Samantha's first blog

pamelamyers | January 16, 2017

This weekend, Sam asked me to play Uno with her. We really have only played a handful of times. Like in most games that are not necessarily aimed at kids her age, she gets the general concept, but she doesn’t get the nuances that actually let you win. I don’t tend to let her win games board games or card games often because I don’t think that’s a very good lesson, but I have been known to make a few bad moves or not make a good play just to sort of even the board, so to speak.

In this round of Uno, I didn’t do anything that would even remotely constitute “throwing the game.” I just played how I normally would with anyone else. And the kid kicked my butt. Multiple times! We played five games and she won 3 out of the 5. The next day, we played again. We played three games and she beat me EVERY TIME. I finally got my comeuppance when we played one final round of hands and I won each game. She was so mad that she lost her Uno Champion of the World title to me, but only in a dramatic, silly way.

It was fun to watch her be so excited at winning, but even more than that, it was really interesting that she did win. It really shows how her mind is changing, and growing. She truly strategized, keeping her “pick 2” and “skip turn” cards until the end when she knew she needed them, she held on to Wild Cards when we both had a ton of cards left to play and she knew she was in no danger of losing, and she made plays that showed she did remember to some extent what color cards I was leaning towards.

My little card shark. Now if we can just teach her some poker and find a few saps…

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pamelamyers | January 14, 2017

And the electronics continue! Mark is always coming up with new and exciting projects for Sam and him to do together. He spends a ton of time looking on the Internet to find interesting things so that Sam doesn’t get bored. He figured out how to make this really cute carousel. It started out as just a spinning base. Mark and Sam added the little wooden people that she is always decorating. Some skewers and a roof later, and voila – a carousel! It was Sam’s idea to add the little umbrella to the top as a decoration. She is just in love with it. We printed the pictures below so that she could take them to school for her next “share”.

One other project Mark found was “squishy circuits”. Who knew that Play Dough conducts electricity? Well, now you know. It is really cool, I must say. You can create things in Play Dough and then insert the LEDs or whatnot and it conducts electricity! Regular modeling clay does not, so you can use it to hold pieces together. Here is one thing Sam built completely on her own. I am so proud of her!

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markmyers | January 8, 2017

My big Christmas present this year was a progammable, customizable robot from Makeblock called mBot. It’s a really cool, fully functional robot that can be programmed with Scratch, the visual computer programming application Sam and I have been using. I thought this would be a great way to bolster Sam’s interest in electronics and robotics while at the same time having a blast working on projects together. We started work on it virtually the day after Christmas, and haven’t stopped since.

One of mBot’s abilities is to follow a line. We started out by using the “track” that came with the robot (until Penny put a stop to our fun).

We tried the built in line follower again with our own line made with electrical tape and it worked really well. Of course, we had to hack it to add a cat toy to the back! At least it made it a fun spectator sport for Zach.

Here is mBot delivering a payload of precious popcorn to Sam which she found hilarious. If only it could do laundry too. . .

Of course, we had to install some upgrades. Now mBot has a servo to make his hand wave and some more LEDs to act as a roving flashlight. Now it just needs a gripper so it can get the multitude of cat toys out from under the couch…

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pamelamyers | January 7, 2017

Sam’s wish finally came true – it snowed! And not just the tiny little dusting we had before, but a real snow. Ok, it was only about 3 inches, but that’s enough for her to play in, run around in, and sled in. It covered the grass and made everything look beautiful, including my little girl.

When she will tire of eating snow is anyone’s guess, but it’s not this week!

Is this a happy face or is this a happy face?

Snow angel!

As much as I hate the snow and the cold, I always manage to come out to see her having fun. It’s hard to resist. Her happiness and her enjoyment is contagious. Thankfully, it wasn’t too cold and I could handle it.

Mark is always her go to guy for snow fun, so they deserved a photo op.

The whole time we were outside, Zach and Penny kept staring at us through the door. We tried really hard to get them to come out to investigate.

Brave Penny!

We couldn’t believe it! Penny, our little, tiny Penny who is always cold went out into the snow.

I mean, really, how cute is this?

Our brave girl! Sam was so excited.

We never could get Zach to come out. He would think about it, then quickly back away from the door, safely inside where it was warm (well, warmish). Our house it not exactly the Sahara.

Sam had so much fun outside, it was almost impossible for her to slow down long enough to take her picture. She just ran and ran around the house. I swear, we have the only lawn that looks like a tornado blew through it. Everyone else’s is so…pristine. Ours is a train wreck.

Mark decided it was time for the sledding hill and who was I to argue? Off we went. Sam and Mark went down together a few times first…

…then it was my turn.

How is it that I am dragging the sled back up that massive hill? Aren’t 7 year olds the ones with all the energy?

Sam went down by herself, but I think she has the most fun when Mark and Sam go down together. They went a bunch of times and had a blast. We wish we had thought to bring the Go Pro! Next time.

The snow won’t last for long. In a few days the temps will be almost 60 and it will be gone, but Sam had fun. I have a bad feeling we will be getting a lot of of snow this winter. Good for Sam, not so great for us. But…she loves it so much, it’s hard to be upset about it. So, bring on the snow days!

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markmyers | January 5, 2017

While we are doing work with computers and programming with Scratch, I have been working on the concept of loops with Sam. For anyone who doesn’t know, in computer programming, a loop is a sequence of instructions that is continually repeated until a certain condition is reached. Ever the little troublemaker, Sam keeps typing loops that have really large repeat values, like 1 million or more (and laughing manically while doing it). I keep explaining to her that she shouldn’t do that because it will cause computer problems like memory crashes, but she doesn’t seem to get it.

Sam uses something called “Scratch Jr.” on the Kindle, which is a somewhat pared down version of the Scratch we use on the computer. Scratch Jr. limits loops to 99. Even though I have not showed Sam “nested loops” yet, she somehow figured it out on her own and added numerous, repeated nested loops to get around the limitations…smart kiddo. Here is a screenshot of her program, where you can see she nested loops of 99 over and over again to achieve the same result that she wanted on the computer.

She has gotten really good at Scratch programming, making more and more complicated programs. Here is one of her videos!

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