How To Raise A Happy Genius

If you've been following our recently set up Tadpole Cam, it is worth checking out today's video as some of the larger tadpoles have finally started to grow legs!

You can see for yourself at http://howtoraiseahappygenius.com/tadpole-cam/

If you haven't been following our tadpole cam, check out the videos on the above page as they track the journey of freshly laid frog spawn through its development until the tadpoles finally metamorphose into fully formed frogs. We're currently on day 47.

Dr Colin’s Tadpole Cam This page will show the journey taken by frog spawn from freshly laid eggs to tadpoles and eventually fully formed frogs. It has been created as an educational resource for parents/carers/teachers …

This is a video I've out together to show how magnets can be used to makw things float in the air using a property called spin-stabilized magnetic levitation. It's a really cool effect, amd lasts a surprisingly long time!

Https://youtu.be/DobEntq8mOs

How To Make Things Float In The Air With A Magnet This video shows how magnets and movement can be used to make things defy gravity and float in the air. It uses a Levitron, consisting of a powerful doughnut...

Help Your Child Develop Their Working Memory By Taking The Stroop Effect Challenge

This is a frustrating, mind-bending, but ultimately fun game that's surprisingly addictive. It's also a great way to help your child develop mental focus, expand their working memory and increase their self-control.

The game itself is simple: watch the video below, which will show you a list of the names of colours, and alternate between reading out the words shown on the screen and calling out the colour that they're written in.

It doesn’t sound like it should be difficult, but it’s surprisingly hard to get through the full list of 50 words without making a single mistake. If you don't believe me, try it for yourself!

The Stroop Effect Challenge The Stroop Effect is the name given to the fact that it is harder to read the name of a colour if is is written in a different colour. You can use this effec...

Experiment: Write A Secret Message In Invisible Ink

If you have children at home at the moment who are getting a bit bored and who are looking for something a bit different to do, this is a great experiment that only requires stuff you probably already have in your kitchen cupboards. It's also fun to do, and your kids should be really impressed with it, too, but just be warned, it uses turmeric, which will stain fingers, faces, clothes, furniture, and anything else it's spilt on! Other than that, it's completely safe!

https://t.co/Rh7YgClZ37

Experiment: Write A Secret Message In Invisible Ink Kids love the idea of being able to send secret messages that no one else but their intended recipient can read. This is why they love codes, and also why they love the idea of being able to write …

Five Games That Will Help Your Child Develop Good Self-Control Skills

At the moment, there is a lot of emphasis on home education. This is only right, but don't forget that educating your kids is not just about teaching them to read, write and do maths. It is also about helping them develop the critical life skills they need to grow into happy and successful adults.

Of particular importance is helping your child to develop good self-control skills. Good self-control, also known as delayed gratification, is critical for the development of many other key life skills, such as persistence, having a growth mindset and self-motivation, and is also the key to them getting the most out of their education.

Children with good self-control skils tend to grow into adults who are happier, for better, longer-lasting personal relationships, go further in education, earn more and are less likely to develop problems with alcohol.and drugs.

With this in mind, we've created a list of five games you can play with your kids to help them develop good self-control skills. They are easy to integrate into your everyday lives, and to play at home, and your kids will enjoy playing them, too!

https://t.co/Aj6EjDDvLU

Five Games That Will Help A Child Develop Good Self-Control Skills Self-control, also known as delayed gratification, is one of the most important life skills that you can encourage your child to develop. It is the basis for so many other core life skills, and is …

If you've been following our recently set up Tadpole Cam, it is worth checking out today's video as the developing tadpoles have started to move for the very first time!

You can see for yourself at http://howtoraiseahappygenius.com/tadpole-cam/

More new resources will follow in due course.

Dr Colin’s Tadpole Cam This page will show the journey taken by frog spawn from freshly laid eggs to tadpoles and eventually fully formed frogs. It has been created as an educational resource for parents/carers/teachers …

Looking for a way to make home education fun? Check out this article we've put together featuring 10 of our favourite fun educational games for kids that you can easily play at home.

http://howtoraiseahappygenius.com/fun-educational-games-you-can-play-at-home-without-needing-to-buy-anything/

Fun Educational Games You Can Play At Home (Without Needing To Buy Anything!) Suddenly, many more people are finding themselves having to not only educate their children at home, but also to entertain them for long periods of time. This isn’t always easy, but don& #8217…

We are acutely aware that many people who never thought they would have to have suddenly found themselves plunged into some form or other of home education.

As a result, we will be adding a range of educational resources to our website over the next few days and weeks. These will be in keeping with our core beliefs that education is best achieved when it is both interesting and fun.

The first of these educational resources (Dr Colin's Tadpole Cam) was launched today. It is a web pages that will track the development of a sample of frog spawn from freshly laid eggs to tadpoles and eventually fully formed frogs using regularly posted videos.

This is a great resource for anyone who wishes to start a science-based project, but who doesn't have the equipment to do this type of thing themselves. It is also well-suited to teachers who wish a project that their students can follow from home and then write up or report on their observations without having to be in class. You can find this new resource on our webpage at: http://howtoraiseahappygenius.com/tadpole-cam/

More new resources will follow in due course.

Dr Colin’s Tadpole Cam This page will show the journey taken by frog spawn from freshly laid eggs to tadpoles and eventually fully formed frogs. It has been created as an educational resource for parents/carers/teachers …

A very sage piece of advice for all parents.

Workbook: Mantras to Help Kids Win At Life https://t.co/mRO2atU0s5

Workbook: Mantras To Help Kids Win At Life Mantras To Help Kids Win At Life uses short, easy-to-remember phrases to help children learn how to respond positively to or cope with a specific type of situation they may find themselves in. If c…

***STEM Workshops For Nurseries And Kindergartens In Glasgow***

We are now taking bookings for our interactive and fun STEM workshops for nurseries and kindergartens in Glasgow and throughout Central Scotland. They have been specially designed for children aged between three and five to encourage them to think about the world around them in the same way that a scientist would. Each workshop lasts between thirty and forty-five minutes, and is run by Dr Colin M. Drysdale, a children’s author and real-life scientist who has passion for teaching children about science, technology, engineering and maths (and comes with his very own white coat!).

At the moment, we are offering five such workshops. These are:

1. Our Incredible Inflatable Solar System: This workshop introduces the children to the different planets in our solar system. It uses balloons ranging in size from just over two centimetre in diameter (for Mercury) to over seventy centimetres (for Jupiter) to allow the children to see how big the different planets in our solar system are and how they compare to each other (see accompanying photo). It also introduces the children to the distances between the planets, the order that they are in, and how much the weight of everyday objects would differ on each planet using a standard two-pint milk bottle. This gives the children a practical way of visualising our solar system and the objects it contains that they will carry with them as they move into primary school. This workshop can be run inside, but ideally it would be run in an outside space to allow the children to fully grasp the immense distance between the planets.

2. Ginormous Geysers: This workshop takes place in an outside space and introduces the children to the way that scientists study the world around them using experiments based on the classic fizzy drink geyser effect (where you drop Mentos into a bottle of diet cola). It starts by showing the children what happens when you drop two Mentos into a bottle of diet cola (it creates a small geyser). The children are they asked what they think will happened if you drop four Mentos in at the same time (will it be the same or will it go higher?). Their answer is then tested by dropping four Mentos into a bottle of diet cola. This is then repeated using different numbers of Mentos and caps with different shaped holes in them to explore the impact that these changes have on the height of the geyser that is created, and to see if the children can work out how to make the geyser go as high as possible. By conducting these very basic, but fun, experiments, the children learn about the way scientists investigate the world around them by varying one thing at a time and testing what impact it has.

3. Rockets Galore: This workshop introduces the children to space exploration by investigating how rockets work. First, the children are introduced to what rockets are and how they are used to launch satellites and other space craft into space. They then get to design their own paper rocket, which they can customise to make their own. To demonstrate how rocket engines work, this rocket is then fitted with an ‘engine’ made from a 35 mm film canister containing water and an Alka-Seltzer tablet. When mixed, the water and the tablet release a small amount of carbon dioxide gas, but it is enough to make a loud pop and fire the paper rocket about six feet into the air. Next, to show how this same principle can be scaled up and used to fire larger rockets much higher, the children are introduced to a rocket made from two litre plastic bottle (the same type of bottle that fizzy drinks come in) that is powered by nothing more than water and air. This is completely safe, but it is enough to fire the rocket up to fifty metres into the sky. Watching this rocket take off will not only show them how rockets work, but it will leave a lasting impression on them that will encourage them to take an interest in both space and engineering.

4. Awesome Electricity: This workshop introduces the children to the subject of electricity. It uses practical demonstrations to show how electricity works, what an electrical circuit is, what a battery is, how electricity is made (including how it can be made using renewable energy sources like sunlight and wind) and why it not a good idea to mix electricity and water. These demonstrations use a range of off-the-shelf devices designed for use by children which operate using small batteries and that are completely harmless. These include a handheld van de graaff generator (known as a fun fly stick) to show how electricity can be used to make small objects levitate, an energy stick to demonstrate how electrical circuits work, and a hand-operated dynamo, a mini wind-powered dynamo, a solar-powered robot dog and the classic potato clock set-up to show how electricity can be generated.

5. Amazing Animals: This workshop introduces the children to some of the amazing animals that inhabit our planet using practical demonstrations. During this workshop, the children will learn how to move like different mammals, explore how many of them it would take to be as tall as an elephant, see how fast they can run in comparison to a cheetah, compare their breath-holding ability with a Cuvier’s beaked whale (which can hold its breath for a staggering two hours!), and learn just how big a blue whale really is (and whether they could all fit in a blue whale’s mouth!) by drawing an outline of a full-size blue whale with chalk. This workshop is primarily designed to take place in an outdoor space.

6. Plane Crazy: This workshop introduces the children to the idea of design and how engineers use ‘trial-and-error’ learning to work out the best design to solve a particular problem. This is done using paper aeroplanes of different designs that fly in different ways, like flying fast, staying in the air the longest, or even doing a loop-the-loop. This workshop is bets carried out outside, but it can also be carried out indoors.

These workshops can be booked individually, in any combination, or as a single block to be run at the same time for six consecutive weeks. They cost £50 per session (plus travel costs if outside of Greater Glasgow), with a block of six sessions booked as a single block costing £255 (plus travel costs if outside Greater Glasgow).

To book a workshop, or if you have any questions about them, send us a PM or email us at [email protected].

http://howtoraiseahappygenius.com/stem-workshops-for-nurseries/

How To Use Modern Mantras To Help your Child Develop A Growth Mindset, Learn Life Lessons and Develop Other Crucial Life Skills

https://t.co/DePnculjR4

How To Use Modern Mantras To Help Your Child Develop A Growth Mindset, Learn Life Lessons And Develop Other Crucial Life Skills When they hear the word ‘Mantra’, many people will instantly think of ageing hippies, management consultants who spout more-or-less empty platitudes or over-eager personal trainers shouting things …