Training with Nala

My monthly post is live today on Homeschool Mosaics​. After losing my father just a week and a half before, Nala, my new guide dog, appeared at my door to brighten my world with her sweet personality. Find out about her home training experience which was new to me, but worked out perfectly. God always knows what is in store for us and has the perfect plan! Don’t you just love that about Him? He loves us so much.

http://homeschoolmosaics.com/second-match-made-in-heaven-part-2-training/

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Science, Engineering, and History with Medieval Seige Machines

For several years, I taught technology and computers in the public schools for upper elementary, middle school, and high school. Prior to that, I taught all subjects in middle school and high school including many special needs students. Of course, I had more vision during those years as I have Retinitis Pigmentosa. In the years that my boys were in scouting and I was Scoutmaster, the activities I did with them were often similar. Of all the things we did like building bridges out of paper and wood, making egg packages for safe drops, robots and other stuff, I have to admit building a life-size catapult with the scouts was my most memorable. Recently, I was sent a product from Pitsco, Inc. that brought back a lot of fun memories from those days. You see they sent members of the TOS Crew some projects to review. I received the trebechet and catapult kit or siege machines from one of my favorite periods in history, medieval times.

For grades 5-12 with some extensions below if providing lots of help or group effort, the siege engine is sure to provide many hours of educational fun, if not chaos. The kit provides the parts for two projects: a trebuchet and a catapult with each being suitable to lay siege to any number of miniaturized castles or villages. The spiral-bound guide provides history, numerous historical trivia facts, safety guidelines, and activities teaching concepts from science, technology, engineering, and math. You will also find additional resources to supplement and enhance your study, as well as, all the national teaching standards covered by the activities. You are given just what you are needed to begin your exploration of the fun and learning of siege machines and even going beyond.

The projects were easy to assemble. From the easy-to-remove, pre-punched parts to gluing (specific type of glue is required and doesn’t come with the kit, but it is sold by Pitsco, Inc. and is easy to find at other online sites, inexpensively) to final construction, the steps were fairly easy to follow. The pictures were a bit dark, but they were ok. You will need a few tools, but they are inexpensive and found in most homes already or can be purchased at hardware stores.

As far as accessibility, hands-on projects are usually very good for a variety of special needs students including tactile learners, learning disabled, ASD students, and even blind and DeafBlind students. For those with reading issues and learning disabilities who have trouble following complex steps, I actually made a list of step by step instructions for each of the projects simplifying the steps into easier language and more manageable steps. For blind users and myself, I scanned in the instructions making sure that the document was scanned using the Optical Scanner Recognition (OCR) software and saved it as a .txt file easily used by a brailled display. Adobe .pdf files cannot be read by a braille display. On an Apple machine, a .pdf file can be read if it is a text file and not a picture or.jpg file. There is a template page for using to bend the metal clips into specific shapes for holding certain pieces together in specific ways. I used thin lines of puffy paint or plain white paint can be used, too. This allowed me to feel how the wire needed to be bent and let me do that part myself. Even as old as I am, I still like to do as much of a project myself as I can. I am sure most students are the same way. It isn’t very fun just watching someone else do everything. Even if a child can only hold a piece as it is glued or wire is inserted and clasped, the child really feels a part of the project and remembers more if allowed to do even the smallest of things to help. The details were not hard to follow and didn’t take that long to complete, but the sense of accomplishment even for me was empowering.

Hands-on and simple designs are truly a great way to explore the complex concepts of math, physics, engineering, problem solving, and history. Even these small versions are great ways to learn, but don’t be surprised if your students ask to build a life-size one. Well, I won’t tell you not to, since I loved throwing water balloons from the one we built, but I would say consult a Boy Scout first! Smile…

To check out the Siege Machines kit or any of the other Pitsco, Inc. projects, head to http://www.shop-pitsco.com. You find this kit in the Homeschool area for $64.95 or the Trebuchet or Catapult kits individually for $33.95 and $29.95 respectively. Price-wise the kits are pretty good. I paid more money in the past for less quality materials or simply had to scrounge around for my own which was often difficult. The convenience and affordability will be plusses for your homeschool. Remember it is always best to learn by doing.

To read other reviews about this product and others from The Old SchoolHouse Crew, go to the TOS Crew blog.

Though I was provided a product to review for this blog, I have not been compensated in any other way, and the opinion expressed here is entirely my own.

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Scruble Cube

Recently, I was sent a game product to review. It is kind of a cross between the old Rubik’s Cube from Mattel and the game Scrabble from Hasbro. I am not a big fan of Scrabble, and I did play with a Rubik’s Cube some as a teen, but I only managed to learn how to get one side to one color. When asked about getting this product, I wasn’t overly excited, but I still will give things a try because my readers, especially my DeafBlind Readers of my DeafBlind Hope blog, might find the product useful. My husband, on the other hand, was excited and wanted me to definitely sign up for it. My husband’s vocabulary is also a lot larger than mine, so this product piqued his interest. Scruble Cube turned out to be more of a success than I thought.

The Scruble Cube rotates in different directions and in different layers to allow you to move individual portions of the cube from one face to another. If you remember a Rubik’s Cube, each peg on each face of the cube had one of six colors. By moving the pegs in various movements, you could line one face with all of the pegs of one color. If you were really good maneuvering, you could make each face a different color. Scruble Cube is different in that the variously colored pegs have capital letters on them along with a number in subscript. The numbers are the number of points the letter will give you if you use the letter in a word up, down, or across a face or even scrolled across two faces similar to Scrabble. Words made in diagonal do not count. I can’t begin here to really explain how this works, but fortunately, I don’t have to do that. The game comes with detailed explanations on the rules of the game variations, cube basics of pattern recognition and initial steps, along with details and diagrams of the various ways to manipulate the pegs to spell words. The steps are easy to follow, so before long you will be racking up points with your great word finds. I admit the game might not be a perfect match for everyone especially if you really hate word games, but again, it could spice up spelling practice alittle for those who might need the twist. For others who really love word games, it can be fun. A little disclaimer: Warning! It can be addictive.

Educationally, the game is great for teaching students of all ages to learn pattern recognition and then build good spelling skills. For the youngest of children, you can create two, three, or four letter words and give the cube to your student to find the word you created. This will help build the skills needed to master the basics of the cube. Over time, Scruble Cube can easily improve spelling skills and build a stronger vocabulary as students try to improve their word scores.

Using Scruble Cube with special needs students is a snap, too, since many varying abilities and issues can benefit from the cube in several ways once the student has letter recognition and the beginning understanding that letters build words. Being able to start with two letter combinations to build three letter words allows even young, beginning readers a chance to play. Scruble Cube can even be played alone with or without the use of the scoring system. Being DeafBlind, I had to find a way to be able to play. I simply made adhesive plastic sheets using 2 braille cells: one for the braille letter and one for the number. I didn’t use the number or letter sign to save space. I simply remember the first cell is the letter and the second cell is the number. If you don’t care to use the scoring system or decide to let someone else add the scores for you, you can simply braille the letter for each cube which does fit better on the peg. There are scoring bonus pegs to for two and three times the letter score. You can braille that as the number and the braille letter “X” to identify those pegs or you can leave those cells as blank if you don’t want to use those cells in play. You would just make sure a blank isn’t in the middle of your word, of course. The instruction sheet detailed how many copies of each letter and number I needed to braille. I got sighted help to place the cells on the appropriate peg. The cell didn’t interfere with rotation, and the rotation can be easily done without damaging the braille cells. With this simple addition, even blind and deafblind can practice their spelling skills and have fun trying to improve their word scores. In my case, we don’t use the provided timer. I take a bit longer to play, of course, but the family is used to games taking a little longer when I play. I also play a lot by myself. It is a lot of fun to challenge myself, or even challenge the family to see if they can find my words on the cube. As I mentioned, I don’t really care for word games, but I do like keeping my hands occupied. The combination of rotation and ability to play with three to five letter words did make it a little addictive even for me. There are a lot of ways to enjoy this word game.

You can purchase Scruble Cube on-line or at many popular stores such as Toys-R-Us® for as little as $24.99. You can find out more at http://www.scrublecube.com or on their Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/scublecube. Whether you have a student who needs a little enticing to practice spelling or you love word games, this is worth a twist. Remember, though, I warned you. It can be addictive.

To read other reviews about this product and others from The Old SchoolHouse Crew, go to the TOS Crew blog.

Though I was provided a product to review for this blog, I have not been compensated in any other way, and the opinion expressed here is entirely my own.

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I am Back finally

I have been so busy trying to get Wynfield strong, set up DeafBlind Hope, fundraise for SP and other DeafBlind people, and write reviews for The Old SchoolHouse Magazine Crew that it left no time for writing here which I really wanted to do.
I have also been asked to publish my previous blogs here, so I am going to do that with a few minor changes in cases where I didn’t get permission to put it on the public side of the internet. My next post will start with Day 1 of my trip to Southeastern Guide Dogs in Bradenton/Palmetto, Fl in June 2006 to get my first guide dog, Little Joe.

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