They say that toddlers soak up the world around them and that their brains are developing at the fastest rate they’ll ever be at. With that bit of information, I never want to miss a single moment to help them explore and discover something new.

While letting them free play is great (and necessary), sometimes things call for structured, adult-led activities to help them discover something new and spark some newfound interests. Be sure to subscribe to #JingkidsCrafts for more.

My little girl has discovered how much fun science experiments can be, and one of her favorites is now the volcano. On rainy days when we can’t go outside, she excitedly pulls me to the kitchen table to make her favorite volcano together.

This fun experiment takes very little prep time.

Here’s what you’ll need:

Things You’ll Need for Volcano Experiment for Kids:

• 100 ml of warm water
• 10 ml of dish soap
• 400 ml of white vinegar
• Empty bottle
• Red food coloring (optional)
• Super light molding clay
• Shoe box (to use as the base plate)

Step 1: Start by building your volcano with your empty bottle in the center. The kids can help build the volcano nice and tall and check if their structure is secure by adding more molding clay to the base.

Step 2: Make a baking soda slurry by mixing the baking soda, water, and dish soap. You can add a few drops of red food coloring to give your lava some color. Keep mixing until everything looks completely dissolved.

Step 3: Carefully pour in the vinegar and watch the volcano erupt! I highly recommend building the volcano in a shoe box as it can get super messy.

Want an even easier way to do it? Taobao sells the simplest volcano kit I’ve ever seen. It comes with all the ingredients for the eruption as well as a pre-made volcano if you’d like to skip right to the eruption step. Click on the link below to purchase a kit.

Images: Mina Yan, Taobao

Dulwich College Beijing (DCB) has been recognized at the International School Awards 2019, the only school in China to be honored. Their SE21 initiative won the award for Creativity in Learning at the ceremony in London last week.

SE21 is an enterprise-driven approach to teaching STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and math). Students form teams and pursue their own projects for eight weeks, learning real-world skills through experimentation. To find out more about SE21, read our Schooled feature from beijingkids November 2018 issue here.

Simon Herbert, Headmaster of DCB, said: “To win the Creativity in Learning Award is a thrill and reflects so well on our teachers. We know that our whole community will be delighted by this recognition of DCB’s continued success.”

Photo: courtesy of DCB

Combining concepts from a group of essential subjects, STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math) activities inspire kids to improve their understanding of different disciplines in a fun and creative way, which helps increase critical thinking and broaden children’s perspective. Check out our selection of STEAM-aligned apps to help your child develop interdisciplinary skills, whenever traveling or chilling out at home.

Thinkrolls 2

Thinkrolls includes 270 levels of increasingly complex science-filled mazes, each gradually introducing a new science concept in an accessible, easy-to-understand way. As kids use properties of matter and basic physics to keep their Thinkrolls rolling along through a series of themed chapters, they gain not only stronger problem-solving skills but also more confidence. Ages 4+. RMB 25.

Crazy Gears

Based on the theories of Seymour Papert, Crazy Gears is a digital puzzle game designed with a real mechanical engine and with children’s critical thinking in mind. Children manipulate gears, chains, rods, and pulleys, to pull themselves through each level, which teaches them how different mechanisms affect one another when constructing a machine. Ages 4+. RMB 18.

Inventioneers 

In this game, kids can create their own fun, creative, or even weird inventions. The more problems kids solve, the more tools they receive for inventions — a process through which children get to learn about real-time physics and the science behind different features like air, fire, and magnetism. Ages 2-8. Free download with in-app purchase.

Monster Physics

Monster Physics let kids build and operate their own car, crane, rocket ship, plane, helicopter, tank, and more using materials including metal, wood, plastic, rubber, and ice. It comes with 50 missions including both simple ones and mind-bending challenges catering for beginners to advanced players. Many of the missions are open-ended and can be completed with a wide variety of different solutions. Ages 10+. RMB 12.

Move the Turtle

Move the Turtle is an app that introduces children step by step to the basics of creating computer programs using colorful graphics commands, and even inspires them to create their own programs based on the examples. Ages 10+. RMB 25.

Photos: Apple App Store

Some eyebrows were raised in the world of education when STEM – a program to promote the study of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Maths – became STEAM. Many feared that the addition of Arts to the program would water it down, taking the focus away from the harder subjects which will be essential to kids in the 21st century. But Beijing teacher and entrepreneur Alex Ibrahim is in no doubt of the value of encouraging kids to be creative.

“The best way to teach kids is to make it fun,” he told us, “and make sure they have their hands on. They absorb things deeper if they do it themselves. Crafts also help kids to be themselves: the colors they choose, the way they do their projects, how they put things together, all of these tiny details are just small steps in their growing-up experience. And they can help teachers to understand their students better.”

Ibrahim brings his innovative approach to learning to kindergartens in Beijing and beyond, using craft activities as a way of teaching not only STEAM but language too. And it was language study which first brought him to China.

“I was planning to stay for a year or two,” he said, “but I found out that my Chinese was not that good, so I decided to stay one more year, get my Mandarin right. I was a teacher before I came to China, so I did some part-time teaching while I was a student. I did that for two years, in small training centers and one-on-one programs. I saved some money, and started a training center of my own. I found that I was using tons of books, so I developed my own materials, and started to sell them to kindergartens.”

But a key element was missing.

“My classes were out of control, a little bit boring,” Ibrahim said, “so I thought something was wrong. I took some online courses, and got advice from friends. As a result I started using art, and it went so well, I now do it in every single class.”

The purpose of the craft activity is not just to teach English as a language, but western culture too.

“The classes have themes. We start with the seasons, which gives us the chance to do science experiments. When we get to summer, we talk about going to the beach. Then we bring in arts and crafts, so we make a towel, and a beachball, or an umbrella. Usually each theme takes a week, but the kids are pretty young, so we take it slowly. I also train other teachers, on how to prepare lessons and manage a class.”

Kids absorb things deeper if they do it themselves

Now Ibrahim has taken his program into cyberspace, with a series on video-sharing platform iQiyi, called Craft 젬촉 (lián méng), “Craft Club”. Each lively ten-minute show has Ibrahim demonstrating a craft activity suitable for young children, in fluent Mandarin.

“The activities use very simple materials you can easily buy online,” he said, “and introduces just one or two English words. We’ve filmed 18 so far, and we’re doing 30 in total. We’ll know how it’s gone by the end of November, but so far so good.”

Ibrahim is very aware of the need to bring opportunities to children beyond the Tier One cities.

“Something I’m planning to do each year, is for four to six weeks go to very poor villages and smaller cities, to stay there and teach the kids, culture, science, and English. These are places where they don’t have many chances to see foreign faces. There’s a village in Hunan I’m planning to go to this winter, and an orphanage here in Beijing, where I’m going to do charity things with kids, like parties for Halloween and Thanksgiving.”

Ibrahim has also taught in the US and Turkey, and his experience emphasizes the importance of letting children do things for themselves.

“In the west kids are more willing to listen. In China, some kids just wait for you to do things for them, and cry to get what they want. It’s down to how the parents and grandparents deal with them. But it’s only two or three out of every ten. Overall they’re very good.”

As he told us though, letting young children get hands on with paint can sometimes be a messy experience.

“There was one kid who, every time I wore a white shirt, would eat with his fingers and then put his hand on my shirt. One day we were doing finger painting, but he decided to use his whole hand. I was helping another student, when I felt a hand on my back… The kid loved me, so I wasn’t angry. I said, ‘Do another one on the front!’ I thought I could clean it off, but I couldn’t, so I lost my shirt. But it was so much fun.”

This article appeared in the beijingkids November 2018 Beijing Makers issue
Photos: Courtesy of Alex Ibrahim

BSB’s Trip to MIT STEAM Week
The British School of Beijing (BSB), Shunyi students attended the annual Nord Anglia Education STEAM (pictured above). Week in collaboration with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). They built and experimented in workshops led by world-leading scientists, made new friends from all over the globe, and learned about new discoveries that will shape their future.

Old Harrovian from the London School Visits Harrow Beijing
Artist William Boyd recently delivered a presentation to the art students at Harrow Beijing. He showed them the works he did when he was their age and explained how he plays with light, color, images, and techniques to create the Phantasmagoria series with his friend Hubert Cecil.

Sounds of Spring in DCB
This concert was a showcase of Dulwich College Beijing (DCB) Junior School music where all their large music ensembles, Junior Strings, Junior Band, Junior Choir and Honours’ Choir, as well as selected soloists, had a chance to perform.

JOY EL Welcomes New ECC/Elementary Principal
JOY EL International Academy announces that Faith Wyllie will join its leadership team in July. Wyllie takes on the role of ECC/Elementary Principal as the school grows and develops entering its second year of operation. Originally from Australia, Wyllie has more than 13 years’ experience in international education, much of it in China in IB schools.

This article appeared on p57 of beijingkids June 2018 issue
Photos: Courtesy of Harrow Beijing, Joy El, BSB Shunyi and DCB

Though 2017 will bring a significant amount of attention to China’s One Belt, One Road, we’re excited to see the completion of these China-based tech projects coming down the pipeline.

Bionic Fish Drone
Step away from everything you know about drones and start thinking about taking this tech underwater. That’s exactly what the makers of BIKI, the first bionic robot fish, did. Pictured above, this tech was developed by Dr. Xiong Minglei of Peking Univiersty, and the campaign has raised way more than the original set goal. There are still early bird deals available to get this tech in your hands or in your classroom for solving water-pollution problems and answering marine-life questions.

Augmented Reality Lens
We’re counting down the days until we’re living at home with augmented reality and where there is Hololens-type tech situated on every face. Maybe those days are far into the future, but this affordable mixed reality tech is chipping at the problem in a more cost-efficient way than it’s big-business competitors. Admittedly, it’s aesthetically rudimentary compared to the more famous versions.

Teeny, Tiny Phone
We’re not going to make any spy jokes while on this side of the border, but maybe preventing travel theft is a better application anyway. We do see that this will make preventing cell phones in class particularly impossible for those dinosaur schools that still refuse to apply tech to teaching.

Cellphone Camera Microscope
Make a STEAM teacher happy and get this in their professional-development gift-bag this year. At an inexpensive CA $78, we can’t see why a classroom set wouldn’t make it to the shopping cart either. The maker of this tech is also developing apps to make the microscope tech more user-friendly than just acting as a magnifying glass.

Building Blocks for STEM Classrooms
If you’re concerned about helping young students understand circuits without soldering and coding coming into play, DFRobot has thought up a simple solution by providing a kit for the classroom. The kit works with lights, tiny movable parts, and even LEGO.

Entrepreneurial Game
Before you swamp through an entrepreneurial project-based learning experience, let your students brainstorm with this really cool innovators game. The card game sets the scenario for lifelike examples of users, features, challenges, and boosters.

Flexible-bulb Lamp
Stepping away from hardcore tech and the classroom into creative life designs, we found Art Lamp. This cool purposeful décor lets you reshape the light wire to come up with any shape you desire. It’s meant to fit in with any environment, but especially to promote daily creativity.

Never Sleep-Through Alarm
Unless someone can sleep through an earthquake, this alarm clock will surely help even the grouchiest of teenagers wake up.

These projects are still ongoing or have been fully funded and are waiting release. Check out Kickstarter for other innovative projects in China that have been funded throughout the years.

Photos: Kickstarter.com

If you didn’t get a chance to make it to the Innovation Expo at the International School of Beijing (ISB) last Saturday, you missed out!

The event was open to the public and free. Students of all ages got amazing hands on experiences with workshops ranging in difficulty from making an art bot (for kids ages 2-10 with a parent, 10+ without) to making an electronic guitar or game controller (for kids ages 8+, 10+ respectively). Many more workshops and activities kept students engaged for the whole afternoon.

The event lasted for six hours and included presentations for ISB’s upcoming middle school drama, student projects in technology, space, robotics, design, music, visual arts, physics, photography, radio, film, and inventions.  Professional displays were primarily showcasing Makers from Beijing Maker Space, Creatica, CAFA, and Tianjin Art Academy. Tsinghua Unviersity gave virtual reality demos while ISB held their own 3D printing display.

Don’t miss another great event like this! Follow beijingkids on WeChat to stay up to date on what’s going on for families around the city, or check back on our website every Monday evening for the event roundup of what’s going on in the city. Don’t forget our event section!

Photo: Courtesy of ISB

More stories by this author here.
Email: vanessajencks@truerun.com
Twitter: @vanessa_jencks
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For our new column, Ask an Educator, we turn to educators, whether teachers, tutors, or principals, to answer frequently asked questions from parents. To send in your question, email jessicasuotmaa@beijing-kids.com.

This week, our question is:
“What is STEM / STEAM, and why is it important?”

Answering for us is Gerard Clyne, previously a Computational Astrophysicist, now the Headmaster and co-founder of Hyde Academy.

What is STEM / STEAM?

STEM is an acronym that stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. It represents an educational approach that integrates concepts that are usually taught as separate subjects and places a strong emphasis on applying these concepts to solving real-world problems.

Another related acronym is STEAM with the ‘A’ representing art and design. It is increasingly recognized that creativity is an essential part of innovation and elements of art and design can be found in model building, to simulate situations under investigation, or even in the packaging and presentation of new technologies.

STEM/STEAM concepts can be incorporated into almost every subject and grade level. Starting implementation in early elementary gives students an opportunity to quickly become familiar with the basic ideas in science, technology, engineering and math at the start of their educational career and also begins to introduce them to STEM occupations. It is possible to show students that knowledge of STEM subjects can be found in a huge variety of jobs.  As students move into middle school and eventually high school the content delivered becomes more rigorous, and the application of the material becomes more challenging. As their knowledge increases, so too does their ability to apply these concepts to a larger class of real-world challenges.

As an example let’s examine the theme of water and see how it can be threaded through several subject areas.

Science: Understanding the processes and vocabulary associated with the water cycle. Exploring the basic chemistry of water.

Technology: Understanding how water is filtered and cleaned.

Engineering: Understanding how water pumps or hydro-electric plants work and the problems they solve.

Art: Students can create posters to illustrate the water cycle or make 3D models.

Mathematics: Understanding capacity, measurement of rainfall at school, recording data, representing the data graphically and calculating statistics.

Social Studies: Understanding water use around the world and the need for conservation.

Geography: Understanding how water can shape coastlines or how glaciers shaped the landscape during the ice age.

From the above it can be seen that it is possible to thread scientific ideas across multiple subjects in a thematic way and build real understanding and explore ideas in depth.

Why is it important?

Today’s scientists and engineers have to be effective communicators as well as deeply knowledgeable scholars in their respective subject areas. They also need to have an understanding and appreciation of how their work impacts multiple disciplines and be aware that solving real-world problems often requires drawing from a diverse knowledge base. This all points towards a need to blend the sciences together and incorporate it into many other areas such as language arts, social studies, history, geography and public speaking classes.

Studies are continually showing that there will be an increased need for STEM trained workers in the future.  Exposure to these areas early in a child’s academic career gives them a better appreciation and understanding of the connections and relevance between different subject areas, and teaches them valuable computational and critical thinking skills. No matter what career your child chooses in the future, these are valuable skills that should be fostered.

STEM classes allow for inquiry-based learning, where children can explore important science concepts in an investigative manner. They are given opportunities to apply their knowledge to solve stimulating problems, allowing them a sense of accomplishment, creating independent learners, and raising their confidence as they learn to understand more about the world around them.

Photo: courtesy of Gerard Clyne