Where to find me

I now blog on my own site. Please visit me at the Big Learning website and check out my blog there, BiggerLearning. I'm eager to hear your comments.
-Karen Cole

Making your own bird feeders

As if there weren't plenty of Big Learning in the bird-feeder construction process, I'm finding that there's even more to come after hanging the feeder up, as long as I see the feeder as a work in progress rather than a completed project.

Recently I did a workshop for families, "Big Learning at the Bird Feeder." In preparation, I created a new bird feeder design for the families to build together at the workshop. My constraints were as follows:

• The parts had to be very inexpensive
• No cutting necessary (so children could safely do nearly all the building themselves)
• Strong, sturdy (so kids wouldn't hate me because their bird feeders fell apart on day one)
• Reasonably weatherproof

So I came up with a very sturdy design that used a disposable plastic plate, a recycled plastic bottle, four pipe cleaners, and three pieces of packing tape. See the photos on my site for a similar feeder made with wire.

But here's the part that was really fun for me. I hung my new feeder outside next to my store-bought feeder and watched it carefully for a week. To my dismay, the birds seemed to much prefer the store-bought feeder. I have four hypotheses about why this was so:

1. The store-bought feeder has a wire cage surrounding it to keep out squirrels. This cage gives the birds many places to grab onto during landing. My home-made feeder is short on perches.
2. The wire cage on the store-bought feeder may make the birds feel safe within.
3. The store-bought feeder is heavier - maybe the birds like the stability.
4. The store-bought feeder is the kind with holes that the birds peck seeds from. On my home-made feeder, the birds peck the seeds lying on the plate. Maybe the birds at my feeders prefer the former delivery system.

I decided to test hypothesis 1 by adding more perches to my feeder - sticks sticking out from the plate like spokes on a wheel. Imagine my thrill when I saw the birds actually using my perches! I have yet to test the other three hypotheses.

Because my feeder is a work in progress, I'm paying more attention to the birds and their habits and preferences than I otherwise might have.

You can find more bird feeding info on the Big Learning Bird Watching page.

Let the Kids Take the Pictures

I love those photos young children take of people's knees. They remind me what the world looks like to the tiny.

All photos are expressions of their photographers - what they thought was worth photographing and what the world looks like from their point of view. Children, who sometimes lack the skills for many forms of self-expression, particularly appreciate photography. Point and shoot - what could be simpler?

Putting a camera in the hands of a child amplifes real-world learning experiences for kids. They look more closely, choosing details to photograph. Back at home, the photos help kids preserve their memories and link their new experiences to other parts of their lives.

If you'd like to help kids learn and enjoy photography, BigLearning.com has plenty of resources to help on the Photography for Kids page, one of our Big Learning Treasure Troves.

The Power of Creating Form

At our house we're preparing for Chanukah by making some new decorations. We made candleholders out of Gioto Plastiroc (read a product review). Such a mathematically-rich activity, creating the six segments for our star-of-david shape, and making them fit together to form the star. Visualization skills, so important in mathematical problem solving and geometry, are developed through hundreds of everyday experiences like these.

For more sources of math-rich activities, there's a list of great math books for kids on BigLearning.com

Nature continues in winter

When the weather gets cold it's tempting to stay indoors, but in many ways nature is more visible in winter time. Birds are easier to see when the trees are bare. Animal tracks in snow are easy to follow, and animals are easy to spot with less foliage in which to hide.

Just yesterday on my front porch I heard the distinctive tap-tap of a woodpecker. My eyes followed the sound up a nearby tree and there it was - easy as pie. It would have been much harder to find it during the summer.

We've got nature activities and resources for all seasons on the Big Learning "Nature Activities for Kids" page:

http://www.biglearning.com/treasureoutdoors.htm

Learning in the real world.

When kids learn through real-world activities, they absorb new ideas as part of a big picture. For example, they don't have to learn measurement in school before they start cooking. They can start learning to cook with someone who knows how. When measurement comes up, the chef can show them then and there how to measure one and a half cups. Right away, they know important things about measurement: how to do it, why you do it, how you know you've done it correctly, and maybe what happens if you do it incorrectly. That's why learning in the real world easier than learning things abstractly and out of context. And there's quite a bit of research that says that real-world learning is learning that sticks. You can find out more on my Big Learning website.