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Stef03

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Posts posted by Stef03

  1. Any recommendations for online high school science classes? My son's finishing up Physics at Athena's Academy, he enjoys their classes but he's ready for something more challenging for this next school year. I'm fine doing the labs at home, I just prefer to continue the online class model as it keeps us on track :P I'm also open to "talent search" programs, he already takes classes at CTD Northwestern. TIA!

  2. My son got first place (3rd yr in a row) and my daughter didn't place (her first math competition).

     

     

    Has anyone experienced the competition the following week for the top competitors?

     

    Yes, those who achieve 100% on the initial test are invited to the grand prize tie-breaker event. It is way more challenging and there's no way to prepare for it sadly... last year it involved a rubik's cube for example.

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  3. I highly recommend arTree digital magazine, each monthly issue is focused on a different theme (usually it's on a specific painter & season aligned). It includes plenty of project ideas, background information on the painter, techniques explained, etc. I usually just gather the materials (nothing that's hard to find) and my kids can follow the instructions by themselves easily as it includes photos that show the process. There's a sample mag available here: https://artreekids.com/magazine/issues/sample/to give you a better idea. The only downside is that it's digital... so I just print out the pages that have projects that the kids want to do. A big benefit though is that it's super cheap... it's only $10 for the year.

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  4. We've only received the zoetrope so far, and it was a big hit. It inspired my son to make a stop motion animation movie and submit both projects to DIY.org to go towards his animator skill. The zoetrope was super easy to put together and I'll put it on a shelf so it doesn't get mangled. I never would have gotten the parts to build one myself, and I think the quality is excellent for the price. I can see continuing with this for many months.

     

    Same here! My son has been really into stop motion since then and he's also been submitting his movies on DIY.org for the Animator patch :D He also used the Motor crate project towards the Physicist patch.

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  5. I can give my opinion on the crates now, we love them!! I'm surprised by the negative review above to be honest, I keep seeing positive reviews on various homeschool Facebook groups. The materials seem well made to us (I love that the crates include all the materials you'll need), the instructions were nice and clear. My son could build the projects by himself successfully. My favorite part of the crates is the magazine included, it gives explanations as well as ideas for other projects (this keeps my kid busy for a while longer). I also find their customer service team very efficient. I contacted them on several occasions and they always replied within 24hrs and were very accommodating. For example, my son really wanted the Motor crate, this is an old crate so technically he wasn't going to be receiving it, however, customer service were happy to send it to him instead of the current crate. :D I also went through the cancellation process with their Kiwi Crate and it went through smoothly with no issues and no explanation was requested (we had ordered a Kiwi Crate to try with our youngest with the $10 off, the crate/project was fine but we didn't plan on continuing since we have plenty of craft kits for her already). So yeah, from what I've seen so far, I highly recommend Tinker Crates. For those who are hesitating: you can always give one box a try using the ref link and only pay $10 for it.

    • Like 1
  6.  

    It probably depends on your kids, but I tend to think a well-crafted Pinterest board and a few Amazon orders could more than replicate these boxes. The zoetrope is a fun idea, though... Off to pin one!

    You're totally right, and I do pin great ideas I come across. The problem is that I never get around to doing them :lol:  as it usually involves going to several shops for just 1 project or paying expensive shipping online. At around $16/mth including delivery, it doesn't sound too bad & I know I'll actually get it done :P Guess we'll see how DS finds the boxes when they start arriving.

     

     

    I've been looking for resources to start a homeschooler extracurricular STEM club, so *anyone* with suggestions---feel free to message me!  :)

     

     

    On the other hand, that STEAM group you posted sounds amazing.  I'm half tempted to start one in my area!

     

    I highly recommend registering as an official Curiosity Hacked guild, it's easy as you just need a volunteer & a location. Along other things it will give you liability insurance... and with soldering etc involved, it's better to plan for the "what ifs".

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  7.  

    Is there an Australia option? The postage cost monthly would probably kill it. Something like this would be cool for Ds. He learns a lot from dh but dh isn't that available most of the time and I'm terrible at stuff like this!!!

     
    Sadly it seems to be US only, though it seems like these type of membership boxes are gaining popularity so there'll probably be a company doing this in Australia soon too.
     

    hmmmm ... my STEM-y guy didn't enjoy these very much (9 yo), we got the electric motor and the polymer ones and then discontinued.  Not sure why.  He has done and liked Little Professor robotics, and some other kits, and is pretty handy generally; these just didn't engage him. 

     

    This is what I am wondering about for DS.  He loves to build and is an engineer type and loves his robotics also, but when things veer off into the crafty realm, he is just "No".  So that's why I was wondering if these were more STEM-y projects or crafty stuff.

     

    It looks like the Tinker Crates are more STEM-y oriented, as they also have the Doodle Crate which is the crafts oriented one. The videos they've posted on Youtube don't make their Tinker projects look crafty (no glue & cutting involved, that would drive my DS nuts lol).

  8. Just dive in! Most adult science/animal books are fairly kid safe (with marine mammals, I'd check indexes to make sure there's not too much on hunting and possibly avoid or at least preread for graphicness about anything related to Blackfish/captive training), and there are a lot of periodical articles out there if you check back issues (many are available electronically). Once she's comfortable there, and can read on a high enough level, it's a natural segue to more science-focused materials. What I've found in the herpetology world is that a lot of the people who write good books for non-specialists are also the active researchers in the field, so you can start looking for their papers as well (a LOT of them are available free via university websites if you check for the specific person). An edition or two old college textbooks are often very, very inexpensive, and even if she can't read the text yet, she'd probably get a lot out of having a marine bio textbook, vertebrate anatomy textbook, and so on just for the pictures.

     

    What I've found in following a herpetology obsession is that following the obsession leads naturally to needing to fill in gaps. My DD kind of started at the end-she jumped from the stuff in our local library to auditing upper division/grad level special topics courses in herpetology and going to conferences, then went back and did a college general bio for non-majors and is now doing a high school chemistry class to fill in gaps in her understanding. Similarly, she jumped from pre-algebra to college level plug and chug statistics and is now back to algebra, because that's what she needed. She's also really ramped up her writing skills due to seeing just how prominent writing is and how required it is in the field. Meeting several people who make a big part of their career blogging about and rewriting research for more popular audiences (and how valuable this really is for conservation of the animals she loves) and having them encourage her to do likewise has really helped a lot in filling that gap.

     

    The best gift you can give your daughter is to take her interest seriously. She may or may not follow it long-term, but she can and will learn a lot in the process.

     

    Totally off topic, but you don't happen to be A's mom (on Athena Academy)? I'm not stalking :P Just read your post thinking this has to be the same kid.

  9.  

    Not really. I think some pieces would break on a few things. The trebuchet- once you tied those thing strings good and tight to use, it would be difficult to untie( Kwim). Now the polymer/putty one would be easy to reproduce.

     

     

    Yeah that makes sense, I'm hoping my DD will get some use out of them too but I guess that will depend from kit to kit.

     

    What other type of projects besides the trebuchet and the electric motor are in the boxes?

     

    Kiwi Crates have been around for a while but their Tinker version seems to be rather new. So far I've found crate details on the trebuchet, electric motor and it looks like the newest one was a Zoetrope.

  10. For those who have kids that like to Tinker:

     

    I've recently discovered Tinker Crate, it looks awesome! They're monthly STEM projects (includes all materials) & a magazine too. Looking at their YouTube page you can see full tutorials to some of their projects like a Trebuchet & an Electric Motor (links below).

    It's recommended for ages 9+ but I'm sure that plenty of younger kids on here would love them too. The cost seems very reasonable, $19.99 per month or it goes down to around $16 per month if you subscribe for a year (delivery is included in their prices). I couldn't find any valid discount codes but they currently offer $10 if you're referred (so you can try the first box at half price), our link is: http://tinker.kiwicrate.com/Refer?i=DamianA(this gives my son $10 off too), their normal link is: http://tinker.kiwicrate.com but that doesn't give any discounts.

    My son's decided to use his bday & xmas money on a subscription so I can give you more details when he starts receiving his crates if anyone's interested in more info. I'm looking forward to adding these projects to our curriculum.

    Also, if your kid is into this kind of stuff I highly recommend checking out Curiosity Hacked (aka Hacker Scouts) groups.

     

    EDIT: we've received a couple crates already so I've done a review on post #24.

     


     


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