I'm reaching out for some creative suggestions. I have a 4-year-old and a 7-year-old attending preschool/school, and both sets of teachers have asked for ideas from parents for skills they could show or projects they could help with in the classroom.
I have a background in computer science, primarily focused on web development these days. Additionally, I have loads of potentially useful toys at home, including a 3D printer, DIY CNC mill, webcams, Raspberry Pis, old laptops, etc.
What are some engaging activities or projects I could bring to either level of the schools that would be both fun and educational for the kids? Particularly ideas we could do as a class vs breaking into smaller groups.
I have had a couple of ideas so far
- Processing based art interactive which the kids can suggest updates for and instantly see the changes.
- Something RTLSDR based, so we can play with antennas and catch some radio waves.
Looking forward to your creative ideas and suggestions, thank you.
You start with the different properties of stones. If you have flint, obsidian, granite, quartzite, gypsum, and calcite in your region -- find them together. If not, buy them. Teach your kids about their different properties, and how they were used to make hand tools.
Then, the different properties of woods. Hard, soft, green, etc. Show them why ash and hickory (and especially negatively buoyant cornus mas, if you can get it,) make much better tools than pine. Make wooden spears and harden their points in a fire you make with stone tools.
Then integrate the two -- use stone tools to make other stone tools, and combine stone and wood into wooden-handled stone tools. Make bows and stone-tipped arrows, and use them. Go foraging with the children, and teach them how to cook vegetables, fish, and meat over an open fire. (Note: Beware mushrooms unless you really know what you're doing.)
In short order, the children will understand how men have lived for hundreds of thousands of years. Then they can advance into copper smelting, pottery, building carts and canoes, making nets from natural fibers, writing on clay tablets, and so forth...
I feel that, as with math where the optimal method is to start with Euclid and then progress through the ages, one ought to learn to be in the world by moving through man's stages of development. At 4-7, they're in their prime for traipsing around the woods and making stone tools.