LightUp Edison Kit Review and Discount Code

Have you tried the LightUp Kits? They are wonderfully innovative kits that introduce electricity concepts in a hands on way to kiddos!

I even love the pun on the names of the kits!

The kits are called Edison and Tesla, after Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla — both giants of electrical engineering whose innovations changed our lives. But Edison and Tesla were also famous rivals! Edison insisted his own system (DC) was superior, whereas Tesla thought AC was the technology to use. This conflict between the methods and their masters was known as the War of Currents!

Even the name of the kits are brimming with learning :)

So naturally, I decided to get them. The kits have wonderful reviews, and the LightUp App that is part of the kit intrigued me. I think the app is the first-ever interactive augmented-reality tutor app. Combine a real time app with electronics building blocks, and you have a winner!

I decided to start with the Edison Kit. Full disclosure: I was given a blogger discount, but I would have purchased the set anyway :) All opinions are my own.
And you, my reader, get a discount as well!! 


With magnetic blocks that snap together, you can build circuit in seconds, truly. Download the LightUp Learning App and get ready for some fun (and learning!)

LightUp blocks included in the Edison Kit: 
Rechargeable Battery, Red LED, Buzzer, Light Sensor, Momentary Switch, 50k Variable Resistor, 4 Wire blocks, and Micro USB Cable.

Note that every block is just ONE COMPONENT. The blocks are not higher level modules. So the kids start with the basic building blocks of circuits.



Let's get started with the first circuit, the Morse Code Beeper. Start your App.


The App is an interactive tutor that guides you through the process (all the steps, the components you need, why you need them, and how you connect them), checks your work, and helps you figure out what went wrong and how to fix it.
For this circuit, we needed battery, switch, buzzer, and wire.
This screenshot explains battery. Love the nice crisp explanation that kids can understand! 

 
After you are done building the circuit, use the LightUp App to check your circuit. The boys were super-excited by this stage! Just take a picture and see what the App does.

LightUp Lens, the in-app augmented reality feature, gives the kids "X-ray" vision by letting them "see" the flow of electricity, and more importantly, helps them out when things don't work!

Spiderman is 5, and Batman is 7, so I did not have much in the way of expectations from Spiderman, but boy o boy was I surprised...
The kit intrigued them in different ways. 

Spiderman loved making the circuit. He snapped the blocks, made the circuit stand up instead of flat on the ground, and used the Morse Code to signal everything he could think of! He is an expert at Morse Codes now!


Batman (who has worked with littleBits and Snap Circuits) was not as awed by the making of the circuit itself. He loved the Morse Codes as well. But he was most interested in finding out whether the App can detect mistakes in your circuit (which it totally can!!!)
He read about all the components, messed up the circuit to see what the App would detect, what corrections it would suggest and why!!

Both loved the "flow of electricity" in the App.  The circuit animations are crucial to helping kids understand not just what pieces to connect together, but how the circuit works.

The kit is an impressive blend of learning, ease of construction with the magnetic blocks, and technology that holds everything together withe App that is sure to appeal to this generation of kids!

Projects you can make with the Edison Kit includes a Morse code buzzer, night light, dimmer switch, and lunch box alarm. 
Concepts you learn from tinkering with this kit: circuits, conductivity, voltage, current, resistance, sensors, LEDs etc.


See the complete list of Edison Projects.   


Once you have played and learned with the Edison Kit, upgrade to the Tesla Kit and work on projects that teach kids how to code. Batman has already asked me for the Tesla kit!

Now for the discount code!

Go to the LightUp website, use the code "taketen", and get 10% off.

Nature ABC Walk and Case Files for Nature Detectives

ABC Walk

After reading the book we are going on a Bear Hunt, Spiderman decided - it's a beautiful day outside, and we are going on an ABC Hunt! 
Why not? We love going on walks. Short ones, long ones, on feet, bikes, or scooters. Alphabet hunt sounds even better! Batman was given the task of recording observations. We decided to start with our backyard.
Don't forget your camera or phone, and nature bags to bring home the samples.

• A - apples, ants, acorns (asphalt - discounted by Batman as it is man made)

A for Apples!

Honeysuckle with Bees

• B- bug, bee, bark, buds, birds, butterfly
• C - caterpillar, crow, cloud, cat, car, creek
• D - dandelion, dog
• E - earth, eggs (from a bird's nest), eagle
• F - flower, fern, fly, feather
• G - grass, green leaves, gravel,
• H - hummingbird, honeysuckle
• I -  inchworm, iguana (if we had spotted one)
• J - jasmine
• K - kite, katydid (I don't think we spotted one, Batman did say that they are active at night, as he seemed to know something about it, I let it slide!)

L for Lizard

• L - leaves, lemon, lady bug, lizard



O for Orange Leaves

• M - mud, maple, mulch, moss

• N - nest
• O - orange leaves, owl (if we had gone out at night)
• P - pumpkins (decorations for fall), purple flower, (poop - from dogs, lol!), pine cones, palm trees, parachute seed, plants

R for Rose

• R - rose, rabbit

S for Snail

• S - stones, stump, seeds, squirrel, sun, snails, spiders, sand
• T - tree, twigs, trails made by above mentioned snails
• V - vine



W for web

• W - wind, water, weeds, worms, web
• Y - yellow flowers

The kids hypothesized that if we had gone for a nature walk near the lake, we would have seen dragonflies, frogs, fishes, turtles, ducks, tadpoles etc. All true!

Spiderman's thought - we should have taken a nature walk in the zoo, mom, then it would be real easy to come up with something for all the letters!

Here is a great extension to the ABC Nature Hunt:Make an ABC Nature book

Nature walks are great opportunities to engage all your senses. Here are some extensions.

 

Sound Walk

Extend your nature walk to a sound walk.What kinds of sounds do you hear? You can leave it open ended, asking them to record/draw 5 sounds for example.
Or you can have a checklist - 

1. Do you hear the wind?
2. Rustling of leaves?
3. Birds chirping?
4. Cars swooshing by? 
5. TV blaring?
6. Dogs barking?
7. Cats meowing?
8. Leaves crunching?
9. Baby crying?

Sensory Walk 

Feel the bark of the tree. How does it feel. Now feel the petals. Run through grass, wiggle your toes in the sand box, dip your feet in the creek, feel the sun on your back, and the wind in your hair...

Nature Detectives

We had so much fun, and Spiderman and Batman had so many questions to ask and observations to make, we decided to organize things a bit more for our next nature walk.
Presenting ...

Case Files for Nature Detectives

1. Space to record your ABC Nature Hunt from A to S - write or draw!
2. Sound Hunt
3. Two pages for Texture Hunt
4. Smell Hunt
5. Color Hunt
6. Color graph (see if their predictions match up with the graph)
7. Leaf rubbing page
8. Sorting - Plants or Animals
9. Venn Diagram - Living, Non-living, and Once-Living
10. A page to record the weather.

Download it for free, and have fun detecting and learning.
Please Note: This version is for personal use only. Teachers, please see my TpT Store.
 
The wonderful clip-art is from My Cute Graphics.

 

Water Level Experiment Inspired by Literature!

Learn with Literature!

Water level experiment inspired by literature!

Batman loves to read stories from Panchatantra. 
Panchatantra is essentially a collection of animal fables, that are generally accompanied with a moral and philosophical teaching, compiled together by a very learned scholar, Pandit Vishnu Sharma, more than 2,000 years ago! They have passed the test of time with flying rainbow colors :)

It is one of the most frequently translated literary products of India and these stories are supposedly amongst the most widely known in the world. Originally written to impart wisdom to some "dud" sons of a king around 200 B.C., they are still traveling around the world, enlightening and enchanting readers, young and old! 

At least, that is certainly the case in my house! Batman and Spiderman both love the stories. Some of them are a bit violent for younger kids, and I generally skip over them. Some I modify a bit. But the stories still have the power to enthrall my boys.

Here is the story in short which inspired our water level experiment, and a whole water unit (in a separate post).

Thirsty Crow

Once upon a time, a very thirsty crow was flying in search of water. After a long search, all he could find was a tiny bit of water inside an earthen pot/pitcher. But the water level was too low. The poor crow could not reach the water with his beak. Nor could he tip over the pitcher, which was too heavy. The crow, about to give up in despair, noticed some pebbles lying around the pitcher. He decided to drop the pebbles, one at a time, until the water level had risen high enough for him to reach with his beak! Hurray for the crow. The story teaches us several things - where there is a will, there is way; necessity  is the mother of invention.

Water Level Experiment

Now that we have all the context, onwards with the experiment. Batman had read this story a while back, so it was not fresh in his mind, on purpose. To set up the experiment, we had a cup of water (a pitcher or a vase with a narrow opening is better to imitate the story!) with color of choice, and some pebbles, big and small and a kitchen scale.
At first, I presented Batman with just the cup of water, and asked him if he could think of  a way we could make the water level rise for the thirsty crow. He immediately said pebbles. 
Out came the pebbles, along with kitchen scale. And my little scientist got his "notebook" for recording stuff, and a marker to mark the water level, on his own, I might add!

 Then we got to work. Batman marked the existing level of water with a marker as "1". We measured the big pebbles first. Batman noted the number, and I explained that the weight is between 4 and 5 ounces, or unit. Then we dropped the pebbles in the cup, the water rose, and we marked it with "2". 


 
Then we measured the the small pebbles, we kept on putting pebbles on the scale till we got to 4.5 oz again.
Hypothesis - if we take the big pebbles out, where will the water level be? If we put the small pebbles we measured, where will the water level be? 
Batman was spot on. He told me that the water level came up to 2 in both cases because the big pebbles and the small pebbles both showed the same "number" on the scale. The crow must have chosen a few big pebbles rather than a lot of small pebbles, because he was a smart crow!!

Level 2 - with either the small or the big pebbles, and Level 3 - with both big and small pebbles. We guesstimated that the distance between 1 and 2, and 2 and 3 is about the same!! 

 




We digressed into other fun stuff with water after that, but that will keep for another post at another time!!

If you are interested, you can find some stories from Panchatantra online for free here. These translations are a bit pedestrian, lacking the richness of the prose and the poetry.

I also found some on Amazon.  I did not see the book that I own on Amazon, but the ones there looked good.


Shared at:
Link & Learn, Montessori Monday, Made by Little Hands, Afterschool Linkup

Seven Segment LEDs

Isn't it amazing how much kids notice? And pay attention to?
We had a great conversation about something I never would have thought of introducing to a 5 year old - Seven Segment LEDs!!

Batman was checking the time out on the oven, and after a minute or so, he came and told me, Mamma, did you know there is an "8" behind all the numbers on the microwave and oven? But they are not all lighted up :)

How true! So I talked to him about seven segment LEDs, about how a "chip" controls which segments to light up to make the right numbers.

He totally got it. And then he wanted to make his own number.

He got why they are "seven segment" even before we started making our own numbers :)

Seven Segment LED 8

I cut up the coffee stirrers, and we went to work making the numbers with just seven of them. He was way ahead of the game, after making the numbers, he wanted to see how many letters he could make with them. 
 The "B" looks just like "8", so maybe we should display "b" instead?
 

Seven Segment LED "b"

 
Then we went around the house to check what else uses these LEDs.
Alarm clocks, DVD players, music systems....

One thing he did not ask me, was what LED stands for. When I told him about it, he said with a shrug, I did not know it was the short form of something :)
Duh, of course not, silly mom!

Do  you follow the lead of your child? What interesting adventures do you embark on with your child?


Linked up to:
Link & Learn, Montessori Monday, Eco-Kids Tuesday

Science Behind the Shamrock Green

Science Experiment with water and colors

Here is an experiment that takes minutes to set up in your kitchen. In honor of St. Patrick's Day, we are going with the green theme!

We are going to learn some science, along with colors. 
Get three cups. Fill two of them with water, about 2/3rd.
Get your scientist to put in a few drops of yellow food coloring in one, and a few drops of blue in the other one. The two cups should have the same amount of water.

Set the two cups, with the empty one in between the two. Roll two paper towels (or cut a big one in half). Place of the first towel in the blue cup, and the other end in the empty cup. One end of the second towel goes in the yellow cup, and the other in the empty cup. The towels should be just long enough to make a bridge between the cups, otherwise, the magic takes longer.

While you wait for the magic, get your scientists to predict what might happen. What will happen to the paper towel dipped in the water? What will happen to the empty cup? What will happen to the cups full of water?


In about 6-10 minutes, hey presto!!

Blue + Yellow = Green

The  scientists just saw "capillary action" in action! The water gets absorbed through the fiber of the paper towel, and makes its way to the empty cup across the paper towel bridge!!
The water level in all 3 cups is the same.
That might be enough for younger kids. Or you could take it further. I talked to Batman about the similar process by which water makes its way from the roots to the rest of the plant. We are going to do same experiment with white carnations and some colored water next to demonstrate this principle in action. 

More variations on this theme are here.