17Aug
1

Our scrapbook: Photos from Lego Junior Robotics Camp

I’m a little late posting it, but LAST week, Ashar went to an awesome Lego day camp just a few minutes from our home. It’s run by an organization called Bricks 4 Kidz, which is sort of a franchise for Lego programs.

The local organizers were wonderful, especially Heather, who led Ashar’s junior robotics camp. She’s a former programmer, and she had the kids working with motors and Lego’s WeDu programming software to build things like an alligator that opened its mouth, amusement-park rides and more.

I don’t think Ashar has ever had so much fun at a program she went to, or spoken so highly of the new friends she made.

Here’s a look at some of the best parts of the week in pictures.

Bricks 4 Kidz participants build a fort

This is Ashar with her partner for the week and new friend, Nathan. (Many thanks, by the way, to Heather for sharing this picture on the Bricks 4 Kidz York Facebook page, because I didn’t get a single good shot of the two of them in my photos!)

Lego fort

This was the naval fort that a bunch of the camp members worked on together. The captain’s area was at the top right, and Ashar’s parts are on the blue bases to the top and left. “My title was bomber,” Ashar said. Well, then.

Working on a LEGO robotics project with WeDo software

This is Ashar putting some tweaks on her final project, “The Super-Duper Ride of Death.” Yes, really. It’s a set of four spinning seats that could almost make you motion-sick watching it. But Ashar was explaining how the non-friction pins make it spin faster, and how two of the seats spin faster than the other two because they have the same gear size as the drive gear in the center.

Lego minifigures ready to ride a robotic ride

Here are “David” and “Jose,” the custom minifigures of Nathan and Ashar, riding the Super-Duper Ride of Death on the faster chairs. You can see the programming screen above; they had a wonderful audio lead-in that played as the ride started… “Welcome to the Super-Duper Ride of Death. We hope you survive the ride and have a good time!”

Working on a LEGO robotics project with WeDo software

Here goes; it’s starting up!

Ashar with LEGO bricks

And this is Ashar with some of the free play bricks and the fort!

She’s already signed up for a single-day workshop in November, a Space Adventure camp during a public-school in-service day, and I just bet she’ll be begging to do more!

15Aug
15

But where do we keep the school supplies?

We don’t have much in the way of “curriculum” at our house.

No workbooks, no teacher guides, no workboxes, no folders, no binders… honestly, not even very many notepads and pencils and crayons and drawing papers.

But you know what we do have?

Books.

Books, books, books, books, books.

I’d not too long ago shown off the main floor of our house, plus our basement rec room, which are some of the major spots where learning happens.

So as part of the Not Back to School Blog Hop this week, instead of showing off our “homeschool room,” which isn’t really a thing we have, I decided to show off the homes of our favorite resources.

Welcome to the Otto Family Bookshelf Tour, 2012 edition!

Bookshelf in homeschoolers' basement

Let’s start in the basement, shall we? So one of our side businesses as a family is that we have an online bookstore, and this is the main set of shelves in our “book room,” of inventory listed for sale. Before it sells, though, we often find ourselves “borrowing back” a title for impromptu reading!

Bookshelf in homeschoolers' basement

This is the smaller set of “stuff for sale” shelves in the book room, aka my husband’s Ephemera Warehouse. Not pictured in this room are also boxes and boxes of ephemera, a shelf of vintage schoolbooks and some of Ashar’s craft supplies. Sadly, it is also our guest bedroom.(Doesn’t everyone’s guest bedroom feature a futon and 2,000 books, and nothing else?)

Bookshelf in homeschoolers' living room

Amazingly, for being People Who Love Books, we didn’t have a bookcase on our main floor until earlier this year. Which is pretty weird. This one is now actually our end table next to our sofa. (I mean, doesn’t everyone have a bookcase of things like a collection of National Geographic magazines and books about Indians and the Titanic, with a stuffed armadillo on top, next to THEIR sofa?)

Bookshelf full of fairy tale books

Finally, let’s move upstairs, home of most of our “reading” books as a family. This is Chris’s bedside bookcase, home of what is probably the world’s largest library of books by Ruth Manning-Sanders. (Doesn’t everyone’s husband have a collection of books by a deceased and somewhat obscure fairy-tale author… OK, I’m done.) These are actually WONDERFUL books, and make up a good part of our bedtime reading, complete with wonderful voices by Chris.

Homeschoolers' bookshelf in hallway

When you’re out of room for bookcases, of course you just put one in your upstairs hallway, outside the bedroom door, like this one. This is home to all sorts of stuff – some great Robert Sabuda pop-up books, which are a Christmas tradition from my mother-in-law; Ashar’s fiction collection, which is dwarfed by her nonfiction collection, and most importantly, on the second shelf from the bottom, between the bookends, at left is the start of Ashar’s OWN Ruth Manning-Sanders collection (so that Chris can maintain his own!)

Homeschoolers' bookshelf in teenage daughter's bedroom

This is the larger of the bookcases inside Ashar’s room. It’s a nonfiction powerhouse – including that tome on Van Gogh at left, which Ashar actually asked for one Christmas when she was about 9, as well as every Lego Brickmaster book ever made. Note the minion cameo at top.

Homeschoolers' bookshelf in teenage daughter's bedroom

And this is our combination oldest-and-newest shelf. I actually BUILT this poor thing when I was in the eighth grade. Yes, really. It’s terribly thin, has no back, and is really only sized for paperbacks. But Ashar’s former bedside table was becoming a teetering pile of reading materials, so I rescued it from the not-too-often-dusted lighthouse collection in my bedroom and donated it to the cause of good reading. (At top: Life of Fred books, The Key to the Indian, claw-machine penguin…)

Also, immediately to the left of this is a plastic under-bed tote full of… more books!! “The ones I want to keep safe,” Ashar says.

Did you enjoy your tour of the Otto Family Library? We hope so – because this really shows where learning happens!


(Oh, and in case you missed the first installment, our entry for “Curriculum Week,” last week’s theme, was the unschooled version of a seventh-grade-ish curriculum plan.)