We’re having a lazy Saturday. The weather isn’t too flash and we have a big day planned for tomorrow, so I decided i’d make up for not posting much lately!
We did a lot of outside stuff earlier in the week, as we didn’t want to waste the good weather, but later this week we’re back to Winter….and there’s been a lot of screen-time, of various screens and various media…
Yesterday we walked up the road to see a book launch for a local Landcare group, and we had heard they were going to have some native animals to look at. Unfortuntely our source got the time wrong, and when we arrived the animals were just leaving! But, Kai did get to see a frogmouth, a baby croc and a bettong – which was pretty cool! We didn’t stay for long during the launch, because Kai was bored and couldn’t stop talking!
On the way home, we noticed all the spring blossoms out, and wondered why so many were yellow. So, when we got home, we did some research….
So, yellow only looks yellow to us, because we can only see in the visible spectrum of light. But bee’s and other pollinating insects can see in the UV spectrum, and yellow plants look much more inviting (to a bee!) under UV. I won’t post pics from this site, as that’d be copyright infringement, but i truly suggest you take a look – the photo’s of yellow flowers (and flowers of other colours) in UV are AMAZING!!
We also found some other cool info about colour, light and animals, including this site, and also this one.
But, like i said, the past few days have been screen heavy. We rented Kung-Fu Panda game for Windows from the library, and Kai’s been loving that. And I also uploaded the free Angry Birds demo for windows too….
It’s an interesting game….Angry Birds….any unschooling parent (well, who doesn’t hve an aversion to screen time!) would immediately see the complex maths and geometry behind the game…
In short. You use a sling-shot to shoot a bird (who is very angry) at pigs who make themselves various structures to keep them safe. Your bird flies in a curve, and the angle at which you pull your bird in the sling-shot is very important!
Kai’s already figured out how important the whole angle thing is to success in smashing the pigs, and the great thing about it is that it actually draws the trajectory of your last curve so you can adjust your angle next time. Seriously. It’s unschooling geometry at its best! Particularly for a visual learer!
So, you might not believe me. Here are a few posts and blogs about Angry Birds, physics, and geometry…..
Angry birds in a physics exam…
Angry birds in the primary classroom…
I like this last idea, although i’m not sure it’s something Kai’ll go for, but we do have a protractor, so i might strew it about and see what happens!
There are so many things children (and adults too) can learn from games. Pretty much everyone I know loves angry birds : )