Anna, from Sussex, shows us how to make a moving hand!
What did you do?
During lockdown we wanted to continue my boys schooling but I wanted to give them different style of learning that would bring learning to life and make it fun and creative for them. With all my cardboard boxes from my deliveries I started using these to make learning aids and bring concepts to life.
The hand was really easy and very effective. My boys drew and cut round their hand on some cardboard, then superglued straw down the fingers three small bits of straw to each finger. then put string through the straw. Pulling on the string creates the fingers to move.
I have made different things over the past few months from the human body showing the lungs, heart kidneys and how our hand works to A giant projector and the latest one a caterpillar automata.
The Caterpillar was made for Father’s Day present. The boys soon became expert in using a hot glue gun and learnt to understand why the caterpillars body moves up and down and help to solve the problem when it didn’t turn due to the friction of the cardboard. this was resolved are using smooth brown tape and then spraying it with silicon release spray.
Tell the Housebound With Kids community a bit about yourself…
I have two boys 9 and 11 which my self and my husband have been home schooling since the start of lockdown.
How are you finding being housebound so far?
With have find lockdown fine and tried to use this time to enhance their learning. My boys struggle with reading and writing so I wanted to make their learning hands on, by trying to bring ideas and subjects to life. I also wanted to use this time by doing things such as outdoor learning and building things, that they wouldn’t have done at school.
Do you have any tips for other parents?
I did projects that they were interested in. My son Was really interested in past pandemics, so he did a whole presentation on pandemics for history using PowerPoint.
We did not follow the online learning at school, we focused on areas that both our boys struggled with in particular subjects and were led by their suggestions.
