Sunday, April 19, 2009
Saturday, March 07, 2009
Invented Instruments - Update
This story appeared on NPR today:
[Ranjit] Bhatnagar spent the month of February handcrafting a different musical instrument each day — 28 in all — as part of an online challenge called Thing-A-Day, which asks artists, inventors and anyone with a love of crafts to create something new every day for an entire month and document the process.Visit Bhatnagar's website to see and hear his creations!
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
Making (Weird) Music -- Homemade Musical Instruments
Making (Weird) Music -- Homemade Musical InstrumentsOne of the wonderful things about the Internet is stumbling upon areas of creativity you didn’t even know existed. I was looking for some musical crafts for kids (more on that later) when I discovered a whole world of hobbyists and artists who invent amazing musical instruments. Of course, homemade instruments are as old as the hollow reed, the washtub bass, and the one-man band. But these folks have taken recycled art to a whole new level.
Consider balloon player Judy Dunaway. Since 1990, Dunaway, who has a Ph.D. in music composition, has written over forty works for what most of us consider a party toy. Some links to audio samples (you may want to preview first) show how much more you can do with this “instrument” than mere squeaks. And if you caught the exhibit of Ken Butler’s “hybrid instruments” a few years ago at MASS MoCA in North Adams, MA (many of which can be glimpsed on his website), you know what results when you cross a telephone and a violin, or a checkerboard and a guitar. Perhaps the best-known instrument-inventors around are the members of the Blue Man Group. Their website includes details about such PVC-pipe creations as the “drumbone.” Then there’s Benjamin Franklin – statesmen, author, scientist, musical innovator. After hearing a concert played on wine glasses, Franklin came up with the “armonica,” a series of spinning glass bowls that allow the performer to create eerie chords. Dr. Mesmer used the armonica to induce hypnosis, and in the 1800s it was said to drive some listeners insane. Learn all about the armonica, try a virtual version, and listen to its sound, if you dare, at The Franklin Institute’s website.
If you’re looking for more, the website Oddmusic lives up to its name with a gallery of “unique, unusual, ethnic, or experimental” instruments, from the Stalacpipe Organ, to the Stroviols Ukulele, which looks like it’s got a tuba grafted onto it, to the Serpentine Bassoon, an electronic instrument made of red leather that resembles a Chinese dragon and sounds like an out-of-tune orchestra. One of my family’s favorite weird instruments, an early electronic device called the Theremin (think of the Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations” or the soundtrack of the sci-fi classic, “Forbidden Planet”), has its own mini-section here. Another site, Experimental Musical Instruments, features on its gallery includes such wonders as the Video Octavox, an eight-armed device which sits on, and interacts with, a TV. (I couldn’t get the audio clips to play, but the images alone are worth a visit.)
Ready to build some instruments of your own? The kids’ section of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra website has make-at-home projects like a soda bottle Buzzing “Brass” Mouthpiece that demonstrate how the different members of the orchestra work. It’s a lively site with lots of pictures and audio samples of instruments, information on music theory and even games about composers, so be sure to look around while you’re there.
Then there’s John Bertles’s New York City-based group Bash the Trash, which teaches kids to make their own instruments from junk. Instructions are provided for both simple (shaker, horn, rubber-band guitar) and more complex (styrocello, thumb piano) instruments. More Bertles projects can also be found at the Instrument Lab section of the New York Philharmonic’s website for kids. Mudcat, a site about folk music and blues, has directions for a variety of blowers, including the garden hose trumpet and the drinking straw oboe, gourd rattles, drums, banjos and more. And Crafty Music Teacher has tips for building a PVC-pipe bass marimba for only $350 (hey, a real one costs 40 grand!), as well as ideas for house-key chimes, mallets made from superballs and car bushings, and other handy items.
If you’re a kid with a unique homemade instrument you want the world to see, you’re in luck. Teacher Elizabeth Rexford’s Virtual Museum of Music Inventions is a showcase for students who design, build, and write descriptions of their own instruments. There are stills and video clips of entries from past years, information for teachers, and helpful links. As Rexford says, using recycled material to create a new instrument is not just an art: it takes science and math to get it to sound just right. But most importantly, it’s fun -- and that’s music to any kid’s ears.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Math (Feb 2004 - to be updated!)
Speaking of Google, if you visited that search engine’s homepage on February 3rd, you would have noticed that the logo was decorated with delicately colored designs. If you clicked on it, you were taken to images of Julia fractals -- swirls and shapes, kind of like the old Spirograph toy, that are the manifestation of mathematical formulas.
Why February 3rd? At first the kids and I thought we’d found the answer in that day’s comic pages, where a strip called “The Norm” pointed out that the date expressed in numerical form was 02-03-04. The real explanation turned out to be a nod to mathematician Gaston Maurice Julia, born February 3, 1893 in Sidi Abbes, Algeria. But the really cool thing was a morning spent talking and thinking about the power of numbers.
Some math websites can take you to new realms. Freelance topologist Jeff Weeks has online games including chess, tic tac toe and a mouse in the maze, all with a twist – the surfaces they’re played on curve through the fourth dimension. Amazingly, kids have no trouble figuring these out.
Ivars Peterson writes lively columns about mathematics for Science News (for grownups) and Muse magazine (for kids). Some of his finds include a guide to mathematics in “The Simpsons” (many of whose creators, apparently, hold degrees in physics and math); and an astronomer-turned-househusband who sells glass Klein bottles (the same shape used in the four-dimensional board games) on the side. You can peruse either version of Peterson’s past columns, complete with handy links, by going to www.sciencenews.org or by clicking on “Puzzle Zone” at www.sciencenewsforkids.org/ and going to “MatheMUSEments.” To find a particular topic, Google “Peterson” plus “Science News” plus the topic.
Math problem got you stumped? Over 300 math students from colleges around the country will answer your questions at the “Ask Dr. Math” page of Mathforum, from
A good way to find sites that have been prescreened (and this goes for any subject) is to check out the “Links” page of a site you like. I found the website KaBoL (which stands for “Knot a Braid of Links”) run by the Canadian Mathematical Society, on Jeff Week’s site; here you can search from among nearly 300 websites for such topics as Geometry from the Land of the Incas and amazing geometric shapes built from Legos (with computer assistance).
Personally, the sites I liked best were the ones run by and for mathematicians (amateur and “real”). Lists of math links aimed at families tend to be either “schoolish” (i.e., too much like drills) or commercial (i.e., too much like video games and TV). Still, they’re sometimes worth exploring. The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics offers Selected Web Resources featuring “mathlets” (interactive math challenges) for teachers and parents. Organized by grade and topic in a clickable chart at http://illuminations.nctm.org/swr/index.html, you can skip the boring analysis of the site you want by clicking on “Direct to SWR.”
The math game sites listed by About.com’s parenting section are more the arcade type. They include the online companion to the PBS show Cyberchase, and Coolmath.com, which has some nice math graphics as well as “study tips” (and ads). Even the government wants a crack at your budding math whiz. The National Security Agency (subject of a novel by the conspiracy-minded author of “The DaVinci Code”) has a page where kids who are into code making and breaking can explore the rooms of a Cryptic Manor to find hidden links to puzzles.
In fact, when you add it all up, once you start looking for math online the choices are almost infinite. Happy calculating!
Check these out: Google’s Feb. 3 fractal logo: http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/~pbourke/fractals/quatjulia/google.html; Four-dimensional board games: www.geometrygames.org (click on the tic-tac-toe board); The Simpsons: www.mathsci.appstate.edu/~sjg/simpsonsmath/; Clifford Stoll’s glass Klein bottles: www.kleinbottle.com; Ivars Peterson columns: www.sciencenews.org and www.sciencenewsforkids.org/; Ask Dr. Math: http://mathforum.org/dr.math/; KaBoL: http://camel.math.ca/cgi/kabol/browse.pl; National Council of Teachers of Mathematics’ Selected Web Resources: http://illuminations.nctm.org/swr/index.html; About.com’s list of math games for kids: http://childparenting.about.com/cs/mathgamesonline/index.htm?terms=math; PBS’s Cyberchase: http://pbskids.org/cyberchase/index.html; Coolmath.com: www.coolmath.com/; National Security Agency’s kid page: www.nsa.gov/programs/kids/index.html
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Economics for Kids
I can’t begin to understand the current economic situation myself, let alone explain it to my kids. But if ever there was a time to bone up on our country’s money system and how banks and businesses operate, this is it. According to The Wall Street Journal’s Work and Family column, even though kids don’t pay the bills, they know when their parents are under stress, and it can hit them hard. So for all you who are scratching your heads over how to explain what’s going on to your children, here are some online resources that can help.
First, some lessons in basic economics. For elementary and middle school students, most economics Web sites deal with concrete subjects such as coins and bills. For instance, H.I.P. Pocket Change from the U.S. Mint has light features like games, cartoon, coloring pages, as well as a more informational timeline that ties money in with history. At the
One site that aims to teach kids how markets work is MinyanLand. The site, (which requires free registration, including parent’s email), aspires to a very lofty mission: “to help address the gap between classes created in part by the financial illiteracy of many in our country, if not the world.” Players choose a character and receive $50,000 in MinyanMoney and a condo worth $50,000. They can increase their virtual bank balance by “doing real-life chores your parents assign,” playing games, and keeping their creature healthy. They can also spend money at the mall, renovate their home, invest, and earn “incentives” for charitable giving. The site is a joint project of Minyanville (a private financial “infotainment” site featuring articles for families on explaining “depressing times,” afterschool jobs and allowances); the non-profit National Council on Economic Education (which offers classroom resources, many free); and the Kaboose network of family Web sites.
For tweens and teens most money sites talk about budgets, credit and spending wisely. Don't Buy It, a companion site to the PBS series, focuses on media and shopping smarts for 9- to 11-year-olds. It All Adds Up is somewhat creaky, decade-old interactive site that lets high school students see what it’s like to use credit to buy cars, electronics and other consumer items. I Buy Different comes from The Center for a New American Dream and the World Wildlife Fund. It helps kids make connections between the products they use and the environment, and suggestions actions they can take to make a difference in their community and across the globe. Many more wonderful links from places like MIT, the Rochester Institute of Technology and the Federal Reserve Bank of
Finally, financial news outlets for adults can also help parents understand and explain what’s going on. Marketplace Public Radio recently spoke with Kiplinger's Janet Bodnar, for example, whose column “Money Smart Kids” has many useful pointers in its archives. The Motley Fool’s newspaper column and website explains stock market happenings in understandable terms, and MSN Money Central contains a useful section with tips on bargains and freebies that will help you and your kids save money. All these resources can be helpful to turn to during these tough times.
Family Online Picks
Wall Street Journal Work and Family Column http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122220949327768879.html
H.I.P. Pocket Change http://www.usmint.gov/kids/
MoneyFactory.gov http://www.moneyfactory.gov/newmoney/main.cfm/learning/fun
Social Studies for Kids www.socialstudiesforkids.com/subjects/economics.htm
MinyanLand http://www.minyanland.com/
Minyanville http://www.minyanville.com/education/mvkids.htm
Don't Buy It http://pbskids.org/dontbuyit/
It All Adds Up http://www.italladdsup.org/
I Buy Different www.ibuydifferent.org
Marketplace Public Radio http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/09/26/economy_and_kids/
Money Smart Kids http://www.kiplinger.com/columns/kids/archive.html
Motley Fool http://www.fool.com/
MSN Money Central http://moneycentral.msn.com/home.asp
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Pirates Online
Avast, me hearties! International Talk Like A Pirate Day, September 19, is a wonderful way to introduce your kids to some colorful figures from history. will be the sixth an event your family will love celebrating. Started by John “Ol’ Chumbucket” Baur and Mark “Cap’n Slappy” Summers as a private joke, TLAPD has been celebrated around the world since 2002, when humor writer Dave Barry brought the holiday to the world’s attention. But if you need a little pirate prep before you don the eyepatch and hook, sail over to some of these Web sites: Baur and Summers’ International Talk Like A Pirate Day site is a treasure trove of piratical fun and information. Although some humor leans towards the risqué, there’s a special section for Junior Pirates which includes a links page, lists of children’s books and even ideas for Pirate Math, Pirate Geography and more. You’ll also uncover links to pirate songs, art, videos, games, festivals and expeditions. Learn to parlay like a pro with the English-to-Pirate translators, and or use one of the Pirate Name Generator to discover your alter ego. The one from Long John Silvers seafood restaurants is easy to use, but the questionnaire at PirateQuiz.com is my favorite.
If the end of the Pirates of the Caribbean series left you clamoring for more of Captain Jack Sparrow and the Black Pearl, Disney has a free online “massively-multiplayer” game that lets you forge alliances, hunt for buried treasure, battle evil undead forces, and use cunning and strategy to outwit your foes. Or expand your horizons with the online version of the Pirates Constructible Strategy Game, the trading card/building toy from Wizkid. In real life the punch-out cards (we get them at Target) are used to construct beautifully detailed miniature ships which serve as pieces in a capture game. The more packs you collected, the bigger your fleet – and if you’re really ambitious like my kids you can even make your own seascape of islands to play on. With the Sony online version you can hear the roar of cannon fire and the crash of waves in 3-D and challenge privateers from across the globe as you amass wealth and fame.
Pirate history is fascinating, and the National Geographic Kids online high seas adventure is a game that also tells you about actual people and events. For more true tales, the
“Real Pirates” is the name of a traveling exhibit from the
What to serve your hungry crew on Talk Like a Pirate Day? The Seattle Seafair Pirates’ recipe for Salmagundi (the traditional pirate stew) calls for corned beef, anchovies, goat, pickled vegetables, and dried mango and begins “Hack meat into gobbets.” I use what I have around, but it still comes out great. Yo ho ho and a bottle of ginger ale!
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Spelling
Helping people learn to use words well is a popular topic for online experts. The funny thing is, none of them agree how to do it. Some swear by spelling rules, while others focus on word origins or using tricks to memorize tough words. There are word games to practice skills, word-a-day email services to build vocabulary, and online dictionaries galore. Plus hundreds of sites for people who just love words.
The biggest problem you’ll have searching for websites about words and writing will be sorting through them. But do take the time to dig. You may discover the help you’re looking for in unexpected places, such as sites for parents of dyslexics or for adults learning English. Most sites are reasonably family-friendly. Some have separate sections for “rude” language; only a few have it mixed right in. Keep in mind that sites from outside the U.S. may use British spelling (“color” vs. “colour,” for example).
Search terms you can try include “spelling rules” (26,000 hits alone on Google), “spelling lists,” and “spelling mnemonics” (those little rhymes and sayings that help you remember how to spell hard words – extra points for spelling “mnemonics” right). Take a tip from those SAT prep classes and type in “‘word origins’ Latin Greek” to bone up on English roots; WordFocus.com is a good place to start.
Learning is fun with sites like David Appleyard’s guide to mnemonic initial sounds, which explains how Harry Potter fans knew right away that Slytherin and Snape were the bad guys. Build your family’s vocabulary one word at a time with A Word A Day, online or emailed right to you. Challenge your emergent readers at FunBrain.com. Or if you’ve got a kid who thinks it’s spelling that needs fixing, not kids who can’t spell (a notion that’s been kicking around for probably a century or more without much success – see “Adirondak Loj” near Lake Placid), send him to The Spelling Society for a look at their ames, offisers, leeflets, and so on (and a kids’ page listed in their links).
Many teachers believe the best way to improve writing skills is to write, a lot. Story starters, also called writing prompts, give budding authors fresh ideas. Younger children can try the examples at KinderKorner.com, while Everyday Spelling, the site that supports the textbook series, has writing prompts, word puzzles, spelling lists and more by grade through middle school.
The best online dictionaries, like Merriam-Webster, go way beyond a spellcheck and a thesaurus. Enchanted Learning’s picture dictionary for new readers not only links to related pages on the same site, it also comes in several bilingual versions. LibrarySpot.com has a list of specialty dictionaries, including OneLook.com’s reverse dictionary to find that word that’s stuck on the tip of your tongue. And word snobs can turn to the mother of all reference books, the Oxford English Dictionary, for word games from easy to “fiendishly difficult,” quotations, and much more.
Your kids don’t have to be serious word lovers to love the Spoonerisms, palindromes, and silly signs at Fun-with-words.com. But REALLY serious word lovers should take a peek at how the champs train at www.spellingbee.com, online home of the Scripps National Spelling Bee (which will hold this year’s televised finals starting June 1st). Who knows? They might just get inspired.
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