Education Through Gaming: Math and Science Roundup

To wrap up my mini-series on educational video gaming, allow me to share the other online resources that we have particularly enjoyed over the last year or two. Given our tech limitations (we own only laptops – no Ipads or Itouches or anything like that), we generally stick to the resources we can easily access on the web.

As I was writing this post, I realized there is perhaps a discussion to be had as to what constitutes a video game. Is it simply a self-contained app that you play exclusively on a tech device? Or do you take into account resources that provide challenges to accomplish away from the computer or Ipad, rewarding players only upon completion of the task? For this post, I choose the second and broader view.

CellCraft

I’ve spoken about this game before. CellCraft is a game we discovered only this year, and thoroughly enjoyed its fun combination of learning with super fun video-gaming challenges and silly fantasy. Here’s my take, from my previous post:

The other completely addictive activity we dived into is a video game called CellCraft. Holy cow, folks – this was ridiculously fun. Though the creators definitely took some artistic license (you find the organelles you need, and at one point our animal cell is given plant cell chloroplasts to generate more energy), the science behind most of the game is pretty accurate. The player must run the cell, making sure all organelles are doing what they need to do, and are getting the resources they need to thrive.

Viruses periodically attack the cell, which you must biologically defend, and there is an overarching fantasy narrative: an alien platypus race on a threatened planet is sending this cell across the expanse of space to land on a new planet (Earth) where it can grow into new platypusses. Platypi? Whatever. It’s cute and fun. Eva and I played it together for days, and I loved hearing her yell out “we need more lysosomes!!” and the like. It’s free for download, so check it out. Ian played it a little too, but he hasn’t covered cell biology yet. After watching both experiences, I recommend using it after the student has already studied the structure and function of a cell. It’s better as a reinforcement activity than a straight-ahead teaching tool.

Interestingly, now that the semester is over, I’ve been able to compare having a kid use it in tandem with biology study and not. Eva played the whole game through, and even now, months later, she has a firm grasp on the variety and function of a cell’s organelles. Ian, who only dabbled in the game one afternoon, still has to really think to recall the same information. Eva engaged with the material more deeply than her brother because of CellCraft; the game took us many hours to play, and oftentimes she and I had to work together to make sure the cell got what it needed during its more dire moments. It was exciting and fun, and now that information is hers. Ian on the other hand learned the information more traditionally – through lectures and texts – and never became emotionally invested, so the information failed to resonate. I mean, he gets it. He just doesn’t own it.

Alcumus

Alcumus falls under my broader video game definition. This “game” is honestly more of a cool math problem generator that rewards success with XP and challenge badges (pre-algebra and up). Think along the lines of a Khan Academy setup. For a while, Ian loved Alcumus. This was a couple of years ago when he was stagnating in math. I could give him a set of problems on a sheet of paper, and he would absolutely hate it. But when the same problems were presented to him with Alcumus’ digital rewards, math became something to look forward to. Seriously – he went from struggling through this topic for 40 minutes a day to working without interruption for up to 4 hours at a time! This excitement did eventually wear off for him, and Alcumus has never had the same pull for Eva that it did for her brother, but still. It’s free, has quality problems with funny educational instructional videos to help you out if you need it, and it just may be the thing your kid needs to get through a difficult hump in math. To be honest, I think the instructional videos – though still limited in scope – are more engaging than the ones Khan Academy produces. Not to diss Khan. I love me some Khan. But hopefully by now, you’re well-educated about that fabulous resource.

DIY

This is our newest discovery, and hoo-boy, are we instant fans. Their mission is to help kids become makers. Makers of anything – music, art, clubs, science gizmos, computer gizmos… they challenge you to cook, work on open source sites, create forts, make magic, build an engine, study wildlife, and yes you Minecraft-addicts: they even have Minecraft-related challenges. Here’s the very simple way it works: choose a challenge (or create your own), follow the instructions (or make your own), complete the challenge, photograph or film it, and upload it to your free account on the site. The staff reviews and approves your work, and you get an awesomesauce badge (think Girl Scouts) once you’ve completed three tasks in a single topic. If they like your work, they’ll highlight it on their website, making you feel super-cool. Eva and I have decided that science for all of next year will simply be making stuff, using this amazing resource.

Hmm. So now you may be asking: what no Angry Birds? Well, actually, no. I’m a reluctant gamer, I suppose, and my preference for the most part is topic-specific resources like CellCraft and Alcumus, and those like DIY that encourage real-life interaction. At the end of the day, I hope to have spent much more time away from screens than in front of them.

But before you techies judge me as a stone-ager, allow me to share this video that came across my feed this week: a message about the importance of moving beyond simply playing games to learning the code that comprises them. (And, you guessed it -  there’s a link at the end to a site where you can learn how to code with a bit of gaming help!) No matter how we feel about them, video games and technology and the code that makes them do what they do are an important part of our existence today. Code is our language now. And we’d best not get left behind.

Eva’s Take on Minecraft as History Class

Eva recently began blogging on her website, and this week talked about her experiences using Minecraft to create her history timeline. To read the post, click here!

Education Through Gaming: Descartes Cove

Not often do my blog posts garner the attention that my most recent “Minecraft in the Classroom” did last week. Man, you people are seriously seeking video game justification! It reminded me again how much we as a community – parents, teachers, students – are looking for ways to improve our learning experience by taking advantage of all the new and exciting technology at our fingertips. And perhaps you, like I, want to make sure that we keep these tools in balance, choosing only the highest quality resources, and stowing our laptops next to our paints and brushes, binoculars and bird books.

Though the kids’ Minecraft history timelines are coming along nicely, it will be a while until I can share their work with you. Minecraft is not the only educational video game we use, however. This week, I’ll share a couple of other little gems we’ve fallen in love with. Consider if you will….

• Subject: Math
• Intended audience: grades 6-8
• Fun level: 8/10
• Challenge Level: Excellent, though we haven’t played all the modules yet
• Cheating Potential: High, but easily resolved by strategically assigning partners or providing personal oversight
• Physical Interaction Potential: Medium. Problems are provided on the game, and players solve them using paper, a white board, etc., before selecting the answer.
• Price: $155, with shipping. Special rates for schools.

After hearing rave reviews of this Myst-type math game developed in 2006 by the Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth, I ordered it for our public library’s children’s collection. Here’s the description, taken from the website:

“Marooned on a desert island once inhabited by Rene Descartes, students discover his notebook and gear and begin their journey through the island’s tunnels, volcanoes, abandoned mines, and sunken ship.  At each step, they solve increasingly difficult puzzles and math challenges that follow NCTM standards. As they master each math concept, they prepare to tackle the final quest to build a means to escape from the island.”

Upon arrival last summer, I immediately checked the game out, eager to try it on my kids and share my recommendations with other patrons. It’s intended for grades 6-8, and we quickly discovered that it was too easy for rising 9th grader Ian and too difficult for rising 6th grader Eva. However, the beautiful graphics are true to the game’s promises of Myst-style quality and appearance. The kiddos were so disappointed that it was just out of their reach.

I returned the game, and Eva and I carried on with our 6th grade math studies, moving into beginning algebra and geometry over the winter. On a whim, I checked the game out again last week, and this time, Eva was ready. You can choose six different math quests, selecting from measurement, number and operations, data analysis and probability, algebra, geometry, and reasoning and proof. Eva chose data analysis and probability. The player is equipped with a backpack for the journey that holds a notebook of handy explanations of the basic concepts you’re studying. The game’s concept is really very simple: solve 10 problems and move on through the locked door just ahead. In solving the problems, you also earn pieces of something you need to build to move on to the next grand level. Use the notebook in your backpack if you need a little help.

Ultimately, I suppose you could cheat your way through the game: the problems are set up as multiple choice. If you get the wrong answer, you can just keep trying other selections until you get the right one. There doesn’t seem to be any penalty for this. It’s all a matter of approach, however. Although I don’t watch everything that Eva does, I sit nearby to help with problems she’s stuck on. She sits by our huge white board, and I can see her working out the problems before she punches in the answer. Sometimes she does get them wrong completely, but she talks to me about it, and then explains why the solution is what it is. I have her work on it approximately a half hour a day, and she loves it so much better than worksheets and textbooks, she’s happy to do it. She knows that talking with me about the problems is part of the deal, so I am assured that real learning is happening.

All in all, I give this game an A+. Still need convincing? Watch this demo. Have fun!

Minecraft in the Classroom

Blogging Note: If you don’t know what the video game Minecraft is, check out this link and watch the little demo.

Over the last couple of weeks, Minecraft, gaming, and personal devices have continued to surface as topics related to education. Ian shared the following link with me on facebook. He thought that maybe – just maybe – I would finally see the light and let him have as much Minecraft time as his little heart desires. I had to laugh, and it took me a couple of days to get around to watching it, but then I did. And it was quirky and fun. Give it a watch.

This little video led to other threads of conversation, including this TED talk about making education exclusively a gaming format. Now I simply just can’t get into that. At one point in the presentation, TED talker Zichermann describes the days of his grandfather in which a person might sit down on a Sunday afternoon with a good book and a cup of tea and then says with a laugh, “I don’t think that today’s kids are ever gonna do that.” Oooooh. Bad form. Totally lost me there, Zichermann.

But then, as if the stars were aligning, by friend and fellow blogger The Suburban Matron posted about her kindergartener’s school asking its students to bring in their own personal tech devices for use in the classroom. She was struggling with what it meant to use these types of tools at so young an age. (You should read the post, and others of hers too. She’s ridiculously funny). Lots to think about.

But back to Minecraft, to which both of my children are slightly addicted. Eva, who also watched Ian’s little video find, has also been at me to include Minecraft in school. But I just couldn’t get my mind around it. Until today. She, wise child that she is, finally figured out that she needed to be specific to get me to take her seriously. She suggested that she make a history timeline in Minecraft. This caught my attention. “What do you mean?” I asked. “I would make a huge wall out of wool,” she said, “and then post signs along it to create the timeline.”

I agreed to grant one hour a day to Minecraft for this purpose. Because I am so very stingy with video game time (both kids get only up to 1 and 1/2 hours each week, and only on the weekends), this was like saying tomorrow was going to be Christmas, part 2. She started immediately, and as I watched, she created the wall, divided it up into centuries, color coded different cultures (light blue is China, brown is England, etc.), and pulled up some internet resources to help her plot major world events.

At this point, Ian discovered us. He wasn’t going to have this new delight unshared, especially since it was all started by the video that he found and posted to my wall. So I agreed to additional Minecraft time for him for history timeline purposes (if possible – he’s a bit busier than Eva is right now). He took a different approach, digging down into the recesses of the earth, in which he would plot out early human history. As written history begins and the story gets more complicated, he plans on building up out of the earth and creating branches that stretch upward with different and parallel story lines.

Really? Sometimes school planning is so difficult – coming up with creative things to keep the kids engaged in learning is frankly a challenge. And sometimes, it’s like this. The kids create something new and awesome, and I kick back while they teach me about what they’ve discovered. I can’t see anything bad in this. And though I will always always be an eclectic homeschooler (meaning a wide and varied combination of methods), I am happy to include Minecraft in our repertoire, at least for now.

What do you think? Pros and cons? I’d love to hear of your experiences and opinions about gaming in the classroom.

Family Meals and Board Games

The Ridenhour household has lately sucumbed to an obsession of gaming. We bought a lot of new games for Christmas: Settlers of Catan Cities and Knights edition, Carcassone, Zombie Fluxx, and Munchkin. It’s one of our favorite things to do as a family, and for the past several months, I’d say we play a game either during or after dinner at least three times every week (usually Catan or Carcassone). Add to that an almost daily luncheon three-player game of Munchkin. The kids and I call it “Lunchkin.”

This is why I carve out so much time in our week to play games:

1) It makes me spend non-task oriented time with my kids. I’m not teaching. I’m not doing laundry. I’m not planning dinner. I’m just sitting there, playing.

2) It makes all of us laugh. A lot. Especially Munchkin.

3) It feels decadent, sitting there, playing those games. Like you’re having a terribly delicious dessert every day.

4) It provides family ritual/tradition. I love looking forward to small rituals in our family. Saturday morning pancakes, pizza-movie nights on Fridays, games, games games.

5) As a ritual, it provides a regular point of connection as a family. I’ve always held family meals as sacred, and am loathe to give many of them up during the week, unless it’s to share them with friends (friends are always welcome!). Playing games at the meal table extends that time together, and makes it feel even more like a special occasion.

6) It reduces stress. It just does.

7) It puts winning/losing in perspective. When you play as many games as we do, you win a lot and you lose a lot. There is ample opportunity to remember that we play because it’s fun, not necessarily to win (although winning is fun too).

8) It can teach patience and strategy skills, depending on the game(s) you like. We like games with a sense of story to them – funny characters, civilization building, Viking invasions – most of them have both elements of luck and strategy built in, and most of them take an hour or more to play. It’s been fun to watch the kids get better at playing our games and giving their mama a run for her money.

9) It helps homeschool feel more fun. There’s nothing like finishing up the hard work of the morning and sitting down to a lively game of Munchkin over a yummy lunch.

10) It helps me be in the present and really see and appreciate my kids and my family, and how precious our time is together. And really, if there weren’t any other benefit at all, that would be enough.

Do you have games you love? I’m always looking to add to our extensive collection!

Media Math Magic

Welcome to my third and final post of Math Madness Week. Today I will share the best of the best in math media, including online instruction and play-at-home videos. So grab your popcorn and fuzzy slippers (at least I will; it’s -25 with the wind chill here currently), and let’s just jump in, shall we?

First up:

Vi Hart. Because she’s so extremely fun and makes math look like the most Super Cool Thing one could ever take part in. The only way to adequately explain the magic that is Vi Hart is to simply let you experience her. So here she is:

Didn’t you just love it?? She has a youtube channel that you can visit or subscribe to. Or you can visit her on her website. Most recently, she’s teamed up with the Khan Academy, and this makes me very excited! Why? Because next up is….

The Khan Academy. Pop that into a google search engine, and you’ll quickly find that Salman Khan and his free online academy has been garnering quite a bit of national attention over the last year or so. We discovered him three years back, just before the big explosion (so we can say we knew him when). Khan offers 10ish minute lectures on various topics, talking over an interactive black screen where he draws out educational illustrations. He has produced more than 2,700 of these videos.

Though he talks on many different subjects, he has an interactive exercise component for his K-12 math lessons. The kids listen to a lecture, solve problems, and earn those sparkly badges I spoke of earlier this week. Moon badges, earth badges, meteorite badges, energy points. It’s pretty fabulous. The lessons start with 1+1 and move up through calculus, statistics, etc. One of the nice aspects of this program is that kids can choose from a variety of appropriately leveled maths. Sick of decimals? Then open up the charts and graphs exercise.

Here’s a sample lecture video:

Since Sal currently gives all of the lectures himself, you feel like you’re really getting to know him. It makes online learning feel more personal. Like Vi, Khan has his own youtube channel. But to take full advantage of the academy, create a free account on the Khan Academy website.

Oh, and here’s a screenshot of the star chart where you earn your sparkly badges:

Screenshot from Khan Academy - the progress star chart

Alcumus. This is another wonderful sparkly-badge option offered by The Art of Problem Solving (AoPS). Alcumus currently starts with pre-algebra and moves up from there, so this isn’t for the younger kids (I’ll get back to them in a minute). One of the nice things Alcumus offers is a thorough explanation of how to work each problem after you solve it. They provide this explanation whether or not you got the answer correct; this allows the student to see a variety of ways to reach the answer.

Alcumus links up with AoPS’s hefty textbooks instead of online lectures (although they do have a quite few of those too, hosted by the charming and witty Richard Rusczyk). If you’re stuck on a concept, you simply cross-reference the book for a complete explanation. Though the online program is free, the books are not. But really, we’ve done a lot of these problems without the backup textbooks. We are currently using their Algebra I text as our main math curriculum, but we enjoy Alcumus problems from their counting and probability topics too.

Like Khan, the problems get harder or easier depending on your progress. And there are special quests and sparkly badges.

Here’s a sample lecture:

And here’s a screen shot of the sparkly badge earning center.

Ian's Sparkly Badges on Alcumus

It’s important to note that the Alcumus problems and sparkly badges are not linked up to the videos – those are on a separate tab, and of course on their own youtube channel. He also does short videos called “MATHCOUNTS Minis” that are fun self-contained challenges. Be sure to check out their webpage.

DreamBox. And now for the K-3 crowd. I used this program with Eva last year, and she loooooooved it. She loved it so much that she still asks every month whether DreamBox has expanded their program to include grades higher than 3. In my research for this blog entry, I have joyfully discovered that in fact they will be expanding next month to include 4th and 5th grades.

DreamBox is very cute, offering peppy cartoon graphics that are admittedly geared to appeal to established gender stereotypes (you get four theme choices: pixies, pets, pirates, or dinosaurs). Still, Eva enjoyed playing all four areas, and to work your way through the curriculum, at some point you’ll have to play them all. When she worked with DreamBox, she begged for math class. And I was amazed to see how solid her understanding was of the concepts. It’s $60 for one child for 6 months, there are discounts for more children, and of course there are different rates for full classrooms. For us, it’s well worth the price.

Here’s a little video sample of a 2nd grade lesson in the pixie theme:

You can get a free 14 day trial, and play free demos on their website.

I’ll wrap up by offering a few more quick links to videos we’ve enjoyed using.

The Great Courses. College level DVD lectures given by some of the best university professors of our time. Pretty expensive, but I hit up library booksales to find them, and their website slowly rotates their complete collection through crazy good sales. You just have to be a bit patient and keep checking back. In math, we’ve particularly enjoyed the Joy of Mathematics by Arthur Benjamin.

The Story of Math. DVD set that Ian and I checked out from our public library and watched over a couple of weeks, munching mid-morning bagels and apple cider. What we learned: all of the great mathematicians were crazy, and you can’t study history or science without talking about the history of math. Loved the host and the real human stories. Plus the scenery was beautiful.

Bill Nye’s Solving for X. There seem to be only two of these DVDs so far, and I hope he produces more. Nothing deep here, just Bill Nye’s fun, manic way of getting kids to laugh about learning. He has one on pre-algebra, and one on algebra. Not worth purchasing necessarily, but see if your library has it.

Living Math Book List. And finally, I meant to include this on my last post about math books, but I forgot. You can use this blog to find math fiction titles by the concept you want to reinforce. It’s a great tool.

Bringing Math to Life With Fun(ky) Books

In my last post, I mentioned how in Ian’s first year of homeschooling we chose not to follow a traditional math curriculum, and instead just noodled around finding fun math stuff to explore. Today I’ll talk about some of the books we discovered; in my next post, I’ll share some media resources.

Ian with Arthur Benjamin in 2009

We started with the Great Mathemagician, Arthur Benjamin, whom we had seen perform the previous summer. A professor at Harvey Mudd College, Benjamin also tours the nation giving delightful performances that showcase his incredible ability in mental math. He starts small, squaring two-digit numbers, and eventually works his way up to squaring a five digit number, all in his head. He also has a mental method of figuring what day of the week any calendar date falls on, whether it’s in the past or future. He has a great time telling folks in the audience what day of the week their birth date was. It’s super fun, and you should check out his show, which I’ve conveniently embedded below.

Ian of course thought this was Epic, so we picked up his book Secrets of Mental Math, and for the first six months of homeschool, slowly worked our way through it. We held math class at the scenic university student lounge, overlooking miles of gentle hills and a spectacular, windy river. He was nine years old then. We read the lessons together, and I gave him problems to solve in his head. He paced all over that lounge, muttering and holding out his fingers. But nobody was there to witness it – at 8 am, most university students were either in bed or in class. Oh, and by the way, I always brought some hot apple cider and some little delectable munchie, and we would take breaks at the lounge ping-pong table. Really, those math classes were such a blast.

Over the months, we worked pretty far into the book. We never could master the biggest problems – even though Benjamin shares his secrets, he’s still quite simply a mathematical genius, and it takes a bit of time and talent to achieve what he has – but Ian picked up some fantastic mental math skills that will help him throughout his life. And it was FUN!

A genre of books I love to dig through is math fiction. There really are more great titles out there than most people realize, and they provide a great way to introduce or reinforce mathematical concepts in a friendly, entertaining format. Ian enjoyed The Number Devil by Hans Magnus Enzensberger – it’s a nice mix of good story, and colorful, fun illustrations. He also liked the Do the Math Series by Wendy Lichtman.

And then there are the Murderous Maths books, which Ian simply loves. They’re affordable paperbacks produced in the UK, but you can get them from my friend Ray at his website (tell him Gwyn sent you!). The Murderous Maths books explore math concepts with a wonderful British sense of humor; they’re made by the same folks who put out the Horrible History series (another must-have). We picked up the box set a couple of years back, and Ian goes back to them again and again.

I’m terribly excited to order the forthcoming Manga Guide to Linear Algebra, to be released in March of this year. The Manga Guide series is great, and I’m glad they’re releasing new titles. The books are mainly told in the manga style, neatly combining story with educational concepts. There are also sections of non-illustrated text to further explain the more difficult topics.

But perhaps your little math student is, well, a bit more little. No worries! The fun non-boring math genre is dominated by cute picture books geared toward the K-6 crowd. Let’s continue with our Manga theme by checking out Simon Basher’s Math: A Book You Can Count On. It features a simple layout of math concepts that will appeal to fans of trading card games and comic books. And there’s a cool tear-out poster in the back. We own tons of the Basher books, and their included posters are scattered all over the classroom. Chemistry, biology, rocks and minerals, space… they’ve got it covered.

I’m going to be honest here: the best way to find fun math selections (especially for your younger student) is to go to your public library and ask for them. At the branch where I work, we tend to put the math fiction in with the math non-fiction, particularly when the fiction is written specifically to demonstrate a particular concept. Sit. Spread out. Peruse. And don’t forget to do catalog searches. Ask your friendly librarian for help. Personally, I love those kinds of requests and will load an innocent patron down with more books than they can carry. I’ll include a few quick titles and series here, but honestly, there are simply too many to list.

Tang has a fun picture book series that teaches simple concepts. Why Pi? is a fabulous title by DK Publishing. Go Figure: The Book of Numbers by Johnny Ball (also published by DK) is equally fun. Lots of kids (though not necessarily mine) also enjoy the Sir Cumference series by Cindy Neuschwander.

And then there are the picture books about specific awesome mathematicians! Must reads include What’s Your Angle, Pythagorus? by Julie Ellis (she apparently has a follow-up title released in 2010) and Blockhead: The Life of Fibonacci by Joseph D’Agnese.

Now for the activity books and kits. Eva and I enjoyed the Hooked on Math kits that covered addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.They’re pretty expensive, so again, ask your library if they carry them, and if they don’t, make a formal request. That’s how we used them.

The cool base-ten blocks I checked out from the school district's media library.

As a general library patron, I have access not only to my local branch, but to materials located in libraries throughout our system, including our local university. And if I can’t what I need there, for a small fee I can request from any library across the nation. As a home educator, I can also check out materials through the public school district’s media library. Using all of these resources, I can get my hands on all sorts of expensive kits and equipment. I like using hands-on materials, but my budget is small. And, who really needs to own a full set of base-10 blocks? I found kits available on almost every math topic. The kids love opening up the treasures and playing the games inside.

I will add two final resources (is your head swimming yet?). The Critical Thinking Company produces lots of great puzzles that challenge kids in reading, math, and logic comprehension. Often we’ll solve these over lunch, on a white board of course. And if you still need more, check out EAI Education. They have catalogs packed with more math toys than you could possibly ever use (and frankly I will say for both of these companies, request a catalog – they’re much easier on the eyes than their websites). Have fun!

MathQuest!: Building Fairies and Warriors with Math Points

During our first year of homeschool, I spent a lot of time trying various educational approaches to see what the kids liked and what didn’t really do it for them. It was (and is) very important to me that they enjoy “school;” this doesn’t mean that they never have to buckle down and just do the work whether or not they want to. But I really don’t want to hear them groan when it’s time for a particular subject matter. If they’re groaning, then perhaps it’s time for a new approach.

For a while, math was something the kids loved. Eva was six when we started homeschooling, and the concepts we covered were pretty basic. Ian was so far ahead in math when he left public school that I took a break from the traditional math trajectory and explored lots of interesting math tangents (and yes, that pun is intended). We used a variety of books, videos and online math resources, which I’ll discuss in the next two posts. The interactive websites offered digital badges for math success which the kids ate up – they still love solving the computer-generated problems simply to earn the badges. It’s brilliant.

But the next year I decided that we needed to get back to a more traditional math course. The kids, unsurprisingly, weren’t all that thrilled about the idea. Textbooks? You’ve got to be kidding! We don’t use textbooks in homeschool! Which is true. We don’t. But I felt the need in this one topic area. We trudged along for little while, and nobody was very happy. They both wanted to do the online math problems instead, which offered the sparkly badges.

I can make sparkly badges, I thought.

No. The kids can make sparkly badges. Yes! I like this better. Less work for me, more fun for them. We shall take two weeks of math class to create a math motivation game and we shall call it MathQuest.

I thought about Guildwars (Ian’s favorite video game) – how he starts with a character and through achieving different quests earns cool weapons and clothes. The kids picked one character each (Ian picked a Guildwars warrior, and Eva picked a fairy) and came up with stuff they could buy for him/her. Ian jumped on Guildwars Wiki, which had lots of pictures he downloaded and turned into his shop inventory. For Eva, we pulled out How to Draw and Paint Fairies by Linda Ravenscroft; we scanned and copied many of its beautiful pictures and supplemented with fairy house images from the beautiful books Fairy Houses and Fairy Houses and Beyond, both by Tracy Kane.

Using our scanner and photo editors, we made all the images the same general proportion. I sent them off to our local print shop for printing and lamination. Then we brought the pieces home and cut them all out. Ian and Eva decided to create five levels – you can only buy certain items if you’ve achieved the corresponding level (and the basic character gets cooler the higher you get). The kids priced all their pieces, making items in higher levels more expensive (inflation!). Then they sorted the items by type (pets, homes, weapons, magical items, fairy wings, clothing, etc.) and put them into labeled envelopes. Finally, we stuck everything up on a big bulletin board. Below is a picture of the whole thing; there are more close-ups at the end of this post.

The complete setup. Ian's character and inventory is on the left; Eva's is on the right. The gold is kept in the middle.

This is our second year using MathQuest. The kids earn one point for each problem they work, whether or not it’s correct. Extra points are granted for positive attitudes. At the end of the math lesson, I convert these points into gold (as the kids priced their items separately, I have to take different exchange rates into account, so 10 points for Eva might be worth 500 gold, whereas 10 points for Ian might be worth only 400).

Although ultimately MathQuest has never been able to completely compete with the online math games, it’s been a lot of fun, and the kids have never lost interest. Textbook work is now relatively enjoyable. At the end of each math session, they take their earnings and make their purchases (oh my, more math!!). They can sell an item back for 50% of its value, and they get an additional gold bonus when they change levels. We’re almost at the end of the game – they’re both level 5 characters now, and will have soon purchased everything possible. That’s ok – we’ll find something else to do. Two years of magic isn’t a bad deal, especially when the whole thing cost me about $10.

And now for the step by step photos:

Eva's character; her gold is on the left; purchased items on the right. Clothes and wings are placed directly on the character.

Ian's character; he keeps his gold in his inventory pack to the left of his warrior.

Eva's basic character, with a basic set of wings. The wings are separate from the body (this allows her to purchase more fancy wings later).

The first set of clothing Eva bought. Note the punched holes at the top.

The holes in the clothes line up with the holes in the wings pieces. They slide over the pins quite nicely.

The fully dressed fairy. Wings go first, then the body, then the clothes.

Eva can also change the face and hair look, just by buying different heads.

The new head fits right over the basic body, covering the original head.

The completed new-headed fairy.

The money. The kids made silver and gold pieces. The large pieces have a higher value than the small.

The kids wrote the values on the backs of the money. Likewise, all items have prices written on the backs.

The items in Eva's pets envelope. Every item has a hole at the top so they can pin them up next to their characters. The single digit number represents what level the character must be at to purchase the item. The larger number is the price in gold pieces.

Kids Teaching Kids

One of the greatest gifts I can give my kids is the assurance that adults don’t know it all – we’re not experts at everything, and we don’t necessarily know more than kids do, except for those instances that simply require extended life experience. Whether I like it or not, I offer this lesson repeatedly simply by being a home educator. I don’t remember the finer points of algebra, or what order certain history events take place – sometimes the three of us research these things together, sometimes I read ahead and report my findings to them, and sometimes I assign the research to the kids so that they can fill me in!

I talk a lot about instilling confidence and educational ownership into my kids, providing them opportunities to become experts in their own interests and then to share that expertise with others. Today they got to share with a wonderful group of sixth graders at Dorothy Moses Elementary School. One of the teachers contacted me before the holidays and requested Eva to come to her class as a kid-author and Ian to come into another class as a kid-game inventor. This is how it went down:

There are three sixth grade classes at Dorothy Moses, ranging from about 15-20 students each (I’m guessing here; I didn’t count). Before the holidays, the three classes watched all of Eva’s writing clips and then wrote letters to Eva telling her what they thought of the videos and asked a few questions. Eva read through all of the letters (that was a super-fun day!) and compiled a list of the kids’ questions.

For the Big Day, the teachers rearranged the school schedule to ensure that the entire morning was free from interruptions. They placed Ian in one classroom and Eva in another, right across the hall. The three classes were scheduled to rotate through Eva’s and Ian’s rooms with a teacher-led class as the third rotation; each class period was 50 minutes long. After chatting with the teachers for a few minutes and getting generally set up, the students filed in. Eva’s public speaking ability and confidence has sky-rocketed this year, but she’s still learning the craft, and I felt it was important to be with her to provide moral support, occasional clarity, and conversational questions to the students to keep them involved in the discussion.

That meant Ian, being the more experienced public speaker, had to do this on his own. He’s done a number of presentations over the past couple of years and long ago quit needing my active support. But still – giving a 10 minute presentation and running a class of age-peers are quite different experiences. It felt odd just dropping him off and not being there even to observe!

But the morning was fabulous. Eva began her presentation by going through the questions; having a structured format seemed to help her get warmed up. After about 20 minutes, the discussion opened up to further Q&A. I was so pleased by the active engagement of the students. Hands shot up, and they asked tons of great questions – many about the finer aspects of story telling and publishing, some about the book tour, others about what it’s like to be homeschooled and grade-skipped, and one kid who has obviously fallen into his own passion with the trumpet asked her lots of questions about choosing that instrument (she has recently begun trumpet lessons). We talked about stories they had started and/or finished, and how they went about writing and sharing them. We shared favorite books (The Hunger Games was almost unanimously #1) and discussed good and not-so-good movie adaptations.

Eva's using her laptop to refer to her list of questions

In the other room, Ian followed his rehearsed class-flow. He began by talking about his invention process – how he got his idea, when he started, and how he developed, tested, and revised. He stood in front of a projection of his website so he could also discuss marketing. After telling his story he gave the class a demonstration of the game, explaining the science and math behind his animal trading cards. We only have two prototypes left, so after his demonstration he called for four player volunteers (enough for two games) and split the class into two groups so they could observe and participate in the game play. According to Ian, the kids in his class also had lots of questions – some were about the game play and production, some were about homeschool and grade-skipping, and some were about his being a musician. There certainly seemed to be consistent themes across the classrooms.

Kids volunteering to play the game

The game demonstration

Our hope with these presentations is to spread a sense of empowerment and courage to other kids in their passions, no matter what those passions are. Eva’s favorite question was “Do you want to grow up to be an author?” After pausing a moment she said, “Well, yes and no. I don’t want to grow up to be an author. I’m an author now. And you can be one too.” I love that.

She’ll get another opportunity to spread this message very soon, because I am happy to announce that on February 17, Eva will Skype into two North Dakota classrooms as a part of the seventh annual Read Across North Dakota event. Through video conferencing, she’ll be able to offer the same type of presentation that she gave today. It will be Fabulous.

Fabulous Gifts for the Brainy and Thoughtful Kid

Holiday shopping time is upon us, and my last year’s book recommendation post was so popular, I thought I’d put it out there again for those of you who want meaningful, enriching gift ideas for your kids. Each title is a hyperlink that will take you to the product. This time I’m going to add some games, because my family loves games, and I think that in many ways they are as important as books in nurturing a child’s development. Games teach strategy and analysis, but also cooperation and sportsmanship. And they bring the family to the table. Enough said!

Games

Settlers of Catan: Man, I love this game. It’s for 4 people, though you can buy the 5-6 player extension pack. The object is settling and developing a small island, which is comprised of various resources you use for your building projects. You settle the land, and then are able to use the resources you’ve claimed to build more settlements and cities. You can also trade with other players. It’s easy to learn, and super fun. Ages 7 or 8 and up.

Heroscape: This one isn’t my favorite, but if you ask my 11 year old son, he’ll discuss it for hours. It’s Dungeons and Dragons (characters with attributes and special skills) meets Lego (a pieced board that you can build and rebuild in an endless variety of landscapes). Ian absolutely loves it. There are a lot of different basic game sets, and though I’ve linked to one in particular, I don’t think it matters much which one you start with. Later on, you can purchase expansion packs to add characters and interesting landscape features. The basic sets are also kind of pricey, so you may want to try ebay.

Contraptions: This kit is a recent discovery for me. Basically, it’s a box full of small wooden planks, a couple of ping-pong balls and an idea book. But what a world it’s opened for the kids! You stack the planks to make all sorts of interesting mazes, staircases, trampolines and more, and then run the balls through your creation. The kids started out building the models in the book, but have quickly moved on to build their own ideas. We started with the box of 50, but Ian in particular is begging for the 200 count box.

Both kids insisted that I mention Pokemon. This fad began for them about 6 years ago, and you’d think they would have moved on by now. But no. They not only collect the cards, they also play the game again and again. Beyond that, they play “Pokemon” in their imaginative play, having virtual battles in the yard. Pokemon was the initial inspiration “Animal Attack,” the game that Ian’s been developing for almost 3 years now.

Picture Books (I narrowed down my list this year to include only those that are truly my favorites):

On Meadowview Street by Henry Cole. This is a fun story about a family who decides to late nature reclaim their yard, reaps the benefits of their diverse new ecosystem, and inspires their neighbors to do the same. As a result of this book, we let a large portion of yard do the same thing, and we now have a lovely meadow full of happy little critters.

Mattland by Hazel Hutchins. This beautifully illustrated book explores building community through creative endeavors. It’s about a new kid who collects friends simply by creating an imaginative city in the mud. I especially love the fact that he builds using whatever’s around him. Transforming.

Bashful Bob and Doleful Dorinda by Margaret Atwood. This is simply one of my favorites for its joyful romp through language. An alliterative masterpiece, the book is also notable for its illustrations. The artist uses color to represent the nature and transformation of each character.

The Dunderheads by Paul Fleischman. This story’s strengths are built on the fabulous characters that rule the narrative. Each kid is eccentric in his or her own way, and these eccentricities – these passions and talents – prove extremely useful in their collective mission to outsmart their Evil Teacher. I love this book for its celebration of seemingly obscure interests.

Zen Shorts by Jon Muth. The book’s plot is very simple: it’s about a panda who teaches sweet lessons to a small group of kids. I think I love him so much because he’s so patient, even when the kids aren’t behaving beautifully, and it served as a great model for me as a parent. The stories the panda tells can open up some interesting discussions about ethics as it relates to personal contentment.

Non-Fiction Choices

Please forgive me. These books aren’t in order by genre, and as librarian, this bugs me. But it’s too tricky to reformat it all to make it worth my while. You’ll find books heavy in the fantasy, science, math, and history genres here. If you want suggestions in other topics, let me know.

Horrible Histories/Murderous Maths My friend Ray runs the bookshop linked here (tell him I sent you!). You can’t buy these books just anywhere, as they are produced and available (aside from Ray’s shop),  only in the UK.  The series (there are also Horrible Science books, and some great biographies too) is written with a wonderful, slightly sick sense of humor that has huge appeal for my son. The Horrible History books highlight the truly horrible things that take place in history, but present them in such a way that the reader is laughing while being disgusted. This combo – presenting shocking information while making the reader laugh – is pure gold, kind of Monty Python-esque. Ian’s recently been diving into his Murderous Maths books too, on his own. They’re that entertaining!

Fantasy: An Artist’s Realm by Ben Boos. Fantasy is packed with beautiful artwork depicting Boos’ own fantasy world. These are character, landscape, and weapon sketches, and a general backstory of what Ian calls “an elaborately created world.” Ian has spent a lot of hours pouring over this book, creating his own stories that could unfold in the pages.

How to See Faeries by Brian Froud. This one is one of Eva’s favorites. She’s a self-proclaimed fairyologist, and loves to collect encyclopedia-type books on the topic. Froud of course is the master of the fairy world, and in this book he reopens his imagination to appeal to a slightly younger crowd than those typically drawn to Good Fairies/Bad Fairies. It’s full of interactive components – hidden messages, paper cutouts, mirrors and magical signs – that help the reader see the mysterious fey.

Brainwaves series published by Dorling Kindersley. Eva loves these books, which cry out to be explored often and at length. There’s one on space, the human body, chemistry, animals, exploration, and geography. Tiny cartoon characters called the Brainwaves lead the reader in depth through each topic. In my mind, I keep seeing the illustrations made into jigsaw puzzles – there are dozens of the little characters on every page, telling facts, having funny interactions with each other, and generally being entertaining.

Take Me Back: A Trip Through History from the Stone age to the Digital Age published by Dorling Kindersley. I stand by my recommendation for this publishing company in general – they produce beautiful books. I like this one as a rollicking journey through history with every page a different and visually stimulating theme – emperor trading cards, Barbarian Beat-em-Up, royalty as chess pieces – what’s not to love? We’ve owned it for a couple of years now, and the kids keep referring back to it.

Philosophy for Kids: 40 Questions That Help You Wonder About Everything! by David White. Philosophy for Kids is organized in short chapters that explore famous philosophers. The narratives are followed up by discussion-provoking questions; it provides great opportunities to spice up your dinner time conversations! And if you love it, he also wrote a sequel.

Why Pi? by Dorling Kindersley. Great fun for math fans; visually and verbally stimulating; my son devoured this book again and again. Combine this with a few Murderous Maths books, and you’ll have a happy number-crunching kid. While you’re at it, make sure your math lover knows about Arthur Benjamin and his Mathemagics show. Well worth a watch!

Can You Feel the Force? Putting the Fizz Back Into Physics by Dorling Kindersley. Another winner from DK. Its format is similar to Why Pi?: full of bright illustrations, and fun explorations of physics fundamentals. These books invite kids to peruse on their own. They make fabulous car companions. The library’s copy is currently floating around our house, being picked up by one kid and then the other.

Raucous Royals: Test Your Royal Wits – Crack Codes, Solve Mysteries, and Deduce Which Royal Rumors Are True by Carlyn Beccia. A superbly fun book that explores the royals in a slightly irreverent manner. Each royal is presented with his or her dominate rumor or mystery. The pages that follow provide the evidence and the verdict. Kind of like Mythbuster meets history.

I know I will curse myself in the coming weeks for forgetting this or that wonderful item. But I hope you will enjoy this list and can find some gems in it to share this holiday season!