Monday, July 28, 2008

Fun with Math and Science

AJ had a great time at Camp Gifted. We were really impressed by the end-of-session documents that were sent home. AJ's projects and lab notebook were fantastic, of course. So was the DVD that the physics teacher made of the kids' egg drop and Rube Goldberg projects. But we also really appreciated that each teacher sent home a summary of the course and list of websites and books and things to do if we wanted to do more of the kinds of things they did in class. I thought some of these references would be appreciated by readers here. The two science classes were targeted toward gifted children entering 2-3 grades. The math class had a broader age range of 2-6th grades.

PHYSICS

Websites
http://www.invention-engine.com
• Search youtube for "Rube Goldberg" (this one is AJ's and my favorite)
http://www.funology.com/laboratory/lab_physics.htm

Books
• Arlene Erlbach, The Kids' Invention Book
• Laura S. Jeffrey, American Inventors of the 20th Century

Places to Visit
• Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago
• American Science and Surplus, 5316 N. Milwaukee Ave., Chicago, IL 60630 (773-763-0313)

MATH

Math just sent home one recommendation, which is for kids' sudoku puzzles:

http://www.printactivities.com/Kid_Sudoku_Puzzles/Free_Printable_Sudoku.htm

I would add to that the essential, websudoku.com.

CHEMISTRY

Experiment books
• Tamara Perchyonok, Chemistry and Fun for Kids of All Ages
• Robert W. Wood, 39 Easy Chemistry Experiments (Science for KIds)
• Judi Hechtman and Karen P. Hall, Explore and Discover Kid Chemistry
• Janice VanCleave, Janice VanCleave's Chemistry for Every Kid: 101 Easy Experiments that Really Work

Websites

PBS Kids Kitchen Chemistry
Bill Nye Home Demos
Build your own Volcano at Discovery Kids
Experiencing Chemistry at OMSI: How to Make Flubber
Chem4Kids Website
ChemShorts for Kids: Links to a variety of experiments

3 comments:

FreshHell said...

Great stuff! Thanks for the list. Hope some of these links will work w/ dial-up.

FreshHell said...

Also, there are two games Dusty enjoys on PBSKids website. If you go to the main site (www.pbskids.com), click on games and find DragonflyTV. One's called Mechanical Madness where you build a machine out of parts you're given and the other is Weebits. Which I haven't looked at enough to understand.

Anonymous said...

I have used material from the www.kidsinvent.com website to help stimulate the creative side of my children. It helps them to understand that science is fun.