The Whole-Brain Child: 基于大脑发育的育儿心经

《The Whole-Brain Child》是近期许多微信 教育群 里热推的一本书。我也跟风儿买了一本。短短百余页的小册子，很好读。收益非浅，有点醍醐灌顶的感觉。以前代孩子中遇到的问题，似乎找到了答案。

1. 从大脑发育出发，让你了解你的孩子。市面上无数育儿书总是长篇累牍讲“How” (如何培养好习惯, 如何和孩子沟通) 和"What" (培养什么能力) ；但很少涉及 "Why"。《The Whole-Brain Child》从大脑的结构和发育出发，深入浅出、通俗易懂；让我很快了解我的儿子的一些行为以及为什么会这样。同时，也似乎让我从另一个角度了解自己。

Our 2nd Pinewood Derby Car Working Tips - 童子军松木赛车 之二

It's his 2nd Pinewood Derby Car season, and we want to try something different this year. Surprisingly, our new strategy worked ! My son's car won the 2nd place in speed contest. 😏 
Just like to share a few tips here. Again, it may or may not work for your case, but just to inspire you to try something differently.

Let him do it

Looked back, I felt that I did more than I should've done for him last
year. Probably OK for the first car. This year I promised myself - let

Troubleshooting "Radio Project" in ScienceWiz Kit- 矿石收音机调试

Perhaps inspired by my recent post, many friends start building science projects of ScienceWiz / Inventions Kit with their kids,  However, they could not get the last project of "Building a Radio" work. 

Frankly, my son and I did not make it at our first attempt, either. Apparently, we are not alone. For example, this amazon reviewer complained it even though he "followed the instructions to a tee". This boy on YouTube was not able to get any sound even though he double checked everything. 

Almost gave up until I read this successful case with the

Practical LEGO Robot Kits for Kids (7+) - 实用机器人套件

Did you make the similar mistake? My son loves Legos. To cultivate his engineering sense, I bought tons of different LEGO sets, City, The Mine, Creator, Star Wars, Technic etc. However, the problem is when the set is built, it is "dead" and becomes a display.

Luckily, I met a renowned robotics educator, Charles Chen, at my son's robotics camp and talked about this problem.  He gave me a simple solution for kids age 7-10 before using LEGO Mindstorms:

今天聊聊机器人。大家有没有遇到同样的问题？我儿子酷爱Lego，

Must-Read Chess Books for Kids - 适合孩子的象棋书

My son has played chess over a year. He went to chess camps and took chess lessons. One tip is to get the right books. He read the following chess books recommended by his coach. He improved rapidly and had lots of fun. A little regret from me, I can not beat him easily any more :-)

Conquer your Friends with 8 Easy Principles

• Strategy with 8 principles - big picture of the game

Our 1st Pinewood Derby Car from A to Z - 童子军松木赛车 之一

My son and I had zero background about the Pinewood Derby Car when we got his car kit from our Pack. Over the past 2 months, we did lots of homework via Google & YouTube and also bought several tools & accessories for the project. Eventually, we built our first Derby car and surprisingly brought a trophy back home.

Now I like to share our lessons/tips learned from this project. I am
not trying to focus on some technical depth about how to make your car faster or more realistic but more to summarize the whole project with a series of steps. It probably does not help or spark those Derby gurus but hopefully gives some hands to the first-time maker and beginners.

One question before I start - does your son have his own toolbox? If not, it is probably a good time to get one for him. I bought a CAT Portable Toolbox for my son. It turned out to be a good decision; especially on the contest day he had everything in one

ScienceWiz / Inventions Kit－ 和孩子分享科学快乐

《ScienceWiz / Inventions Kit》：儿子8岁了。他对 Lego 有与生俱来的热爱，好奇机械、爱拆东西。为了给他普及一些科技知识，除了读书外，我一直在找一本适合7－8孩子的科技动手图书。不想让他仅限于 l Lego 的拼搭，更要引导他一些基本的物理常识。

比较一些图书后，我对《ScienceWiz / Inventions Kit》from Penny Norman 一书比较满意。除了物理知识简介，书中所有的科技实验的器材都包括在盒子里。而且没有Fancy的东西，都是一些日常生活用品。每周日和儿子一起做一个Project。他很高兴我们的 daddy-n-son时间。

从第一简易电动机模型到最后的无线电接收器，我们一一制作；而且都最

The Right Telescope for Kids - 初级天文望远镜7-8岁孩子

Celestron 70mm Telescope：刚看见有人求荐入门级Telescope适合7-8岁孩子但低于$50。一分钱一分货。低于$50且质量说的过去的比较难找。 我家用的是 Celestron 70mm, Amazon Best Seller，$65。效果比较满意 ，可以清楚看到月亮、木星。

要是想用手机拍照片，可以直接用手机对准目镜拍，不过要有耐心。没必要浪费钱买什么手机或照相机架子 Gosky Universal Cell Phone Adapter Mount 。我买了这个Gosky的架子，效果没有想象的好。常常是调好了
架子，然后放上手机，目镜位置就偏移了，还要重调。

将成语故事和中国历史引入孩子的中文学习

摘要
为了进一步激发8岁儿子的中文兴趣，我在他临睡前的story time 引入了故事性、趣味性强的成语和陈卫平的《中国历史》中一些故事。效果不错，儿子每晚都盼着听；而且他在日常对话中有意识地使用一些听过的成语。

没时间的话，看到这里即可；有时间可继续往下读……

Cub Scouts Experience - 儿子参加童子军的经历 (7-12岁)

1. 导语

这里的经验仅限于我和儿子参加了一年半的Cub Scouts活动，所以分享经验主要基于Cub Scouts。Cub Scout 是童子军的预科，主要针对7-12岁男孩。通常说的童子军是指 Boy Scout 12-18岁男孩。更多童子军信息参见 Boy Scout of America 网站。

2. 摘要 －What is in it for my son?
我觉得讲俗一点儿 就是“孩子们在一起分享各家的爸爸”。那么正式地讲就是培养男孩子在学习和体育之外的诸多能力，比如户外  outdoor，动 手能力， 团队合作teamwork，领导能力