Sunday Sweet
A picture Giant coloured in Primary:
“Book/uvm/ormi/n” (Book of Mormon)
“ELD/r B” (Elder B) — he said it got tricky to write so small 😉
Enchanting…at home!
We programmed our Robot (aka, Shark Hunter) with Enchanting today:
I’ll admit it: the programming part of robot building has been my biggest hang-up in trying to do robots with my 4.5 year old. What if it was just way too beyond him? Would it be mommy entertaining her boys, with very little learning going on? I decided to liken it to story writing. Technically my boys can’t write stories down—in fact, they are still learning to hold a pencil properly. However, that doesn’t stop us from making stories! They come up with great ideas, I challenge them to do what they can mechanically (colouring pictures, writing down sounds of a word, etc), and we write a story. I was pleasantly surprised that programming with Enchanting involved the same levels of scaffolding! We discussed things the robot could do, I plugged in the programming blocks to the best of my ability, downloaded the program to the robot, troubleshot with the boys several dozen times, and celebrated when the robot finally did what we wanted it to…And then spent more time embellishing and having fun. In fact, with Enchanting,programming seems quite similar to writing a point-form story. Cool, eh?
My other hang-up was the technical aspect. I’m not scared of using computers—I’m certainly “plugged in” often enough during the day boongoogling. However, there are deeper level aspects of computer use that seem to go awry when I try them. Take, for instance, “downloads.” I’m never sure where things go that I download. And if I do find them, I generally have troubles opening them or getting them to work the way I think they should work. Thus I married Tech Support. To take care of all those fun things so I can blissfully wander the internet while he opens the proverbial doors for me, reaching the high stuff off the shelf, etc. Ahh, modern day chivalry in action!
But I digress. A lot.
When all was said and done, I only called Daddy Tech Support a couple of times (for issues such as, where do I find a cable to plug our Robot to the Computer and why my program outlined itself in red a couple of times)!
(I found a plug)
I also benefited from watching the Enchanting Intro video a few times, pausing the video so I could follow along:
The other trouble we ran into trying to program our shark hunter was, well, a very cute shark:
Being just a little too tricky to try out the program while a baby is attempting to capture and eat the robot, I put the cute baby to nap.
Then we set up an obstacle course (the tires in the picture are sharks), and embellished the bot until it rolled a bit, texted “Oh no, sharks”, played the theme from Jaws while dodging left and right spinning its “shark fighter”, played a triumphant tune and texted “I made it!”
A surprisingly easy, pleasant, and fun experience (and we haven’t even played with the sensors yet!)!
Happy Canada Day
Happy Canada Day!!!!
We finally put up our flag (Giant has been begging us to put up the flag all week).
The boys helped daddy hammer in the support:
Giant had the honour of carrying out the flag:
Two cute little Canadians:
We had a great day programming and gardening and playing and napping.
Late in the afternoon, we went down the hill for the Party in the Park.
Goofy hats, check!
Lots of fun, check!
(Hmmm, those blow up play contraptions are rather familiar)
We even got to go on a wagon ride. Galoot was dubious of the fun involved:
And the best part? Cotton Candy!
We came home and had supper and baths.
Then we partied while waiting for fireworks to begin with some pure Canadian programming:
Hola Canadians! (All my Spanish comes from Diego).
Then I booted my boys off the computer and they drew and talked about fireworks while I made popcorn:
We waited on our front steps for about an hour, watching people gather and enjoying the building excitement:
Kaboom!!!!
We munched popcorn and enjoyed the display:
My favourite quotes from the night:
Ettin, watching the fireworks—“They are b’oken spiders! The spiders are exthploding!”
Giant: “I like it when they paint the cars!”
Galoot: “ZZZZZZZ” (The kid fell asleep in the middle of all the booming and lights 🙂 )
I love being Canadian!
Today is…Thursday June 30 2011
Our Gospel Lesson was about The Creation, and water:
Giant had to bring over our water experiments for the discussion:
…and of course we had to go outside and check our water evaporation experiment too:
It worked! The plastic wrap was most definitely wet.
After snacks, we looked in our Nature experiment book and read about how Heavenly Father made bugs with different colours:
Then we worked on an activity to test the use of these colours. We coloured some bugs with camouflage colours, and some bugs with bright warning colours:
Then we hid a tasty treat under the camouflage bugs (a chip), and a yucky treat under the warning colour bugs (a hot tamale in this case):
Then we hid them under some leaves. Can you spot the bugs? Which ones would you eat?
When daddy came home for lunch, we had him be our guinea pig. He picked up bugs and ate what was underneath:
The boys watched intently:
DaddyBear learned pretty fast which types of bugs had the yummy chips underneath! (Ettin gladly ate the “yucky” tamales):
After lunch the boys devoured letters from Grandpa and Grandpa and Aunt Emily:
…literally:
(I’m taking that paper out, not putting it in!)
Then we had a rousing game of “Chase”:
Which involves much running around the couch.
The boys just love it!
Today is…Wednesday June 29 2011
The boys got dressed, and snuggled up for a read:
Giant and I played a game of catch (in the house?! What was I thinking!):
We started our learning day with a Gospel Message about how all good comes from God:
Then we tried some yoga from a terribly cute abc yoga book we just got from scholastic:
Good job Ettin!
We brought out games for a little while:
Then looked at our Nature Experiment book after snacks. We learned about how water flows through a tree, and read about the heartbeat of a tree (the sound of water flowing through).
We went outside for our experiment, wrapping some leaves with plastic wrap to catch the water. We’ll check back tomorrow to see how it’s doing:
And we tried to hear the hearbeat of a tree. I’m not sure if we heard it or just heard the branches rustling, but it was a neat experience (how often have you listened to a tree?):
Ettin was rather more entranced with the diggers working in the field next to our house:
And Galoot was just happy being outside:
After lunch we read stories:
And PROGRAMMED OUR ROBOT!
I thought I could attempt this while Galoot was still awake…
…but it became rather trickisome to test the robot and corral the baby:
So the baby went for a nap, and we got back to programming our shark hunter (pictured below, not above 😉 ):
With much re-programming in Enchanting, we came up with a robot that would run its motors, text “Oh No Sharks!”, play the Jaws song while dodging left and right while spinning a “shark getter”, then play a triumphant tune and text “I did it!” (it didn’t actually sense the tire ‘sharks,’ but we pretended it did):
This was sooo much fun!
Later, the boys were colouring before supper. Giant drew and labeled a “Mouse Veggie Truck” [vejEz]:
I sense Richard Scarry inpiration 😉 .