Our Family Learning Blog
This short video, “Saving Bruce the Shark,” is a creative story told and created by Rachel yesterday using the iPad app, “ToonTastic.” Since we added a new iPad to our family collection, Rachel has inherited her own. Mom is encouraging her to use more apps for creative “making,” since her favorite computer activities continue to be WATCHING YouTube videos and playing Minecraft. Rachel is a creative storyteller and “maker!”
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!
(Update 24 March 2026: I (dad) was showing these videos to my middle school coding students today, and updated this playlist of Minecraft videos which includes both of these parody songs and more. The legacy impact of this blog post by Alexander from 14 years ago lives on!)
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
I think this is the first good lego project that I have done by myself that I am proud of. I first started a clone battle pack and made a decent ship from a youtube video (which in now taken down). I built that but wasn’t very happy because it looked crappy so I started changing peaces and adding new ones from my collection. After many revisions over it I came out with this. I am now proud of it, I like how I mad the engin and rear, the nice missals and guns, the cockpit, and it is all very stable. This definitely makes me one to stop by The Barn and get a little more serious.
