Counting with Aliens?

Here's a little tale to introduce different number systems for your budding little mathematician. Your little one may only be familiar with the decimal numeral system, or Base 10. This brief story introduces the octal & hexadecimal numeral systems.

One fine, sunny day in the not too distant future, an ambassador from Earth was at a summit with an ambassador from Planet Hexadecimal and an ambassador from Planet Octal. During this friendly summit, they decided to do some counting on their fingers. In unison, they started "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, ..." and when they got to "8", the ambassador from Planet Octal counts on his very last finger of his hands, and he won't be able to count further than that using just his fingers. You see, people from Planet Octal have only 8 fingers to count with. In their number system, which is the octal numeral system (Base 8), when they want to represent 8 "things", such as fingers, they represent it with "10". The digit in the tens column tells us how many "full hands" of stuff we have. In the case of Planet Octal, two full hands has eight fingers.

Since the ambassador from Planet Octal ran out of fingers at "8" (his "10"), the other two continued to count "9, ..." and at that point, the ambassador from Earth was upon his very last finger, what Earthlings call "10". But the ambassador from Planet Hexadecimal could still keep going, so he did and counted "11, 12, 13, 14, 15, ... and finally, 16!" The ambassador from Planet Hexadecimal could continue to count many more numbers on his hands than the other ambassadors because people from his planet have 16 fingers! Because they have more fingers on their hands, math on their planet uses the hexadecimal numeral system (Base 16). When people from Planet Hexadecimal WRITE "10", the NUMBER they represent is still two whole full hands worth, though in their case that's 16 fingers.

An important lesson in all this alien finger counting is this: the actual NUMBER of things don't change between numerical bases, just how they are WRITTEN.

Image courtesy of DailyClipArt.net

Spring Showers

It is now May, but there are still plenty of spring showers around to keep the kids indoors. There are some weather-related activities you can do with them to not only keep them occupied (thus saving your sanity), but also provide some education on rain and water cycles. For younger tykes, one idea is to help them create their own homemade rain gauge using such household materials such as an empty 2 liter bottle and rocks. For older kids that may be more interested in just the amount of rain, using a few more household ingredients such as cotton balls and glass jars can provide a home experiment in the water cycle including condensation and evaporation. I recall being inspired years ago from a similar experiment on Mr. Wizard.

Morning Planet Show

If you have a child that is an early bird, use that early morning time and energy to go view a planet show sometime in the next few weeks. Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter will all be appearing in the same section of the morning sky together, creating an intriguing view for your budding astronomer. NASA has a "ScienceCast" on YouTube describing in detail what you can find in the sky while peering up with your little ones still dressed up in their wrinkled lizard pajamas. So go ahead, set that alarm a little earlier, get that cup of joe prepared, and go sky gazing with the family.

Flight of the Monarchs

Caterpillars were a very fascinating bug when I was young enough to run around in jelly bean shoes. They were so easy to manipulate with a stick and watch them crawl around with just so many feet. And somehow, the adults will tell you, this bug will go through an amazing transformation into a very different insect form.

Depending on your location, it may be the right time to go look for some caterpillars in your own backyard this weekend. Also be on the hunt for monarch butterflies! One web reference that is currently tracking the spring migration of the monarchs is the Journey North's Monarch Butterfly Migration Tracking Project. This spot has great information on the amazing journeys these quite determined insects take. One exercise for your kids is to give them the mission to find a monarch in your location. If they are lucky to spot one, help your child report the monarch sighting on the site to help them track these amazing butterflies. For future butterfly hunts, use some milkweed in your garden to attract them at the next migration period.

Capsela: A Childhood Favorite

Capsela was one of my favorite toys as a youngster. Being that this was an electronic toy and that my parents gave it to me, the girl, rather than my brother, made it additionally special. With all its robotic gears, motors, wheels, and more, it definitely sparked my imagination on all the neat little contraptions I could create. My favorite little contraption is what I liked to refer as my floor scrubber. I kept bugging my parents saying that if we only added soap to the kitchen floor, this little robot would clean it all up for us. I only received polite smiles. Now if only there was some serious follow-up to all my said bugging the parents on my floor scrubber, we could have invented the iRobot Scooba first! See how important it is to let your children's imagination take flight?

The sad thing on the Capsela is that it is no longer in production. You can find some sets floating around the secondary markets as well as used on eBay. Though I am on the hunt for a current toy that could bring a similar beginner-robotic element to a young child's life. A type of item that snaps together easily enough and connects the gears and motors together without the need for an engineering degree, but will still bring the wonder and magic of simple machines to kids. Join in my quest for such a toy and please share with us any interesting finds you have run across.

Greetings!

I started this page as I am quite interested in finding new ways to introduce science & math to my own little one to enhance her natural curiosity of the world she lives in. I figured, others may also be interested in such an endeavor, and they may have their own great ideas to share!

The name of this page is a take-off of the Oscilloscope, which is a useful tool for engineers to analyze electrical signals. To a kids point of view, the tool makes pretty waves, and different signals make the waves do different things. Teaching points include things such as amplitude and frequency.

Not all of us have a "silly scope" hanging around, so what are some of your own favorite things around the house to teach kids about science?