Robot Turtles

Robot Turtles is a new board game designed to teach coding to pre-schoolers. It has quickly become our favorite game. The premise is that each player controls a turtle card and the turtle's goal is to get to it's jewel. Barriers can be set up to make the game more complicated for some players and easier for others. One person plays the role of the "mover" and moves the turtles when other players provide commands (cards that move the turtle forward or turn it left or right). As players get better at the game, other things can be unlocked (like function frog cards that allows the players to create small functions that are called).

Our 3.5 year old loves the turtle game. She likes controlling the turtle and she also likes being the mover and making the turtles follow mommy and daddy's commands. Her very favorite part is when she gets to yell "bug!" and she sometimes makes intentional mistakes just to do that.

I don't expect that she will be programming her own apps anytime soon, but I do like that this game involves strategy, planning, and spatial thinking.

And, of course, it doesn't hurt that it reminds the adults in the house of learning logo in the early 80s.

TINKERbell

We were recently encouraged to watch the Tinkerbell movie by a friend with a young daughter. Reluctant to start a focus on fairies, we watched anyhow. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that Tinkerbell is a TINKERER! She fixes things and makes things. We didn't make it through the entire movie (we rarely make it through a movie) so I don't know much about the plot.

Mr. Rogers - MakerEd before the Maker Movement

Before the Maker movement, before Tinkering Spaces and Fab labs, Mr. Roger's helped children learn how things are made through his tours of factories and workshops. At our house we love these little segments. We've watched how backpacks, crayons, markers, ball machines, umbrellas, wagons, tricycles, bicycles, etc are made. Yesterday we watched the 10 minutes of an episode where Mr. Rogers learns how carousel horses are made 4 times in a row. We've been keeping a list of these because it's the only thing my child likes to watch -- and we enjoy them as adults too. Here is a list of episodes where something is made. Many of these show factories. Others show individual artists.
The above photo is from episode 1734, where Mr. Rogers first plays with the expandable sphere shown in the photo and then visits the inventor of the sphere.
 

1481 - How people make crayons.

1487 – Toy factory

1492 - How people make dolls.

1495 – How people make blankets.

1496 - How people make stuffed animals.

1501 – How people make spoons.

1503 – How seatbelts are installed in cars.

1509 – How to make a variety sounds using bottles filled with water.

1510 – How to make a small village with recycled materials.

1511 – How people make towels.

1512 – Making a rocking chair

1513 – Inventions. How people make robots.

1517 – How people make zippers.

1518 – How people make balloons.

1520 – How people make graham crackers.

1531 – How people repair trolleys

1532 – Mr. Rogers makes a wind chime. How people make straws.

1536 – How people make applesauce

1537 – How people make tofu

1539 – How people make canned soup

1556 – Children making a miniature golf course. Making a costume for the trolley

1558 – How people make rocking horses.

1561 – How people make trumpets.

1567 – How people make wagons.

1569 – Mr. Rogers makes a toy neighborhood. Making toy instruments.

1578 – How people make erasers

1594 – How people make bicycle helmets.

1598 – A sculptor at work.

1607 – How people turn film into photographs.

1613 – How people make peanut butter.

1628 – How people make toothbrushes.

1630 - How people make toothpaste

1653 - How people make colored construction paper.

1660 - How people make balloon animals.

1665 – Soap bubbles

1666 – Experiments with food coloring

1667 - How people make light bulbs.

1680 - How people make tortilla chips.

1694 - How people make steel drums.

1704 - How people make chalk.

1710 - How people make yogurt.

1715 – Bill Nye the Science Guy visits

1716 – How people make macaroni

1722 - How people make batik fabrics

1723 - How people make toilets

1724 - How people make carousel horses.

1728 - How people make eyeglass lenses.

1733 - How people make grape jelly.

1734 – Inventor. Expandable sphere.

1737 - How people make ribbons.

1742 - How people make sidewalks.

1743 - How people make traffic signals.

1748 - How people make ball machines (George Rhoads).

1750 - How people make marbles.

1752 - How people make ice cream cones.

1763 - How people make clay pots.

NSTA position statement - early childhood science

The National Science Teacher's Association's (NSTA) has recently released a position statement on early childhood science learning.

http://www.nsta.org/about/positions/earlychildhood.aspx

Fizzy colors and foaming dough

 On a rainy weekend day, we got out the baking soda and made "fizzy colors" by spraying colored vinegar at the baking soda. We put the vinegar in an old contact solution bottle.

 The colors fizz up nicely. We had blue and yellow and green dye so we tried all three.

 Then we made some foaming dough. We just mixed a little water into a lot of baking soda until it kind of got clumpy and moldable. Then we doused it with vinegar for some very satisfying foamy mess.

And then we mushed and mashed it all together and pretended to make, serve, and taste "ice cream."

Rosie Revere, Engineer

My new favorite children's book is Rosie Revere, Engineer by Andrea Beaty. It's all about tinkering and making things.

Rosie Revere is a second grader who dreamed of becoming a great engineer, who "made fine inventions for her uncles and aunts; a hot dog dispenser and helium pants." But after some failures she decides she will never be a great engineer. When her cheese-copter crashes, her great great aunt (who happens to be Rosie the Riveter) tells her, "You did it Hooray! It's the perfect first try! This great flop is over. It's time for the next!... It crashed that is true. But first it did just what it needed to do. Before it crashed, Rosie... before that ... it flew!"

The last page - "Your brilliant first flop was a raging success! Come on, let's get busy and on to the next!" She [aunt Rose] handed a notebook to Rosie Revere, who smiled at her aunt as it all because clear. Life might have its failures, but this was not it. The only true failure can come if you quit."

Rosie Revere is funny and teaches a great lesson and the artwork (by David Roberts) is wonderful. And on top of all that, there is a smart girl as the main character who my little engineer has declared looks just like her.

The same author wrote Iggy Peck, Architect, which is also wonderful, but my favorite is by far Rosie Revere.

Building materials are everywhere

Some spontaneous building at the office supply store...