Corel painter essentials - develop communication skills

One way the world could end is when the sun grows into a Red Giant

Paige is quite interested in astronomy and also loves art.  She is entering Grade 6. Our task is to help her to communicate her (very deep) thoughts.  This picture above shows the expected fate of earth billions of years from now as the sun reaches the end of its life.

She preferred to draw this on the computer with the captioned software and a graphics tablet.

Drawing and writing sample - a good gauge of progress

Sample work for Noelle - just starting Grade 2

We want to keep this sample so we can baseline her progress.  It is quite a challenge to get her to write. However, she is quite enthusiastic with reading and math.

Educational software titles - Some of our favorites

Mia Science

Mia Reading

Mia Math

Jump Start first grade - categorized results

We love the Mia series - Math, Reading, Science & Language .Each title has an Adventure mode or activities which can be selected.

Pros: Very interactive and animated

Cons: Only a few titles allow you to gauge your child's progress with a report

Jump Start is a tried and true educational software provider.

Pros: Great reporting feature

Cons: Quality of graphics 

Ellis Bird Farm - Experience nature and learn something too!

This was one of the best day trips we did this summer.  The Ellis Bird Farm is a great destination for exploring nature and would be appropriate for many grade levels.

Bugs and crawlies - learn about the eco system in a pond

The visitor center

Find your creature on the chart 

Scoop out your very own swamp goop

Hrmmm - can you eat any of these?

Paige at the visitor center

Ellie and the rabbits

My own pics

Close up of the rabbit - maybe the other end?

A porcupine!

Guess who?

Time to feed the sheep

Goats need feeding too, yuh know..

Aren't you a bit big to be feeding with a bottle?

"Watcha got in the bag, there?"

A big thumbs up for this attraction!

Other recommended spots on the way back to Calgary:
http://www.discoverywildlifepark.com/ - home of many "movie star" animals. Excellent grounds, friendly staff
http://www.homestylebeverages.com/berry/about.htm - ice cream, pies, lemonades with natural ingredients

Animation Studio - use art to teach math

Paige has always had a passion for artwork and drawing.  She is becoming proficient in using graphics tablets and transforming her hand-drawn pieces into computer graphics.

We are learning to use Anime Studio, a great software title from Smith Micro

Paige can already use the package to animate shapes.  It also helped her to grasp some math concepts involving geometry and the manipulation of coordinates in 2D space


Learning Outcomes:

• Graphics
• Math transformations - translation and rotation

Use Google Earth - teach map reading and so much more

Google Earth is an outstanding resource with content that goes beyond geography to social computing, science and history.

It shows your position on a map of the earth but you can also quickly "fly" to any place by typing the destination into the search bar.

Ellie flew to Antarctica, Africa and even our old house in Trinidad!

While showing Ellie how my RC plane flies over our parks we looked at GE to see our house and the relative position of the park and nearby grocery.




She loves flying my plane simulators.  GE has a built-in version of a flying simulator where you can fly over the maps with joystick control.


Recently, we found entries in GE where we can track live marine animals and follow where they swim.

Paige and Ellie want to "adopt" animals and do a journal on the wanderings of these creatures.  Stay tuned!!

Teachable moments 2 - RC planes

I'm working on a project involving RC planes

We are coming up with ways to track the plane while it is in the air and even take pictures and video from the plane.  We connect a GPS unit, a radio transmitter and a battery power supply then let her go!

A GPS unit on top of the wing

A radio transmitter below the wing

Testing the battery life and voltage

Ground station showing the plane's position while in flight

Here is a link to some video of the Ground Station in action.  It is written in "Processing", a programming language developed at MIT.

Processing and Wiring/Arduino are both open source projects suitable for children from Grade 6 and up. The emerging field of Physical Computing gets kids hands on with fun projects that give life to real world objects.

For younger kids, the Telus World of Science is using a platform called Crickets and a simple language called Scratch.  Here are a couple of websites featuring projects for younger kids:
http://www.pienetwork.org/crickets/
MIT backgrounder

Learning outcomes:

• Map reading
• Coordinate systems (See Google Earth blog post)
• Voltage, Current and Power
• and, well.. planes (the science of flight)