Screen Wise Cambridge’s Snow Day Challenge: February 2, 2015

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Make something using these items only:

  • 5-7 cylindrical household objects like cardboard tubes or water bottles
  • 5-7 rubber bands (hair bands are ok), and
  • 5-7 crayons or pencils.
photo of snow day challenge materials
Materials you can use for the Screen Wise Cambridge Snow Day Challenge.

Your creation can be a building, a human or animal figure, an abstract sculpture, a machine, a tool, a poem or story, in fact anything at all! Use the above items only. You can use scissors or other tools as long as you don’t add any additional items. i.e., no tape, no glue! (If you absolutely can’t resist using tape or glue, don’t give up—we’re still interested in what you make, but do try the real challenge first).

Post the photos of your finished creations (and a caption or description) to the Screen Wise Cambridge Facebook page or post them as a comment below. (Be sure to say if you have used tape or glue). 

Also post your questions here if you have any. Multigenerational teams are welcome to participate, whether parent-child or not. There are no age restrictions.

Florescence in Translation: Echinacea Purpurea

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Echinacea Close- Up. Creative Commons License: CC BY-SA 2.5. Photo by Bruce Marlin.
Echinacea Close- Up. Creative Commons License: CC BY-SA 2.5. Photo by Bruce Marlin.

I’m trying to bridge real and representation, make the connection between the anatomy of a flower and a human assuming the form of that flower.  But how to make something splendid just as splendid in costume form, rather than degraded?

Playful Minds, Spring 2013

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20130416-105037.jpg
In the spring edition of the Playful Minds photo series, I’m challenging you to guess where I am (Massachusetts history aficionados, alert!) as well as what I am. Try turning thus into a game of dictionary. What’s in this photo? Imagine, and describe.

Answers to Playful Minds

Of Crows and Kids

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“Children are beautifully adapted to learn about many possible worlds.”
from The Wisdom of Not Being Too Rational – ScienceNOW.

A psychologist at the University of Cambridge who studies bird cognition has looked at how crows solve problems, the latest in research showing they are rather intelligent. Two of her graduate students, Lucy Cheke and Elsa Loissel, have replicated three of these experiments with children. Yes, the crows and the children are comparable on two of the puzzles. Children and crows are tied.

On the final puzzle, the crows met their match. The puzzle was designed to mimic a physically impossible task. Children weren’t stymied; crows were. Children 1, Crows 0 on this one.

Imagination is the leavening. Too bad so many adult humans meet a roadblock when it comes to understanding children’s imaginations, populating them with airbrushed princesses, frontier-cowboy heroes, and cartoon versions of birds and all the rest of the natural world.

Postscript: I’ll be getting myself to the Museum of Modern Art’s montage of how we’ve viewed childhood from afar. You?