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!

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! :)

Exploring the science behind watercolor paints - An Art and Science Inquiry

We recently opened a gift (Learning Resources Primary Science Set) received for the twins' birthday. They worked on making a colorful volcano experiment with baking soda, vinegar and food colors. After many excited tries of the fizzling experiment it went into open play mode. The twins changed it into color mixing activity trying to create new colors. They love mixing and making new paint colors.

Also,Watercolor painting has become a go-to activity nowadays. Here is our latest art wall at our home. The old pencil sketches are being quickly replaced by more vibrant watercolor paintings. I love the splash of color on an otherwise bland room.

Art wall

I wanted to take their interest in color mixing and painting further. So I set up a little provocation. This video is my inspiration for this provocation.

Objective : Make your own paint with given house hold ingredients.
Guidelines : Try different combinations of materials rather than dumping everything together.

Ingredients all set to explore

This was an open inquiry. No recipe was given to them. They were free to use any ingredient given to make their desired paint. I had placed a few different measuring spoons anticipating them to measure for their recipes. But they were too excited to do any measurements.

The ingredients given were

1. All purpose flour

2. Salt

3. Cornstarch

4. Vinegar

5. Water

6. Colored chalk powders -  I preferred to use colored chalk powder instead of liquid food colors for color pigments. I suspected that the kids might mistake liquid food colors for liquid water colors and question the objective of this provocation.

They both assigned themselves a color (obviously pink for Nidhi and blue for Sid) and set to work.

Each tried 6 different recipes. I kept a note of each of their recipe to remind them not to duplicate any recipe. Here are the combinations they tried.

Nidhi

1. salt+color+water

2. Flour+cornstarch+water+color

3. Flour+cornstarch+vinegar+color

4. Flour+ water+color

5. Flour+salt+ water+color

6. salt+vinegar+color

Sid :

1. Salt+water+vinegar+color

2. Flour+water+color

3.cornstarch+water+color

4. Flour+vinegar+color

5. salt+vinegar+color

6. constarch+ vinegar+color

Here are the resultant paints made.  Lovely shades of pink and blues.

Fresh vibrant home made watercolor paint

Next step was to test out their paints.

Testing out the self made paints

Depending on spreadability, we discussed about terms such as thick, thin, watery etc. 

Nidhi observed that she loved the little residues of unmixed salt on her paper.

To inspire them, I painted this with the paints they made. 

Painting to inspire

"Mom, I want to make green to paint the stems of my flower. I want to make yellow paint so that I can mix blue and yellow" , claimed Nidhi.

I supplied them some turmeric powder. Here is a short video of Nidhi making up her green paint recipe.

Sid explored if he can mix two colors directly on paper. He tried painting green by overlaying blue on yellow on his painting. And it worked!

They both completed their paintings and the result is beautiful.

Sid's painting

"Hey Nidhi! Next time we don't have paint, we can make our own!", exclaimed Sid. Now that's a sense of accomplishment they deserve.

"Give the pupils something to do, not something to learn; and the doing is such of a nature as to demand thinking; learning naturally results." - John Dewey

Ramayana - An Art Inquiry

The Hundred Languages

No way. The hundred is there.

The child

is made of one hundred.

The child has

a hundred languages

a hundred hands

a hundred thoughts

a hundred ways of thinking

of playing, of speaking.

A hundred always a hundred

ways of listening

of marveling, of loving

a hundred joys

for singing and understanding

a hundred worlds

to discover

a hundred worlds

to invent

a hundred worlds

to dream.

The child has

a hundred languages

(and a hundred hundred hundred more)

…

 — Loris Malaguzzi

   Founder of Reggio Emilia Approach

Please read the rest of the poem to understand the point driven.

I admire this poem a lot. How true is each word! Don't you believe that a child has  hundred languages? I do! I know at least a dozen that Sid and Nidhi use to express their thoughts.

Here is their recent inquiry as an example.

What do kids do when they listen to a story? They listen mesmerized, recall the facts, retell the newly acquired story to every stranger they meet. Familiar? Because that is what we observe. But their minds are constantly churning. They express the understanding in many more ways which we don't observe or don't care about.

During the Dussera festival, we started story telling of Ramayana a little each day. Every new episode was received in awe during their lunch and dinner times. Thus started Sid’s obsession with Rama. He used many mediums to express his thoughts on Rama. Each medium is already known to him. So, what’s new? I presented new challenges in each medium which he worked through very beautifully. 

Sculpting:

Sid declared ,”I want to make my own Rama doll”. I presented to him some air dry clay. They have already created sculptures using play doh, modeling clay, air-dry clay etc. So, what's new?

The Challenge : Try the sculptures in different postures.

The work: Sid first tried standing sculptures of the main characters-Rama, Seetha and Lakshman. He learnt the new trick of using a skewer to balance the posture.

Next, he worked very hard to make sitting sculptures with crossed legs. Here are the finished works. Unfortunately, I could not find the sitting sculpture pictures. They proudly played with these self made dolls for quite some time.

Standing Rama and Seetha

Illustration:

Sid started illustrating the episode he heard each day. He tried various art mediums - sketching, crayons, oil pastels, watercolor. He has been drawing for each inquiry. So what’s new?

The Challenge: I describe to him a scene from the story and challenge him to draw it the ways he imagines.

The work:

 He has not seen a video or picture of Ramayan till now. All paintings are his own expressions from his mind influenced by the narrative of our story. It was interesting to see a perspective of a 4 year old who has not been visually influenced. He drew many versions of each scene, refining his work with every description of the scene.

He has now at least 50 pages of illustrations covering the complete Ramayan known to him.

Here is a short video compilation of some of his works.

Shadow Puppetry:

Sid once drew dark images of his main characters and claimed them to be shadow puppets. So I set a provocation with required materials to make shadow puppets. They drew their characters on black construction paper and I helped them cut them. The shadow puppets were born.

They have been making puppets for long. So what’s new? Not a thing. This is an open ended play that lets their imagination run wild. I loved some learning that happened. Mostly, cooperative team play. Some observations such as, how Rama grows to become a giant when the puppet is near the light source. Most fun is when characters of Ramayana are singing Twinkle, twinkle little star!

Main cast of the Ramayana story

Rama and Seetha walking to forest

Enacting Ramayana through Shadows

Loose parts play:

Sid also made characters with pattern blocks. They frequently engage in loose parts creation. So what’s new?

The challenge: After Sid made the main characters with pattern blocks, he enhanced his scene by adding ground and sky. 

Seth,Rama,Flying Hanuman,Soorpanaka and Raavana

Suddenly, he moved the sticks for ground and noted, “Look Mom! It looks like Soorpanaka is skipping. All others are going to take turns.”

Soorpanaka skipping with jump rope

I challenged him to change the scene such that Rama and Seetha are skipping without moving them. Here is the solution that he worked out.

gh

Rama skipping with jump rope

Seetha and Soorpanaka enjoying skipping

There has been a lot of other learning. 

Writing: Describing the scenes or naming the characters on their own.

Narrating / Story telling: They repeatedly retold the story, role played, pretend played. This helped learn a lot of vocabulary.

Mathematics: A lot of Math was involved.

For example,  During the loose parts play, Sid suddenly exclaimed, “Mom! There are ten units and four units of heads in this!” 

“ And what is ten units?” , I queried. 

“Ten units is One Ten!”, replied Nidhi.

“Yes, there are One ten and four units of heads in this scene.”, revised Sid.

“One ten and four units is 14!”, shouted Nidhi.

We rechecked. There are 14 heads in total for Raavan, Rama, Seetha, Soorpanaka and Hanuman.

Who would have thoughts kids can learn place value system with Ramayana!

Most of all, FUN!

How to make snow? - A preschooler's science experiment

First off, this post is not a 'how to' on making homemade snow. This post is about a preschooler's self directed science experiment in a quest to make snow.

"Mom, I have an idea! If I add water and glitter glue to ice cube and chop it, I can make snow.", explained Nidhi in an excited voice while on our vacation.

"This is my recipe to make snow. I would like to write it down before I forget it.", she said.

Here is her written down recipe.

Half cup of water
1 Ice cube
Half glitter
Chop
In the road
In the house

Snow recipe

As soon as we returned back home, she set to work on her recipe.

"You say you need Ice cube, how can we get one?"
"Can we get one from the cold pack?"
I suggested she think of another way.
"We can freeze snow to make ice cube, but we need the ice cube to make snow!", she pondered.
Then we both agreed to freeze some water to make ice cube.

She learned how to read half (1/2) on measuring cup and followed her recipe.

Learning to measure

Chop! Chop!

"When I add water to ice cube and chop, it melts.", she observed. I suggested she record her observation on a paper and she did.

Though she learnt that her recipe failed to make snow,  she persevered. She tweaked her recipe a bit.
"I will just add the glitter glue to the water, mix it and freeze it. I think it will make snow."

Trying out the tweaked recipe

She did the experiment and was happy looking at the end product. "This does look like snow flakes. I think I made snow.", she declared.

Looks like snowflake!

Here is her recording of the experiment. This is the lengthiest write up she has done till date.

Here is her write-up.

When I put water on ice cube it melt. If I put the water, glitter it become snow. When I put in the freezer it become cold. We put our Jacket and our Gloves and we put our hat and put our muffler and then we would be ready.

Here are her key takeaways from this whole experiment.
1. When you get an idea, try it out.
2. When your ideas fail, persevere.
3. Practicing literacy
4.  Recording observations.

That's a good experience for a four year old!

“The future belongs to the curious.The ones who are not afraid to try it, explore it, poke at it, question it, and turn it inside out.” – Anonymous 

Learning self care through Human Body Inquiry

We have been encouraging healthy eating habits to the twins by pointing out the natural outcomes such as  muscles growing stronger.
 "What are muscles?", they asked.  "Muscles are part of body that help us move.", I was brief.Then followed a long list of questions.
"Does a chair have muscles?" queried Nidhi. "Why do you think chair has muscles?" I asked. "I think chair has muscles because it moves."
Now I knew I wasn't clear with my definition of muscles. As I tried to explain, more questions followed. This led to an inquiry of human body. Below is a record of how we approached this inquiry.

1. I wonder....

Sid and Nidhi started with I see,I think,I wonder approach and asked a lot of questions they wondered about.
Do flowers have muscles?
Do cars have muscles? I think that a car's muscles are its wheels.
Is heart a muscle? If it is, does it move?
Does ear have muscle?
Do all living things have bones, muscles and blood?
Do plants have a body?

2. Reading books

 Sid suggested that we go to library to get books about human body and we did. We borrowed a list of books on human anatomy to get answers for their own questions.
I was surprised to see the amount of information they were able to understand about our body. The cat in the hat book Inside your outside worked as a wonderful introductory book. Here is a list of books we read.

1. Inside your Outside - The cat in the hat book
2.My Bones - Sally Hewitt
3. Usborne Beginners' Your body
4. The Muscular System by Helen Frost
5. How do we move? - How your body works series
6. The ears by Beth Ferguson
7. The Magic School Bus' The human body
8. Want to know nature series - My Body
9. First Science Experiments - The Amazing Human Body

Studying Digestive System in a book

3. Drawing and labeling

I set up a very simple provocation to draw the internal organs of a human body outlined by me.
This activity helped them understand the positions of internal organs. Sid drew a ribcage and filled it with big lungs and then he thought for few minutes and questioned "If lungs are here, where can I draw the heart?". An interesting question leading to our discussion on layers of human anatomy.

Since then they drew multiple human body diagrams and with each depiction their improved understanding was clear.

Nidhi's initial human anatomy diagram depicting Heart, Lungs,  Brain and Blood

Sid' initial Human Anatomy depicting Lungs, heart, skin and muscles

Nidhi's Anatomy diagram depicting Brain, Heart, Bones, Stomach, Muscles and Joints

Sid's Anatomy depicting Brain, Lungs, Skin, Heart, Ribs, Bones, Joint and Red Blood cells

4. Discussing about body

We engaged in lot of discussions about body. They came out with lot of hypothesis.
Me: Why do we have skin?
Nidhi : If we don't have skin our blood will come out.
Sid :Skin is like our jacket. I can't wear a shirt on my skeleton!

Me:Why do we need bones?
Nidhi: For moving
Sid: Without bones we will be floppy.

Me: Can we see with just one eye?
Both Sid and Nidhi immediately tested it out by closing one eye and exclaiming "Yes! we can!".
Nidhi immediately thought of an extension - "Wait! Can we hear with one ear?". "Yes", she declared after trying it out.

5. Playing games

The book 'First Science Experiments' The Amazing Human Body' inspired me address some questions  asked by the kids with couple of simple games. To explore the question "why do we have two ears?" we played a simple blindfold game where one player would sit with eyes closed in middle of the room while another player would go to different corners of the room and make some sound. The listener has to identify the direction of sound source.
This game helped them understand that brain can detect the direction of sound source with help of two ears.

To understand "What is memory?" we played the simple game of looking at a few objects on a tray for couple of minutes and then trying to list the objects that they can remember. The twins had fun playing such games.

6. Exploring and experimenting

They explored their own body and identifying the bones and joints. They were more fascinated with rib cage bones. "Look! Here is my spine on my back and I can bend because it bends!" - Nidhi

They explored if we can use flash light to see inside our body.

Can we see inside the body with flashlight?

To understand how sound waves make ear drums vibrate, I added few rice grains on a box on which they were playing drums. They observed  that the rice grains jumped higher when they played harder and were excited to see the vibrations. Here is a short video of them trying to see the vibrations.

7. Comparing human body to other known systems.

They were excited to share their knowledge with their visiting uncle. "Uncle, Do you know that there is a septic tank inside our body and it makes and sends out waste?" , asked Nidhi.

Sid compared human body to plant structure. "I think plant stems are like bones because stems help the plants stand upright.", he said.

8. Learning about self care through human anatomy

 Wondering what is the purpose of understanding human anatomy at this early age? Though I am sure this exploration helps them reinforce how to inquire about a topic they are curious about, I think they learnt a lot about self care and confidence.

   Now they understand the reason behind good habits we insist upon such as
      1. Being active helps you grow stronger
      2. Drinking water helps the blood to carry nutrients easily.
      3. Chewing food well helps the stomach with digestion
      4. Prefer healthy nutritious foods
    Also, they have learnt that the body can heal itself which is a big relief for them :)
Now, when they cough, they say "My white blood cells are eating away my germs."
They don't worry much if they scrape their knee or fall down at the playground.
Yesterday I heard Sid  consoling his friend who got hurt at the playground saying, "Don't worry! You know what? Our body can heal itself! Our skin will grow back, even broken bones heals."


We still have a few unanswered questions like "why skeleton has no private parts?".  I am not sure if this inquiry will continue or it will come to a natural end but I am sure it has been an awesome learning journey for all of us till now.

"We learn more by looking for the answer to a question and not finding it than we do from learning the answer itself." - Lloyd Alexander

Encouraging creativity with TinkerBox

"To invent you need a good imagination and a pile of junk." - Thomas Edison

Have you ever noticed what kids do when they are given a pile of junk? Junk, not toys. Just Junk. Surprise!  They start to tinker with the pile in million ways we never would have thought about. This tinkering encourages them to think critically, solve problems, and most importantly stay creative.

What is tinkering?
To quote The Exploratorium,  "tinkering is thinking with your hands and learning through doing. It’s slowing down and getting curious about the mechanics and mysteries of the everyday stuff around you."

What is a Tinker box?
 A tinkerbox (also known as Tinker tray) at our house, is a simple divided box with various loose parts. You can read more about loose parts play and creativity in a post written a few months back.  So, when in mood to play with something new or just tinker with something, tinker box is our go to resource.

The Tinker Box

What is in our tinker box?
1. Rings and Sticks
2. Googly eyes - adds a character to anything it is attached to instantly.
3. Straws
4. Pipe cleaners/chenille sticks or wires
5. buttons and beads
6. Popsicle sticks/ craft sticks
7. Feathers
8. Push Pins
9. Yarn/String
10. Pattern blocks/shapes
11. Bonding materials such as tapes,glue and rubber bands
12. cardboard tubes and recyclables

Basically, a tinker box can comprise of any number of familiar, interesting materials left to be used in unfamiliar ways.

If tinker box contains craft items then what is the difference between tinkering and crafting for preschoolers?

Both tinkering and crafting are about making something. But in tinkering, you do not follow stepwise instructions to achieve a neat end result. When tinkering, the end result may reveal as you go.

How to initiate and maintain interest in tinkering?

If a new material is added to tinkerbox or tinkerbox is just being introduced, I would set up provocations displaying a few ways the materials can be used creatively.

A small provocation setup by me

To sustain kids' interest, I add other open ended materials such as play dough, paper and coloring materials etc.
I also rotate materials according to the kids current interest if the box goes unnoticed for some time.Say, the kids are currently interested in cars, adding materials for wheels (like bottle caps) and axles (sticks or skewers) can help bring their interest back to tinkering.

So what do Sid and Nidhi do with their tinkerbox?

Creative Expression
Sid and Nidhi enjoy using loose parts in the tinker box for expressing their creative thoughts, for story telling and to retell their experiences.

Here is Sid's depiction of a juggler after visiting a juggling show.

A juggler balancing on a ring by Sid

 Here is a story told by Nidhi about two little girls trying to find their way home. She also documented her representation as drawing on paper.

Girls walking on road by Nidhi

For Pretend/Imaginative play:

A simple tinkering of cardstock paper with couple of pipe cleaners can transform them into little prince and princess.

Prince and Cinderella with their self made crowns

Add a pair of googly eyes and you get an instant pretend companion.

Look! My little car is drinking juice(petrol)

Here is a short video of Sid singing with a  Banjo built by him and Nidhi listening to the song with her pretend headphones and mike.

Here is Sid playing a banjo made with cork board, a train track, push pins and rubber bands.

Sid playing a DIY banjo

For Preschool Math and literacy learning:

Though this way of using loose parts may not contribute towards tinkering, it reinforces versatility of tinker box.

Nidhi building alphabets with popsicle sticks

Sorting buttons by colors

Preschool Engineering:

Nidhi trying out a pulley system

Piggy's straw house

Art projects:

Often just having fun results in amazing art products like this mobile made by Nidhi hanging elegantly in our room.

A mobile made of loose parts from the tinker box

Another hanging mobile in making

And more importantly having fun!

A happy face with pins and rubber band

Do you have a tinker box for your preschooler? What's in it? Share your thoughts.

“The creative process in tinkering, I believe, lets your mind escape from the day-in and day-out of life. And I think it's so important, when we’re building something, to escape.” – Scott Weaver