Learning Signs

Today we worked in our flower and vegetable beds in our front and backyard. Among other things, we planted some pumpkin seeds. We’re not sure if we’ll get any pumpkins (or cantaloupes, or ears of corn) but we’re going to give it a shot! Later this month we’re going to plant some tomatoes too. Here are a few photos from today’s inaugural planting, along with a short video narrated by Rachel. I’m thinking these photos will make a great narrated slideshow if we keep taking pictures as the plants grow in upcoming weeks.

This week as I was looking through my minecraft youtube videos, as I often do, I found these really awesome videos made by a youtuber named CaptainSparklez. He has spent a lot of time on these as well as bringing in to do the Parodies and some of the animating. They are some of the best videos I have seen not only for the amazing animating but it’s also the extremely creative lyrics that are packed with minecraft references, some that everyone should get but even a few more hidden ones that only real mincrafters would recognize that make them so great. My favorite one is actually called “Revenge” that is a parody of the song DJ Got Us Fallin’ in Love by Usher which is actually a song I hadn’t heard before but that makes it even better for me in some ways, but I really love it for its awesome lyrics. The next best for me is called “Fallen Kingdom” which is a parody off of Coldplay’s Viva la Vida. Even though this video has good lyrics too, the visual effects are really what makes this one great. Another cool thing that this youtuber did was make a behind the scenes video for how he and his team made both of them. I found all of these really neat and hope you do too!

Alexander is designing a “complex machine” for his 8th grade science class. He recorded a short AudioBoo today and described his design, which I photographed and embedded below. Please share comments and feedback.

I shared the “Sweeping Down the Plains” STEM project from K20-ALT with him this week for ideas and inspiration. See Video Part 2 on the project page, starting at the 4:46 point to see the design for an electrical generator/dynamo using a wind generator design. The Google Doc lesson plan includes the supplies used for their project. This extremely clever design uses a CD, neodymium magnets from AmazingMagnets.com, a wooden skewer like those used on a BBQ grill, a suction cup, and other inexpensive items. Hat tip to Adam Zodrow for sharing this amazing project with me a few weeks ago. See this post and podcast on Oklahoma EDUshare for more info about this project and K20-ALT.

I’m thinking Alex’s greatest challenge will be building the water wheel, gears, and the dynamo. This is going to be a great opportunity for problem solving, engineering, design and tinkering!

Technorati Tags: science, stem, tinkering, design, dynamo, water, audioboo, comments4kids