After we got back from the Hot Air Balloon Fiesta, the boys wanted to make a hot air balloon craft. I didn't know how to go about making it, so I googled it up and found this website with clear instructions. So, I took the 2 balloons that were lying around the house and the boys painted it with glue.
Sticking the paper kitchen towels.
Painting the balloon
His balloon broke while he was painting it. Poor thing!
Completed and hung from a hanging lamp. The basket was made with a yoghurt cup, which was glued with parcel string.The boys put a small man inside the basket.
S is now interested in astronomy and outer space, after having been to Planetarium Negara and Planetarium Melaka. Without me asking him, he can name the various planets' name. Yesterday, he used different types of containers to outline circles to draw planets. He wanted to do planet craft yesterday, but there wasn't time, so I told him that we could do it the next day. I got him to draw a picture of the Sun instead. We looked at some pictures of the sun on the internet, and I was quite surprised to find that the sun's colours are mostly reddish-orange. "This sun is blue" S said pointing to a blue sun.
Today, he told me that he wanted to do planets craft. I went online to look for some crafts but couldn't find any suitable ones. He asked me to do a Mars rover after looking at this website. So, I printed out a picture of the Mars rover and tried to make it from the recyclable materials that we had around the house.
I also came across a picture of planets. They were in the correct size in the solar system. I printed them out, then cut it. S stuck the pictures in order on the wall above his bed. The Sun is not the correct size, but I didn't have a larger paper than that. I'll have to get a larger paper to draw the sun.
The planets according to scale, except for the sun. The sun is much larger than that.
After that, I read to him about the Sun and Mercury. Then he viewed some youtube videos on planets. He prefers to look at the planet size comparison on youtube. When I watched this video, I was shocked to find that the size of earth (12,756 km( in diameter is very small in relation to the sun (1,392,000 km). And our sun pales in comparison to other larger planets such as the following:
Sirius: 2,335,000 km
Vega: 4,315,000 km
Pollux: 11,120,000 km
Arcturus: 22,101,000 km
Aldebaran: 59,770,000 km
Rigel: 97,300,000 km
Deneb: 201,550,000 km
Pistol Star: 450,520,000 km
Betelgeuse: 903,500,000 km
Antares: 1,330,000,000 km
VV Cephaei: 2,644,800,000 km
I signed the boys up for 3 school holiday workshops organised by Pusat Sains Negara, KL in the month of December.
The first workshop we attended was an Eco 3D puzzle craft workshop by Ms Saki Sasamori, from Japan. She has been living in Malaysia for the past 10 years and is fluent in Bahasa Malaysia. She has written several crafts book in Bahasa Malaysia which is sold at bookstores in Malaysia.
Participants were taught to make a 3D puzzle from old juice cartons. The cartons have to be washed and cleaned first before being used.
First, fold the carton flat and cut out the top section, together with the bottle cover.
Divide the carton equally into 3 sections and cut it.
Tear out the part that adjoins the carton and open it up
Fold it the other way round. Then stick the ends together.
Open
Closed
Draw circles on the 6 sides
To play the puzzle, open up the box into the 3 sections below, and close back the box, ensuring that all the sides of the box have the circles. If it doesn't have all the circles, then the puzzle is done incorrectly. This is a fun game made from simple recyclable materials. Very ingenious!
