Author Archive
Easy Thanksgiving Table Favors – A Fun Project for Kids
Posted by: | Comments
Here’s a quick and easy project your kids will love. It yields useful table decorations for your Thanksgiving table, an opportunity to show appreciation to those you love, and even a healthy snack.
Let the children in your house help prepare for your Thanksgiving gathering by making pilgrim ship table favors from walnut shells. As guests arrive at your home on Thanksgiving Day, they can write tiny notes that show appreciation for people present at the gathering and tuck them into the ships for all to read when seated at the table.
Get all the details at the Daily Press: Thanksgiving table favors show thanks to your guests
Image Credit: Gilles Gonthier on flickr
Messy Art for Kids – Unbridled Fun
Posted by: | CommentsSummer’s right around the corner. School’s out or nearly out in most parts of the USA. Somewhere between child care arrangements and summer sporting events, why not schedule a day for some good, old-fashioned, messy fun?
Sherene Silverberg, a homeschooling mother of twins and writer for www.examiner.com, gave her kids the ultimate messy art experience last summer. She not only lived to tell about it, but it sounds as though she had as much fun as her kids.
Silverberg writes, “It was incredibly good for my soul to do an activity with these children that was full of sheer, unbridled fun. No one was expected to learn a thing, this was just about feeling the paint and clay between your fingers, smooshing it all about and creating with all the exuberance we could muster.”
You can read all about her ooey, gooey, messy art experience with her children and their friends here.
Although this wasn’t conceived as an educational experience or even as an ongoing hobby, by encouraging artistic freedom and creativity, we help our kids learn to express themselves in a healthy, fun, productive way. Just keep the soap and water handy!
Kite Flying – High Flying Physics
Posted by: | CommentsMix McGraw, a competitive kite flyer known for flying 230 kites at once, says “flying a kite is more than flying a kite.” Humidity, the material the kite is made from, the altitude … all these factor into how high and how long it will stay in the air. The wind, itself, is temperamental. An avid flyer for 30 years, McGraw acknowledges kite flying as an ever-changing challenge.
Of course, not everyone works so hard to fly a kite. Most of us would be classed as “casual flyers.” We put a kite in the air for the fun of it, and just enjoy the wind and the sun our faces. In the northern states, kite flying is a right of Spring, a hobby enjoyed by young and old alike.
Whether you’re into casual or expert kite flying, Kites for Everyone: How to Make and Fly Them
Learning how to make a kite along with your children or grandchildren is time well spent. So, given the choice between picking up a pre-made kite at Wal-Mart or making one myself, I’ll choose the latter. Why not learn first-hand about how your choice of materials affects the flyability of your kite?
It’s a gorgeous Spring day in Wisconsin. Are you ready to go fly a kite?
Related Products: More Kite Flying Resources
Related Articles (Off-site): High-flying physics
Science Fair Project Ideas
Posted by: | Comments
A Young Inventor
If you’re looking for free science fair project ideas, you’ll find what you need at Science Buddies. This site, run by a non-profit organization, offers over 800 project ideas! Use their topic selection wizard or choose from ideas in their ideas directory.
At Science Buddies, you’ll also find news and resources for students, parents and teachers, including articles that guide you from getting started through the completed project. Tools, techniques, and reference information include articles on safety, chemistry, computer science, electricity and electronics, genomics, microbiology, sociology and more.
If you can’t find the answers you seek on their discussion board, pose it to a volunteer scientist on their Ask an Expert Forum.
Resources for teachers include topics related to planning a science fair and science in the classroom.
This looks like a wonderful resource for parents, students and teachers.
Thanks to Geekdad from Wired.com for pointing out this terrific resource!
Photo Credit: terren_in_Virginia on flickr
The Sweet Hobby of Mapling
Posted by: | Comments
Making maple syrup
It’s maple sugar time in Wisconsin and other northern states. Maple sap begins to flow in the spring, while nights still dip below freezing, but daytime temperatures push into the 40’s.
Maple syrup festivals abound this time of year. Attending one or visiting a local sugar shack provides you an excellent opportunity to satisfy your sweet tooth, learn how maple syrup is made, and spend some quality time outdoors with your family.
Bob and Janet Hansen of Atkinson, New Hampshire, turned an interest in maple syrup production into an old-fashioned, educational hobby. With their property lined by mature Sugar Maple trees, all they needed was instruction and basic maple syruping supplies. Now, with just 10 tapped trees and working out of their garage, they produce enough syrup for friends and family.
Even 10 taps are a lot of work. Consider that it takes about 40 gallons of sap to make just one gallon of syrup. Expect about five weeks of consistent effort, beginning when the sap starts to flow. Janet says, “It’s a small price to pay, though, for the wonderful taste of pure homemade maple syrup.”
For more information about maple syruping in Wisconsin, visit Enviromental Education for Kids! Those Marvelous Maples
Related Off-Site Article: Pat’s Kitchen: The sweet science of maple sugaring
Photo Credit: Mfour on flickr
All Clues Lead to the Letterbox
Posted by: | CommentsOne of the many reasons we began Educational Hobbies Blog was to learn about new hobbies … new to us, anyway. Each author has children, two have grandchildren. It’s fun to stumble across new things we can do with the kids and/or enjoy as adults. Today, I stumbled across an interesting hobby called “letterboxing,” where you follow written clues to find hidden treasure.
Letterboxing with Kayleigh
Letterboxing.org describes the hobby as “an intriguing pastime combining navigational skills and rubber stamp artistry in a charming ‘treasure hunt’ style outdoor quest.” It’s an international hobby where “placers” hide small, waterproof containers that hold a rubber stamp and a log book. They then post navigational clues on the Letterboxing.org website, where we can find instructions to follow, all over North America. (I found directions to a letterbox hidden at a park that my husband and I frequent in Town of Menasha, Wisconsin.)
Letterboxes are hidden in trees and under rocks in public locations. You’ll need to take the obvious precautions as you turn over rocks and poke around in underbrush. Let’s not mar the fun with a snake or spider bite.
They don’t come in a standard shape or size; some are no larger than a film canister; frequently they’re small Rubbermaid containers. Any smallish container with a tight fitting lid is a potential letterbox.
You bring your own inkpad, personalized rubber stamp, and log book on a letterboxing hunt. Depending on the particular instructions you’re following, you may also need a simple compass.
When you find your treasure, you stamp the enclosed log book, possibly also signing your name and general location. Then you stamp your personal log book with the stamp from the letterbox as a record of your find.
It’s that simple, yet it builds skills related to navigation and observation. I’m going to give it a try this week. What about you? Is this this the first you’ve heard of letterboxing? Please leave a comment and share your experience.
Photo Credit: elvis_pelt on flickr
Related Off-Site Article: McKinney Roughs nature program just part of day of adventure
Origami Blends Art and Science
Posted by: | Comments
Origami is not an easy children’s hobby, according to Professor Duk Lee of Asbury College. “Rather, it is a serious art and science.” Lee is a Kentucky-based artist, scientist and educator. His interest in origami began with studying its usefulness to teach mathematics.
Origami is the traditional Japanese art of folding paper into decorative shapes without the use of glue or scissors. It uses only a small variety of folds, combined in creative ways to make intricate designs. Usually, designs begin as a square sheet of paper, with different colors or prints used for each side.
So how does this creative endeavor lend itself to mathematics? According to Wikipedia, some geometry problems cannot be solved using a compass and straightedge, but they can be solved using only a few paper folds. Moving beyond paper, problems solved through origami have resulted in the deployment of large solar panel arrays for space satellites.
Origami clearly is one of the more creative and educational hobbies.
Sources:
Mathematics of Paper Folding on Wikipedia
Exhibit Focuses on Art, Science and Math of Origami
Image Credit: fdecomite on flickr
Related Products: Origami Books & Resources
Take Time to Notice the Bugs!
Posted by: | Comments
“Embrace the bugs … Bring them into your classroom, you’ll have science everywhere,” says Terri Swain, director of High Pointe Child Care at Southern Indiana’s Early Childhood Conference.
Bugs are fascinating to preschoolers, or at least they can be if we don’t teach our kids to be afraid of them. Exposing our children to the outdoors and nature at a very young age, helps them develop confidence, learn about interesting tiny creatures, and influences their attitudes as they grow older. More than that, when you inspire their curiosity about nature, it helps to get them hooked on learning.
85% of a child’s brain is developed by the age of five. At this young age, their brains are forming new connections, developing the capacity for lifelong learning. As parents, grandparents, and educators, we have the wonderful opportunity to stimulate their brain development through something as simple as getting our children engaged in the outdoors … and taking the time to notice the bugs!
Photo Credit: ceeshek on flickr
Related Products: Preschool Books About Nature
Related Article (off-site): Educators Embrace Science
Just What is an Educational Hobby?
Posted by: | CommentsHow do you separate education, hobbies, craft, and leisure recreational pursuits into tidy little categories? Why would you want to?
A hobby, according to Webster’s, is “something that one likes to do or study in one’s spare time; favorite pastime or avocation.” An educational hobby would then be “something educational that you like to do or study in your spare time.” That pretty much leaves it wide open, doesn’t it?
In the months ahead, you’ll see this blog get much more active. In addition to the topics already covered, we’ll talk about gardening, reading, camping, bicycling, science, scale modeling (for both history and manual dexterity) … in short, anything that we find interesting that can in the least bit relate to an enjoyable, educational endeavor. We’re going to cast a broader net and have some fun with it.
What do you consider an educational hobby? What would you enjoy reading more about?
All Ages Enjoy Kite Flying
Posted by: | Comments
Flying a kite is more than child’s play. Just ask Ray McCully, secretary of the New Zealand Kite Flyers’ Association. He has a collection of over 100 kites. On a good day, he and his wife Rosemary might have 50 – 60 of them aloft at one time. This educational hobby has even taken them around the world.
It all began 19 years ago when their daughters received a kite from grandma. Mom wanted to know why some kites flew and others didn’t. She found a book, made a kite and must have enjoyed the process. Kite flying became a hobby that the whole family could enjoy.
Read the entire story, “The wind beneath his wings.”
Photo Credit: luiginter on Flickr
