comic strips. I suggested they try something different and they chose to make puppet shows. (They love making puppets and putting on shows.) They brainstormed and decided to make finger puppets. We watched YouTube videos about how to make finger puppets. I provided them with felt sheets. They tried to glue them together to make their puppets but the glue wouldn’t stick. They were determined to make their puppets, so they learned to sew them. I never anticipated that a drive to make puppets would lead to learning a life skill. 

 

With Batman, FreezerGirl and sidekicks ready they set up puppet theatre using magma tiles and hand drawn backgrounds. They measured to cut out felt curtains and the shows began. 

One day I found them making Super Heroes out of modeling clay. They faced a problem. The heads and limbs of their sculptures didn’t stick together and kept popping off. 

Their frustration eventually lead to a question -  “How to build a 3D sculpture using modeling clay?”  We consulted a couple of YouTube videos and found that puppeteers use armature made of wires as skeleton.  The kids improvised with pipe cleaners in place of wires. 

They soon learnt that building too heavy sculptures will have balance issues.
Their interest in Super Heroes is still ongoing. Sid has been churning out drawings of different Super Heroes almost everyday. This is now our theme for handmade birthday cards for our family members.

What is my key take away from this? Let me answer in the wisdom words of John Holt 
“We can best help children learn, not by deciding what we think they should learn and thinking of ingenious ways to teach it to them, but by making the world, as far as we can, accessible to them, paying serious attention to what they do, answering their questions -- if they have any -- and helping them explore the things they are most interested in.”

Wondering about the Space

The space inquiry has been one of the longest running inquiry till date by Sid and Nidhi. This inquiry is filled with lot of "I wonder" questions.We are still learning something new everyday about the awesome universe.  I cannot believe the depth and rich experiences these kids attain through inquiry. The advantage of this child led self directed learning at home is that they learn at their pace without time constraints. This inquiry is ongoing for about six months now and the zeal to learn more has not yet diminished.

One day the twins were observing the globe and out came the query - " Are penguins in Antarctica standing upside down? Won't they fall down into Space?" This triggered our exploration into gravity. We checked if all things that are thrown up will fall back down.

Next came the wondering. Do all planets have gravity? What is gravity made of? Does moon have gravity? We collected answers to these questions by watching a couple of YouTube videos.

Next the kids started focusing on the solar system. This is their initial understanding of the solar system. They just assumed that the planets go around the sun in a circle.

Their initial thought about Solar System - All planets  go around the sun in a circle.

Gradually they learnt about orbits and moons.

Documenting their knowledge of orbits

We learnt about each planet in detail from books. They imbibed facts about planets by lot of role playing and through creating their own puppet shows. A lot of questions arose about the planets most of them leading to Big bang theory . They also made a lot of inferences.

Why planets vary in sizes?

Why is Uranus blue in color? We figured out that the blue shade observed is due to the methane gas in its atmosphere.

How did earth cool down into rocky planet if it is nearer to sun?

Where did iron in mars come from?

Does Neptune have rings?

If Uranus is tilted because a meteor hit it, why didn't it burn up the meteor ?

Do gas giants eventually burn up like stars? -Sid No they can't -Nidhi why not, gas can burn up? - Sid

I think millions of hot gas planets combined to make sun.

If Pluto is called dwarf planet because of its size, why not little Mercury a dwarf planet? - Sid

When Jupiter has so many moons, why not Mars' moons were attracted by Jupiter?

What will happen if sun burns up? I think earth will get icy - Nidhi

Nidhi made a book on "What will happen if meteor falls on each planet?" She guesses that the meteor will make craters on rocky planets and burn up when they hit gas giants.

We read a book about Hubble telescope and they wanted to build a model of it.

Building a Hubble model with recyclables

What can I see through this telescope?

We attended a local library event where NASA Astronaut Megan Mcarthur talked to kids about her experiences of flying to space, living in ISS and working with hubble telescope. The kids were impressed.

Astronaut Megan McArthur answering questions from kids

Mars, Jupiter and Saturn become favorites.
We went star gazing to look at Jupiter in early evening sky in August. They were very happy to spot Mars and Venus early in the morning.

We talked about living on Mars. They were willing to go there and build houses as pioneers if their cousins accompanied them. They drew pictures imagining living on Mars.  They were able to visualize the Mars sky. They could see two Mars' moons - Phobos and deimos, Earth and sun on Mars sky.
They wondered "Will Earth cause an eclipse in Mars when it comes between the sun and Mars?"

we read about Mars rovers. A Mars Rover with snap circuits is in the anvil at their Makerspace.

Nidhi's plan for a Mars Rover

Sid's vision of his landing on Mars

Nidhi with her cousin on Mars

We discussed about Cassini's journey. I posed them a question about NASA's plan about sending a probe to sun. "How will you design a probe to sun that will not get burnt up?" , I asked.
Nidhi thought and answered "What if we send a probe that is already hot?" Hmm... Nice thought!

They learnt about milkyway and types of galaxies.They used watercolor techniques to paint beautiful galaxies, black holes etc.

Types of galaxies documentation

Painting of galaxies with Watercolors

Sid painting a black hole

"Look! This black hole is burping a jet after eating a star!" - Sid

We got a Space edition of Scientific American "Wonder of the cosmos" magazine, that you can see in the photo above. The magazine was filled with wonderful articles about black holes, nebulae, lifecycle of stars, multiverses etc. We also discussed about the recent discovery of gravitational waves.

They were pretending balls as planets and suddenly got idea of coloring them as planets. Thus our own solar system model was created.

Nidhi painting the sun - "It looks green because the ball is blue, if I add more yellow, it will look like sun."

Sid painting a basketball as Jupiter

Beautiful Venus

Solar system model - They chose appropriate sized balls for each planet

They made up some silly jokes like
What Jupiter said to Saturn? Nice belt buddy!
What did the black hole tell the star? I am going to gobble you up!

Nidhi wondered, if an object falls into a blackhole, where will it be?

They have started documenting their understanding in writing. This gives them a much needed writing practice too.

Sid's Solar system documentation

Nidhi's writeup about solar system

Their inquiries have kindled a lot of curiosity in me. I am learning a lot alongside them.
They are still wondering and pondering every day about this awesome universe. I hope they continue this inquiry till the very end.
To me, the universe is some scary dark mystery.
But Sid and Nidhi sing these verses as a matter of fact way.
" We are made of stardust , every single atom..."
Every night before going to bed, Sid comments " Look Mom, our sky is the universe, we are part of this universe." How surreal!

From our Makerspace - Snapcircuits Artbot

Recently we attended a STEM event in our city. It was a family friendly event rich with Science, Engineering concepts. We got to meet a few enthusiastic basketball playing robots, R2D2 , attended a  great Q&A session with NASA astronaut Megan McArthur. The twins had quite a few hands on activities like building circuits with snapcircuits kit, building brushbots, making flashlights, building and launching their own  rocket etc.

Meeting R2D2

Nidhi building a Bristlebot

"Look a flashlight with popsicle stick!"

Their excitement lingered on for quite sometime after returning home. They played with their brushbots for long time. It is a very simple build with a toothbrush head, a small battery and motor.
We then wondered if they can use these brushbots to paint. They dipped the brush in some watered down acrylic paint and the little robots colored the paper beautifully.

Painting with little BristleBots

We then explored how we can build a bigger robot that make art. The solution is simple. We just need a bit bigger power source and motor. We had a snap circuits jr kit at home. May be we can use the components from that kit. This kit is much easier for little hands to build circuits.We also chose markers in place of brush.

The result was great. We enjoyed this project. I know there are lots of similar drawbot/artbot instructions scattered around the internet. However, it is more exciting to work with what we have at hand in the house. There was lot of learning and problem solving involved.

Sid and Nidhi have learnt a lot of technical vocabulary such as power source, motor, wire, open circuit, closed circuit, IC, series and parallel circuits.

Here is a video of our artbot making experience.

Today they noticed our malfunctioning doorbell and Sid said, "Mom, why don't we build our own doorbell circuit?". Sure!

From our Makerspace - Clock

This is second post in this "Making - Learning by Doing" series.  I hope you remember the making of toy car a few months back. I had promised to write about another everyday object that was closely observed. It is the CLOCK.

It started with Nidhi making a paper wrist watch for herself. She then complained that it didn't seem to work as the clock hands are not moving. She wanted to make a working clock or at least a clock with moving hands.

Paper Wrist watch

They started by observing our wall clock to observe closely. They tried to take it apart, observed the clock hands arrangement. They wondered what happened when the batteries were removed or reversed, will the clock hands move if we tried to move it manually.

Observing a wall clock

Then Nidhi chose the materials to build a clock of her own. Materials chosen were simple collection of a paper plate for the clock's face, a straw for spindle and cardstock for clock hands. The clock model was built very quickly. 

Model clock with paper plate, straw and cardstock

The first challenge they faced was with writing the numbers on clock face with correct spacing. They also wondered why there was only numbers until 12.  "Why there is no 0 (zero) on the clock?", wondered Sid. "There is no 0 hour. Remember zero means nothing.", answered Nidhi.

Next bigger challenge was to make the clock hands move on its own. They brainstormed ways to make the clock work and Nidhi's idea amazed me. She chose Stopmotion animation. She took lot of pictures moving the clock hands slowly and stitched them into a video by using Stopmotion app. We enjoyed the productive use of technology to design,create and make something rather than passive watching.Here is her finished product.

The Idea - Make a clock with moving hands
Materials used - Recyclables like paper plates, cardstock , pipe cleaners and stop motion app.
Project - Success
Process - FUN!

Self Portraits - Looking Closely at ourselves

We are back after a long vacation. Sid and Nidhi enjoyed spending time with family and friends. Lots of learning happened though it all went undocumented. We bought loads of drawing notebooks and color materials to keep them busy and they filled every page and asked for more. Their drawings are getting more detailed by the day.

I started noticing that their more recent drawings and paintings are featuring themselves. One day I observed that almost all of their little characters had only one eye and a mouth. (The nose has always been missing in their drawings.) I enquired, "Why have you drawn only one eye?". Sid excitedly replied, "Because I am looking to the side, mom. See, when you look to the side I can see only one eye of yours."

Sid and Nidhi riding a bike

I was impressed with their observation. Considering their interest in drawing, that too in drawing themselves, I set up an activity to do self portraits.

The twins were very excited to draw themselves. I showed them examples of other kindergarteners' self portraits on internet.
I explained to them that they must observe their facial features very closely on the mirror and try to draw them. They readily accepted it as a challenge.
The very first hurdle they faced was the size of the drawing. They are so used to drawing miniature figures that the idea of drawing just a face on full page baffled them. So, I drew a circular outline of their face as a guide and they took off from there.
Next challenge was to draw facial features in right places, that too proportionately and symmetrically.
A lot of observations and discussions happened when looking at themselves closely in the mirror.

"My eyes are not circle, they are tear drop shaped!" - Sid.
"I would like my eyes to be blue but they are black."- Nidhi.
"Everyone's nose is different! I have 2 holes on my nose and some hair in it. See, I have drawn that", - Nidhi
"Mom, you nose is like a spanner. Mine is like L shape." - Sid.
"Everyone's lips are red in color." - Nidhi
"Sid, if you cannot look in the mirror and draw, you can look at me and draw." - Nidhi
"I cannot do that! I don't look like you.I look different." - Sid.

Sid's self portrait - pencil sketch

They had so much fun that they insisted me to join their fun. So I tried my hand at sketching myself. Strangely, it was therapeutic to look closely at yourself and draw your own features. If you haven't tried it before, I recommend you to try it. It is fun!

My Self Portrait - Pencil sketch

Next they colored their portraits. They chose the medium they liked. Nidhi chose color pencils and Sid chose oil pastels. Nidhi colored my sketch too. They added their own creative touches.

Nidhi added long braids for herself and me. She then exclaimed, "Look Mom, now you look just me!"

Nidhi's self Portrait

My Portrait colored by Nidhi

"I am in an airplane.I am wearing headphones and listening to music. See the little music notes?" - Sid.
I loved how he added a little window with a flying bird to show that he is flying in an airplane.

Sid's self portrait

The twins noted how everyone is unique with differences in shapes of facial features and skin colors. Nidhi wondered, "Why do we have skin?". "What do you think?". "I think, if we don't have skin all our blood will come out."

They had so much fun with this little exercise that they are ready to churn out more portraits everyday. This morning they spent a little more time in front of the mirror observing themselves very closely before starting for school.

"I observe you, and while I observe you, I "capture" you, I interpret you. But at the same time I also modify my own knowledge." - Carlina Rinaldi

Making - Learning by doing - Model Toy car

Maker education  fosters curiosity, tinkering and iterative learning, which in turn leads to better thinking through better questioning. - Laura Fleming

We have already discussed about Tinkering and creativity. But, have you heard of "Tinquiry"?  Tinquiry = Tinkering + Inquiry.
Tinkering is a marriage of play and inquiry. Children learn by tinkering/making.

Here is one of instances where our twins learnt to observe everyday world around us more closely by making.

One day Nidhi brought out a styrofoam block and asked "Mom, May I use this?". "For what?". "This looks like a bus, I ll build a bus with this."
"How?" "I ll just add four wheels and draw some windows."
"How will you add the wheels?"
She found some cylindrical foam blocks and taped them to the bottom of the styrofoam block.
She tested it out. "Oh no! the wheels don't move!" "How can we fix that?"  She brought out a toy car and observed its wheels closely. "I know! We need a stick between the wheels." "Yes, that is called an axle".
She picked two long skewer, inserted it into the styrofoam block and capped them with foam cylinders for wheels.
She tested it out again. "Mom, it still doesn't move." Back to observing the model toy car. She figured out that the axle spins easily inside the chassis. How can we make this? she was puzzled. I suggested that she use straws below the chassis.
We found another soap box to try our newer model. Here is a pic journal of the car model making.

Adding straws to make axles rotate freely

Adding axles

Inserting wheels using foam cylinder blocks

Model soap box car with freely rotating wheels ready!

Sid and Nidhi both made multiple cars and we raced them on a cookie sheet ramp.
We learnt about wheel axle assembly of a car by making a model. A lot of problem solving happened along the way such as , if the axles are too close to each other, the wheels cannot move.  A lot of inquiry happened.Why didn't front wheels rotate as smoothly as the rear ones? Why the car steered to left? Does the length of axle affect the stability of the car? A great deal of learning and inquiry happened by letting them make on their own!

I would like to share another everyday object that they observed closely in next post.

 Till then, Happy Holidays! :)