Magic Tricks for Kids

I’m one of those people who likes to enjoy a magic trick without trying too hard to figure out how it’s done. But as the mother of a budding magician, I’ve had to acknowledge the fact that a lot of magic involves gimmicks bought in magic shops. Luckily, though, not all magic tricks require special equipment. You can start doing magic with only a deck of cards, a piece of rope, and a few coins. Here’s what my son Anthony has learned so far about being the art of prestidigitation:

· The easiest tricks to start off with are rope tricks.

· Once you know the trick and the secret move, practicing is fairly easy. I try to practice as much as possible whenever I learn a new trick.

· It’s best to talk over the part where you have to make a secret move, so people don’t know what you’re doing.

· I love the look on people’s faces after you perform a magic trick.

Anthony got his start in an afterschool magic class, but there are plenty of Internet resources if you want to learn some easy tricks at home. Parents who want to encourage a child's interest in magic can also check out the Web site Kapoof! Magic You Can Do, where teacher Andy Makar offers advice, a library of tricks, and lots of links. The family-created Kidzone from DLTK has a section on magic tricks for children as well.

Other worthwhile sites include Anthony’s pick, The All Magic Guide, which offers a variety of trick instructions with photos, magic show videos and more; How to Do Tricks, which also includes coin trickery, levitating illusions and street magician tactics; Good Tricks, where you can learn the secret behind “mind reading” demonstrations; and Mighty Tricks a blog that has not been updated recently but which still offers interesting videos and some super magic tricks. You can also find a comprehensive links page at Magic Tricks.

Perhaps the best way to learn how to be a magician may be to watch a master in action. Endurance artist David Blaine, who has lived in a fishbowl in Lincoln Center and hung suspended over London in a glass box for 43 days, has videos of both his stunts and some card tricks at his Web site. For other famous magicians, however, you’ll have to do some searching on YouTube. We enjoyed seeing clips of David Copperfield disappearing the Statue of Liberty and walking through the Great Wall of China. The comic duo Penn & Teller have some interesting segments where they give away the tricks of the trade by doing the popular cup and ball sleight of hand with clear plastic cups. But the present-day performer we enjoyed the most was Criss Angel. On his A&E show Mindfreak, Angel takes his illusions to the street, enlisting passersby who are shocked (and sometimes horrified) at some of tricks. He does some beautiful levitation from building to building, but he also does coin swallowing and voodoo doll routines that are on the gruesome side. For many fans of magic, however, the brush with death is what makes it so exciting.

Of course, the granddaddy of all showmen was Harry Houdini. You can watch silent film clips of Houdini’s escapes, and play an online escape game, on PBS American Experience. The Library of Congress has an online collection of Houdini documents. And The History Museum at the Castle in Appleton, Wisconsin – where the magician lived when his family first came to America from Hungary in 1878 – has an online exhibit called “AKA Houdini” about the man and his times. Magicians today still try to top Houdini’s tricks, but few succeed. Maybe – with a little practice – you can be the one to match his amazing feats!

Update: We just had a great time at the exhibit Magic: The Science of Illusion at the NY Hall of Science. Be sure to catch it if it comes to your area!

Family Online Picks

Kapoof kapoof.com

Kidzone Magic Tricks kidzone.ws

The All Magic Guide allmagicguide.com

How to Do Tricks howtodotricks.com

Good Tricks goodtricks.net

Mighty Tricks mightytricks.com

Magic Tricks links.magictricks.com/magiclessons.html

David Blaine davidblaine.com

Criss Angel A&E videos aetv.com/criss_angel

Houdini PBS site pbs.org/wgbh/amex/houdini/

AKA Houdini akahoudini.org

LEGO

By John Ceceri (with help from Kathy Ceceri)

Why are Lego toys so much fun? It might be their bright colors. It could be the cool themes such as Star Wars, Bionicle (a mystical storyline about biomechanical warriors with magical masks, with related books, movies and comics), Exo-Force (a line where humans take on robots wearing giant battlesuits) and others. Or maybe it’s the playability that lets you can take apart a set and make a whole new model. Whatever the reason, Lego has a giant fanbase, from 5-year-olds to Adult Fans of Lego (AFOL). And those fans have made several websites about their favorite subject: chat rooms, databases and even “my own creation” (MOC) sites, where you can upload pictures of Lego models you’ve designed yourself. Although most sites are for AFOL, there are some just for younger fans. Here are my favorites:

I had been a big Lego fan for a few years when I discovered Lego.com, the official Lego website, at age 11. Lego.com has good places for fans to talk to each other, post photos of models they’ve made, and see new Lego sets. It also has Lego Factory, a part of the site where you can download software which lets you make a 3-D drawing of a Lego model, then upload it to Lego.com and show it off, or even buy your model. In the Pick-A-Brick section, you can buy single bricks instead of a whole set. And you can even enter in codes from Lego Bionicle and Exo-Force sets to get cool online stuff!

For a while I posted on Lego’s message boards, but it wasn't long until I started looking at the fansites, especially those for kids. BZPower is the main Bionicle fan site with over 37,000 members, and the top Bionicle news source. Members discuss topics like the most heroic heroes and villainous villains or which set they regret getting. My own websites -- Lair of the Piraka (a Bionicle forum) and The Robot’s Workshop (an Exo-Force forum) -- don’t have many members, but they are starting to get more.

For AFOL, Eurobricks has large forums to post in and the latest Lego news. And the news from Europe often includes photos of sets that haven’t been released yet. Some sites won’t post leaked images, some forbid even discussing the future sets, but they sure are tempting. A tip about posting in general: make sure you follow the rules, such as not creating duplicate topics or adding to “zombie topics” (topics that haven’t had new posts for a long while). Some of these sites will ban you if you don’t.

Brickshelf is a photo-hosting website just for Legos, where the tags include train layouts and snapshots of the Legoland theme parks. But most MOC sites let you post photos and get comments on them. MOCpages features large models like the diorama combining characters from Indiana Jones, Dr. Who, and H.P. Lovecraft, or the Blacktron Intelligence Agency, a space base that takes up four tables. From Bricks to Bothans, the main the Lego Star Wars fan site, also has photos of Star Wars MOCs and a forum where members can comment.

Then there are Lego databases like Brickset, which lets you search by theme or year, going back to 1961. Members can keep track of all the sets they own -- and make wishlists of the ones they want. Brickwiki, which is (as the name suggests) a wiki about Lego, has information on its history, themes, and famous people (according to Lego fans), along with different building techniques such as SNOT (“studs not on top” – in other words, upside down). There are also links to all the other major Lego sites.

From grandfather clocks to harpsichords to automated factories that use Lego Mindstorm computer technology to build cars out of Lego pieces, there’s practically nothing that hasn’t been made out of Legos. Professional Lego model builders can make you a Bart Simpson or a mosaic of the Mona Lisa to order. But perhaps one of the strangest projects is the Brick Testament, where a minifig Adam and Eve live in a Lego Garden of Eden. Maybe the best part of Legos is that, no matter what your interests, it’s so easy to join in the fun.

Family Online Picks:

LEGO.com www.LEGO.com

BZpower www.bzpower.com

Lair of the Piraka http://z3.invisionfree.com/Lair_of_the_Piraka

The Robot's Workshop http://s8.invisionfree.com/The_Robots_Workshop

Eurobricks www.eurobricks.com

Brickshelf www.brickshelf.com

MOCpages http://www.mocpages.com

From Bricks to Bothans http://www.fbtb.net/

Brickset www.brickset.com

Brickwiki http://brickwiki.zapto.org

The Brick Testament http://www.thebricktestament.com/

Animation

(Animation for Sesame Street by Michael Sporn)

From the earliest pen-and-ink novelties to the most sophisticated computer-generated full-length features, animated films have always been a cross between art and magic. Of course, they’re part science too: it’s the split-second afterimage in our brains (known as “persistence of vision”) that makes us think a speeding series of still pictures is actually a scene in motion. But it’s the animator’s tricks, plus the ability of great animators to “act” through their imaginary characters, that really makes animated images come alive.

As a young artist I learned some of those tricks as an apprentice to two masters of the hand-drawn animated film. Working as an “in-betweener” on Michael Sporn’s Oscar-nominated “Dr. DeSoto” showed me how speed and rhythm reveals a character’s personality. And John Canemaker – whose autobiographical film “The Moon and the Son” won last year’s Academy Award for Best Animated Short – taught me that good animators are good observers, recreating the world using only line and color. But today with the Internet, you can learn from the pros without ever leaving home. Whether you prefer traditional Disney-style or anime cel animation, stop-motion with puppets or clay a la Wallace and Gromit, or the 3-D computer images of films like “Happy Feet” and “Ratatouille,” there are sites that will introduce you to old classics and show you the latest techniques. You can even post your work online and get feedback from other students and veteran animators. So get ready to start making movies!

The most basic trick used by animators to make the invented look real is exaggeration, and the first lesson in every animation drawing course is squashing and stretching a bouncing ball. Larry's Toon Institute (by Larry Lauria, who helped design Disney's Magic Artist software), goes from the bouncing ball to character construction, timing, posing and learning how to “thumbnail,” or plan out, a scene. The site is part of the Student Corner at the Animation World Network, which also offers forums, advanced how-to’s, and Animation World Magazine, with columnists including Bart Simpson’s voice, Nancy Cartwright. Another site, Karmatoons, by Doug Compton, whose credits include Bugs Bunny, gives you his wonderfully-illustrated teaching notes from his time with the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon Art. Then there’s Acme Animation, where you can print out instructions on the bouncing ball and watch a video on how to make a flour sack fall. Pay the $99 registration fee, however, and there’s much more to this online school. Acme members can post their projects for public viewing and get feedback from other students and working professionals. As you work your way through more advanced levels you’re developing a portfolio that can help you get into art school or even a job in animation.

Lots of kids begin making animated films with clay, puppets, and other objects that are easy to move around. At StopMotionAnimation.com, you can find forums for your questions on technique, and the links page is extensive. Their related site, StopMoShorts, offers “puppet training” challenges such as walking, tripping, jumping and dueling. When you’ve completed the challenge, post your video for feedback. There are also interviews with such titans of the art form as Ray Harryhausen (“Jason and the Argonauts”), tutorials, and clips from classic films. I’ve mentioned Brickfilms before but I love it: Lego pieces are used for the sets -- and the stars.

Kids who want to learn computer animation can check out the Flash Animation tutorial by Samik Dutta, a 16-year-old homeschooler from India, at the Amazing Kids Animation Station. (Flash is the software used for a lot of the animated website elements.) The site also offers a showcase just for kids to display their animated videos. About.com’s animation page has a Flash Kids' Corner with lessons for ages 12 and under, as well as a list of free computer animation software you can download. And you can get a behind-the-scenes look at the studio that practically invented 3D computer animation at the Pixar website.

Finally, if you’re interested in the history of animated films, the online Optical Toys Exhibit at the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics shows you such early devices as the Zoetrope, Kinora, Magic Lantern and Stereoscope in action. And my mentor, Michael Sporn, keeps a blog (his “Splog”) which riffs on animators past and present and has a blogroll worth checking out.

Update: Just found Flipbook.info, a website about the history of flipbooks, with video clips of some antiques. (Translated from the French.)

Still more updates: Animation Mentor is an online school for advanced character animation.

Amusement Parks (August 2005)

We just got back from Coney Island, so this column seems especially appropriate!

Not being thrillseekers in general, we only made our first trip as a family to a “big kid” amusement park, The Great Escape in Lake George, this year. But all those giant rides and extreme roller coasters sure looked exciting (at least from the ground). If you want to know what you’re getting yourself in for when you make your pilgrimage to a major amusement park, or just want to enjoy some vicarious thrills, try swinging by some of these amazing websites.

The idea of amusement parks goes back to ancient Rome, but the early 1900s was when trolley companies looking to drum up weekend business built waterside picnic groves, which soon morphed into lively places like Coney Island. Midway Plaisance (the name means “pleasure ground”) is a site about the history and design of parks and rides; it also tells you how to get the most out of a visit. For hardcore advice, turn to Theme Park Insider, an award-winning, independent consumers' guide to parks in Orlando, Anaheim, and around the world. There’s news, rumors and safety information, and users’ opinions of attractions, restaurants and hotels. For Disney deals, MouseSavers has coupons, discount codes, and membership bargains for theme parks and resorts at and around Disney World and Disneyland.

If you’re a roller coaster fan, the Roller Coaster DataBase has information and statistics on over 1800 roller coasters worldwide. The site Joyrides is a bit out of date, sadly, but contains excellent still photos of some US amusement parks, along with links and tips for taking exciting roller coaster photos of your own. And on the brand-new website CoasterRadio.com you can listen to podcasts online, with links, or join the discussion in the forums.

Of course, you don’t have to leave your computer to experience the ride of your life. Build your own coaster on the Travel Channel theme parks page, using loops, corkscrews and boomerangs, and then see how it scores on the Fear-o-Meter. Funderstanding’s simulation lets you see how thrilling you can make your coaster without sending the riders into outer space. Set the height of the hills, the size of the loop, the speed and mass of the cars, the amount of friction on the track -- even how much gravity your park has – and then let ‘er rip. Learn how rides work and why they’re scary in the Physics of Amusement Park section of the animated Virtual Science Center Virtual Science Center, a Japanese site, which includes directions for a soda bottle gravity meter you can test at the playground. Or find out how to make an accelerometer from an old tennis ball tube and a fishing weight at ThinkQuest.

There’s do-it-yourself, and then there’s people who design their own real-life amusement park rides. All the animals on the Totally Kid Carousel in New York City’s Harlem were adapted from kids’ drawings, and they are amazing: Adriana Francisco’s chihuaha, Tanya Garcia’s lobster, Taji Okolo’s beautiful blue rabbit. And some pretty neat videos can be found by searching for backyard roller coasters, like metalworker John Ivers’ single-loop “Blue Flash.”

Food is a big part of the park experience. Cotton candy’s been around since the 1890s, and Nathan’s hot dogs are still a boardwalk favorite. But if you grew up in the sixties the fries from Palisades Amusement Park in Fort Lee, NJ may bring back fond memories. Here’s a recipe to try at home: Peel and krinkle-cut five potatoes into large pieces and place in a half gallon pitcher filled with about 5 ounces of malt vinegar and the rest filled with water. Fry in corn oil at medium temperature for two minutes until almost done. Remove and drain. Raise the heat to high, and just before serving, drop the potatoes back into oil for 70 seconds. Drain and sprinkle liberally with salt. Serve in a cone-shaped paper cup, topped with more vinegar. And remember to give yourself time to digest before getting on the Ferris wheel…

Family Online Picks:

The Great Escape (www.sixflags.com/parks/greatescape/)
Midway Plaisance (www.icewind.net/themepark)
Theme Park Insider (www.themeparkinsider.com)
MouseSavers (www.mousesavers.com)
Roller Coaster DataBase (www.rcdb.com)
Joyrides (www.joyrides.com)
CoasterRadio (www.coasterradio.com)
TravelChannel (http://travel.discovery.com/ideas/themeparks/rollercoasters/buildacoaster.html)
Funderstanding (www.funderstanding.com/k12/coaster)
Virtual Science Center (http://jvsc.jst.go.jp/find/rikigaku/english/index.htm)
ThinkQuest (http://library.thinkquest.org/2745/data/meter.htm)
Totally Kid Carousel (http://www.hoopla.org/Carousel/index.htm)
Blue Flash video (www.thrillnetwork.com/boards/attachment.php?attachmentid=11322)
Palisades Amusement Park (www.palisadespark.com)

Paper Models (December 2004)

Before you even start reading this column, you might as well dash out for some card stock and a fresh color ink cartridge, because your printer is about to get a workout. Whether you and your kids are into space ships, fancy buildings, amazing moving contraptions or cute animals, make-your-own paper models you can print off the Web are like having the world’s largest toy factory right in your computer. Keep these links on hand for a boring winter afternoon, and in no time everyone from toddlers to grownups will be happily cutting and pasting away. They’re irresistible.

We started making paper models as hands-on projects in math, science and social studies, but now we make them just for fun. The first models we made, and good practice for novice model-makers, are geometric nets. (A net is what you’d get if you ran over a three-dimensional shape with a steamroller.) Cut the net out, fold and tape or glue the edges together, and you’ve got your original shape back – but you don’t have to settle for the plain solids we started with. Jill Britton’s Polyhedra Pastimes activities page has links to sites with dodecahedrons covered in tessellated (interlocking) designs and multi-colored magic fortunetellers (#4), folding and unfolding cubes (#27) and lots of other cool stuff.

Once you’ve got the basics down, you’re ready to move onto planes, trains, buses, rockets, robots, and castles – an entire universe of paper objects just waiting to be printed and put together, some of it intricately detailed. Fantasy game players and LOTR fans can find environments for their characters to live (and battle) in, while model railroad builders can fill in their landscapes with HO-scale stores and houses. Some good places to look for links are Free Paper Toys, which says its listings are “100% Kid Safe;” the Paper Model WebRing, featuring sites from around the world; and 3D Paper Model, a site based in Taiwan. Don’t fret if the model you want is printed in Japanese, German or another foreign language. It’s not that hard to follow the directions solely from looking at the diagrams (Lego maniacs do it all the time). And it’s interesting to peek at pop culture from other countries. Just as the U.S. has bobblehead dolls of famous athletes, in Japan “hako,” or box-headed figures are all the rage. There are hako cartoon stars like Superman and Sailor Moon, as well as caricatures of known artists and world leaders.

NASA offers dozens of paper models of spacecraft, including the Cassini/Huygens spacecraft now orbiting Saturn. There’s a list of links to models at NASA’s Solar System website kids page. (NASA’s Spacelink website also has models tied to lessons on flight, but some of the files are 100 pages or more.)

Paper Toys, designed by a Texas man calling himself “Papermeister Dooney,” is a good site for models of buildings like the Sydney Opera House, Shakespeare’s Globe Theater, and Bill Gates’ mansion. He also has cars like the DeLorean, the Porsche 911 and the PT Cruiser. Paper Paradise, a commercial site, has a free airplane it says is capable of barrel rolls and loops that comes with directions for a rubberband launcher. For younger kids, the printer company Canon has Print Planet, with pinwheels, paper dolls and an entire paper town, with cars to drive in it, while rival Hewlett-Packard has undersea, outer space and dino dioramas.

Our best models so far include the free pop-up galleon from the commercial Heritage Model site; the Asian-influenced folding and unfolding cube toy by Ellen Yi-Luen Do; and Jill Britton’s Polyhedra Earth Map (we did the cubist globe). The kids enjoy creeping out their friends with a dragon that appears to watch you wherever you go, from Grand Illusions, and I’m very proud of my adorable moving woodpecker from Sasatoku. I haven’t yet decided what color paper I’ll use to print my 3D 2005 desk calendar, courtesy of Robert Simm’s Neat Math Page, but over in the kids’ room I hear plans afoot for a miniature movie set with the buildings, spaceships and robots. Guess I better lay in more supplies of heavy paper and ink...

Tips on techniques: The Card Modeling FAQ is the hobby’s bible. At minimum, you’ll need a B&W printer, heavyweight business-card-thickness printer paper, scissors and tape or a glue stick. For more advanced models you’ll want a good color printer, special readers like Adobe Acrobat, an X-Acto knife and a straight edge, a blunt pointy object like a knitting needle to “score” fold lines for sharp creases, and craft glue. Go easy on the Elmer’s; a dab’ll do ya, and hold the pieces together for a minute or two until set. And save the scraps -- they sometimes have important instructions on them. Then clear some shelf space, because your personal toy factory is ready to roll!

Updates:

• JavaGami software by Ann and Mike Eisenberg of the University of Colorado has models of sushi and other shapes and lets you custom-design your own.

• 30 Cool Comics and Movies Characters Papercraft are, truly, cool
  

Check these out:

Polyhedra Pastimes (http://britton.disted.camosun.bc.ca/jbpolyhedra.htm)
Free Paper Toys (www.freepapertoys.com)
Paper Model WebRing (http://i.webring.com/hub?ring=papermodelwebrin)
3D Paper Model (www.3dpapermodel.com.tw/)
NASA (http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/kids/papermodels.cfm)
Paper Toys (www.papertoys.com)
Paper Paradise (www.paperparadise.com/free/mig15.cfm)
Heritage Models galleon (http://home.clara.net/rogerpattenden/html/galleon.html)
Sasatoku (http://www.sasatoku.co.jp/hp/present/paper_craft/index.html)
Dragon Optical Illusion (http://www.grand-illusions.com/opticalillusions/dragon_illusion/)
The Toymaker (http://www.thetoymaker.com/index.html)
JavaGami http://l3d.cs.colorado.edu/~ctg/projects/hypergami/JavaGami_Home.html

Micronations (Feb 2005)

From Lilliput to Mordor, tiny yet convincingly-detailed countries have been around for centuries. And not all of them are populated by imaginary beings: some, like the Catalan Republic or Malta, are real places inhabited by real people, even though they may not be recognized by other nations. While there are still would-be founding fathers and mothers declaring their backyards or bedrooms to be independent states, today it’s just as common for “micronations” to exist only in cyberspace. Either way, the perks of starting your own micronation are many. Besides getting to call yourself “Lord Dumpling” or “His Excellency, the President of Molossia,” you get to design your own flag, currency, and stamps, and bestow titles and ministries on your friends, as well as use your website to disseminate news to the populace -- and sell souvenirs. With so many land-based and digital micronations staking their claim online, your computer is the perfect vessel for exploring this fascinating realm.

One of the best explanations of what micronations are all about is posted on the user-written reference website Wikipedia. The article has entries on individual micronations with links to their websites, and a list of other portals and informational sites, like Micronations.net. (Since this story appeared, it has been added to the Wikipedia entry!) Through the Actual Small Countries website, with links to sites like the CIA World Factbook and Flags of the World, you can find out how to rent the principality of Liechtenstein (or one of its villages) for your next affair. And Footnotes to History lists failed real-world secessionist states and historical oddities going back to Alamut in central Persia, which lasted from 1090 until 1272. (Though the site needs updating, it’s still worthwhile.)

Most micronations are created in fun, and they’re awfully fun to visit. A good example of a bite-sized sovreignty with its own postal and barter system, a well-thought-out constitution and even its own time zone is the Northern Forest Archipelago. The NFA, founded by Lake Placid middle school teacher Jamie Sheffield (otherwise known as King James II), is “primarily a land and animal and plant based nation-state” with outposts throughout the Adirondacks and New England. But its website offers a great lesson in what kinds of structure a country needs to survive, besides having cute photos of two-year-old Crown Prince Ben at the Royal Family’s Summer Palace. Another hobbyist micronation, the Republic of Molossia in Nevada, has as its basic unit of currency the Valora, which look a lot like casino gambling chips and are linked in value to Pillsbury Cookie Dough (3 Valora = one tube of Cookie Dough). Its website features pictures of its railroad, national sport (broomball) and space program.

Some micronations were started when their monarchs were only kids. Robert Madison founded the Kingdom of Talossa in 1979 at the age of 14, when he declared his bedroom in Milwaukee to be independant from the United States. (Talossa is still around, although last year rival factions broke off and formed their own Republic.) Eric Lis of Montreal was only 5 when he created Aerica in 1987. At one point the country, which displays a smiley face on its flag, had more than 500 citizens and “an empire to match the Star Trek Federation of Planets.”

Other land-based micronations break away from their mother country for the publicity. In 1982 the mayor of Key West, Florida announced that the city was seceeding from the U.S. over a Border Patrol blockade of the only road from the mainland. Though the rebels quickly surrendered and applied for foreign aid, the Conch Republic commemorates its brief independence every year with a week-long celebration. Citizenship is open to everyone and you can apply online; remarkably, Conch Republic passports have been accepted in several countries, including the Caribbean and Europe.

A few micronations take the process one step further, going to great lengths to establish their legitimacy. In the 1960s Roy Bates and his family turned an abandoned WWII defense platform in the middle of the English Channel into the Principality of Sealand, conducting a number of bloodless wars ending in court battles or negotiations with invaders and its European neighbors (You’ll want to watch out for micronations that take themselves too seriously, however; they may be the province of separatist groups with grim objectives.)

New micronations (and their websites) are emerging and old ones disappearing all the time, leaving online archeologists to try to make sense of the artifacts left behind. Keep up with the latest developments on the Micronational News Network, featuring headlines from outlets like Antarctica Announcer, the St. Angelsk Times, and the Cyberian Broadcasting Co-op. Yes, there is conflict and strife in the micronational universe, but there is also hope. Events like the Intermicronational Olympic Games, with both real world and online competitions in Frisbee discus, tennis-ball shotput, and virtual checkers, chess and Monopoly, strive to bring unrecognized nations together. Maybe someday silliness will triumph over warfare, and micronations will take the lead to show the rest of the world how to get along.

Online videos (April 2006)

With libraries, rental stores, cable on demand and online movie ordering services, it’s not hard at all to get ahold of videos. But there are still times when having instant access to a clip of the Apollo 11 moon landing or Martin Luther King’s famous speech at the March on Washington is worth a thousand DVDs. That’s when you’ll be glad you’ve got a high-speed Internet connection – and help finding online videos. With the Internet, you can choose when to watch selected episodes of educational TV shows, interviews with favorite authors, or webcasts of talks by important newsmakers. You and the kids can browse through old movie classics, goofy commercials, or creative home-made films starring everything from muffins to Legos. There’s a whole world of video for the searching, and it costs little or nothing to watch.

Quality-wise, online videos aren’t a threat to DVDs or cable – yet. Clarity and reliability can range from acceptable to awful, and most videos play in a tiny window on your computer screen only a few inches wide. But along with watching videos streaming on your computer, many sites let you download and save them to your computer, a CD or DVD, or your iPod. Educators Annette Lamb and Larry Johnson, creators of the website Eduscapes and Eduscapes Seeds, and high school librarian Joyce Kasman Valenza, have useful introductions to online video on their websites, with tips and links.

One resource my family turns to again and again is United Streaming. All New York residents can sign up to use UnitedStreaming’s video archive for free by going to their local public television station’s website. (Elsewhere, many schools provide access to their families, and individual subscriptions are available for about $150 a year). You can search UnitedStreaming’s library by grade level as well as by subject, view individual segments as well as entire videos, and save titles in your own playlist. While many are a little dry, there are exceptions, like the Standard Deviants series (math, foreign language and many other topics) and children’s book adaptations by WestonWoods. Discovery Education recently bought United Streaming, so many of its videos now come from this offshoot of the Discovery Channel.

Other good places to look for educational material include the Library of Congress (click on Webcasts; that page has links to motion pictures), which has an archive of lectures by authors such as Magic Treehouse creator Mary Pope Osborne and the late feminist Betty Friedan, as well as scholars, politicians, and historians. The LOC’s American Memory Motion Picture Collection has examples of early motion pictures and the first animated shorts, as well as historical compilations of Coca-Cola commercials through the years and footage of the 9/11 attacks. LOC also hosts the Moving Images Collection website, with links to science digital videos on the web, among other movie-related sites.

The cable network C-SPAN offers online videos about history along with archives of its coverage of current events. Some 500 episodes of the author-interview show Booknotes, which ran from 1989 to 2004, are also available. Older students and adults may find the Research Channel interesting, with over a thousand videos of lectures on scientific and medical research from universities and research corporations. Topics range from “children who remember past lives” to the Civil War, and there are also interviews with artists, writers, film and computer people. The streaming quality is excellent.

You’ll find a little of everything at the Internet Archive, a non-profit organization founded to preserve all kinds of information in digital format, including moving images. The site houses collections such as the Siggraph Electronic Theatre’s computer animation winners; theatrical features that have entered the public domain, including Little Rascals comedies, Popeye cartoons, and Flash Gordon serials, and the TV shows NetCafe and Democracy Now. There are also more than 16,000 “open source” clips contributed by individuals; these are basically home movies, some historical (footage of the tsunami and Hurricane Wilma), some useful (I actually found this site because of a video demonstration of a craft technique) and some adolescent spoofs which are probably not suitable for younger audiences.

To find videos on websites in general, Yahoo! is the search engine to use. Just click on the “Video” button on the top of its home page (it automatically filters out obvious mature content.) Yahooligans!, the kids’ site, also works well. My usual favorite, on the other hand, has decided to go in a different direction. Google Video (click “More” from its home page to find the link) is “the world's first open online video marketplace.” Along with some free content such as Superbowl commercials and a few PBS episodes of shows like NOVA, there’s an “ever-growing collection” of TV shows, movies, music videos, documentaries, and personal productions that cost a dollar or two and require you to set up a Google account. The selection includes episodes of Star Trek: Voyager, I Love Lucy, Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons.

But you don’t have to pay to find great entertainment. Many small studios, budding filmmakers and just plain amateurs have online videos the whole family can enjoy. The Web-based fan series STAR TREK: NEW VOYAGES, recently featured in the local media, is just one example. There’s also Muffin Films, a very cute site by UCLA film student Amy Winfrey, with a dozen short animations about a delicious baked good, and Spite Your Face (don’t mind the name), the award-winning studio that produces animated videos for the Lego website. (I have to mention Brickfilms, the headquarters for fan-made Lego movies, even though, again, some are not suitable for younger kids.) With so much to choose from, online videos are a family resource that’s worth the trouble.

(c) 2006 Kathy Ceceri
May not be published in any form without permission

Diet Coke and Mentos

A fellow homeschooling parent sent an email today about the proliferation of people doing the Diet Coke and Mentos experiment and posting the video on the web. I first saw this feat on Steve Spangler's blog.

Steve Spangler does science experiments on TV and has a catalog of cool and inexpensive science equipment, including the famous dipping bird. Yesterday my oldest son brought his giant solar bag to Outdoor Games Day, where it captured everyone's attention. I'm sorry I don't have a photo to show you, but if we get another I'll bring my camera next time (the bag did not survive).

I'm going to try making our own out of plastic garbage bags. I'll let you know how it works...