Today was Ethan’s birthday so it was a chill day full of fun things that he wanted to do. But every day brings an opportunity to discover or make something new and today was no exception.
Morning
In our home, the morning of your birthday is a time to open your presents so that’s what was on Ethan’s mind from the time got up. Needless to say, he was super excited. This year, we asked him to put together an Amazon wishlist to make it easier for family living afar to get him something. But because we try to minimize the amount of things we have, we asked him to only ask for things that are educational. Not surprisingly, he chose a vast array of Rubik’s Cubes.
He received several cubes and is looking forward to the challenge of learning how to solve them. He spent time with each one trying to understand how each cube works.
From a learning perspective, he got to practice cutting with his Leatherman tool. There were some close calls, but after some pointers, he got the hang of it.
Afternoon
Just before lunch, Ethan wanted to show us how to make a swan from an apple. So with him providing the instructions, I sliced an apple and let him put it together. Pretty neat and yummy, too.
Ethan then spent most of the afternoon playing with his new toys. He was most interested in the robot he got because the robot has different modes that allow it to do a variety of actions. Ethan was fascinated by how the robot was able to navigate the living room, dance or obey hand signals. He knew there was a sensor in the robot’s head but he was still curious how it all worked.
We played a card game called Monopoly Deal and he loved it. In fact, we all had a great time playing it. The game combines strategy, observation and creativity to win, whereas the regular board game version seems to rely on luck.
Ethan’s best friend Eldon came over and brought a birthday present… one of those electric circuit things. He’s played with Eldon’s before, so he loved having his own set. Ethan really enjoyed experimenting with how to make the electric circuit so that something would happen, such as getting the motor to spin the helicopter blades and lift off into the air.
Evening
After dinner, we played some more of the Monopoly card game before taking Eldon home. The kids were playing a game where they would pretend to make their sentences echo. They basically repeated what they said over and over but at a lower volume each time.
While driving home, Ethan asked how his new robot toy was programmed to do the different tasks. We talked about how his work in Scratch is likely similar to the programming language used to program the robot. We talked about how each programming language is different, and how anyone can learn the languages and program things.
We then went to the beach to check out the moon, as it was a very clear night. We wondered if it was a full moon, but it wasn’t. Ethan said it might be a ¾ moon.
And that was home learning for today, Ethan’s birthday.
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