Relax. Check out tygh****

Leisure, by W.H. Davies -

What is this life, if full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like stars at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can
Finish the smile her eyes began.

A poor life this, if full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

Geoff Dellow of U.K. has a site named - for some reason not mentioned on the site itself, tygh. Actually, coming to think of it, this is the url; the site doesn't appear to have a name! I wonder if the pronunciation is like tiger or dig or something else altogether? Oh well, some things in life remain mysteries. Which should not prevent you from going to this site and checking the fun math it offers! Geoff is a flash enthusiast, which means that basically his site is a way of showcasing how much fun flash can be, and how it can be used as an educational tool. For a flash based site, it doesn't take any time to load whatsoever. While it is loading - you can skip this though - you read the poem I have also quoted here :)



Try the various links to explore. They are easy, and fun to watch and use for teaching. Like the tangrams. I have amalgamated three screenshots below to make a composite, but the original is actually one figure morphing into another position, another figure playing football in a fast animation sequence. A little - too little animation, but nice intro to tangrams and what you can do with those magic seven pieces...



Check out the halves section for ideas on how many ways can you halve an object - in this case, a square. Perfect to use when you have introduced the subject of fractions, and the child has understood it well.



The tiles game is great maths - and for silly people like me who left their maths in school, it is still great! Kids enjoy this, because the premise of the game is click and see what happens, and that is what childhood is about.



The animated sequence of various geometrical figures tumbling down a straight line, drawing curves, is truly more than a thousand words, conveying the entire idea so simply. Ask a child what might happen if you marked a point on a square and tumbled it down the table - what would the point do in space - and it will be a difficult thing to grasp. But show him or her this, and you have planted ideas that will germinate and branch and grow roots.



That leaves us with just a couple of other links on the page - don't be lazy! Go check those out :)

The url - http://www.tygh.co.uk/

P.S. I don't think I remember seeing this song - might have done, but who in India hasn't heard it? As a child, all it meant to me was the melody, and the first two lines extolling the loss of the rainy season worth millions, to a job paying two cents. Being a nature lover, I could totally empathize with someone not wanting to be in a stuffy office when it was raining outside... It was only a few years back when it suddenly hit me that the lady is talking more of passion and romance than of the season! Talk of naivety! Oh well. The seductive undertones not withstanding, it was still the song that came to mind when I read the poem above, so here it is -



P.P.S. 19th Oct. 08 edit -
I have received word from Geoff Dellow about the story behind tygh. I quote from his mail -

"Why tygh -

because it doesn't mean anything and therefore can be used for anything - I use it all the time for email so not meaning anything is handy.

secondly it's dead easy to type

third it was one of the few interesting four letter combinations available at the time

As for my site you've discovered one small part of it !

http://www.tygh.co.uk/students is by far the more important to me and believe it or not , to the mathematics experts like Prof Celia Hoyle of the London Institute of education.

Using Flash as kids have done develops mathematical thinking because it explores the use of logic in everything you do - what's more it's fun, which is important. "

A noise is annoying me + Orange**

Phones ring insistently, door bells shrilly, horns honk annoyingly - have you noticed that the things which make us do something are always associated with a negative adjective? The ringtone may be most soothing, the door bell chime sweet as a cuckoo, the horn merely the minimal polite 'please could you move?' Yet, because these sounds are the advance guard of a change in our tempo we ourselves didn't initiate, we view them as intrusive, irritating. Unless of course, you have been waiting for that call from the office informing you of your raise, waiting for your child to be brought home from the hospital, all healed, waiting for your lover to turn up in his new car... :)

Today featuring Michael's second site - the fun page of the communication company Orange. Orange has a site made up specially to illustrate its tagline - Good things should never end!



It is a flash animation, so it will take a while to load up - but the bees ferrying honey from hive to jar are pretty cute to watch in the interim :) Once it is loaded, it is quite literally, an endless page, repeating whimsical animations, some with a shareable code, some without. (See below for three examples - you can click and play in them!) It is fun to explore initially, scrolling down to see what else is there...



You do have to be careful about scrolling - better use the keyboard arrows else you will find yourself sliding down more rapidly than planned! Not that it matters, because after a while you begin to see repetitions, or slight variations thereof, and don't really bother to visit the end of the page at all. So you could just as easily start off in the middle and not lose out anything :)



Each animation generally has its own sounds which remain as long as it is visible. Some are interactive, others just show repetitive movement (not included in these examples here). It is a dream page for the little someone who will insist on using the computer "all on my own, mamma" - endless scrolling and clicking! But kids also are quite likely to get totally bored by the absence of new things to see after a few tries.



There are a few games which involve guessing which word - relating to, say a place, or a transport, is in the 'mind' of a character. Some more in which you hold nonsensical conversations with an 'artificial intelligence'. Both kinds are good for tweens who are able to appreciate this kind of humour. And then there is an ice-cream game, which is different enough from others of its ilk for me to tell you about it. There are three components to the ice-cream, of which you can hold two at a time, ie they will not change when you click the ice-cream man. If you don't 'hold', they will all change, randomly, much in the nature of those lottery machines. So the trick is to hold two, and keep changing the third till you like it, and then repeat the process with the others. Kind of cumbersome, but not really once you get the hang of it.



The url - http://unlimited.orange.co.uk/flash/go

P.S. Yes, I have been pretty much annoyed by the phone today which just is not stopping its ringing - you can make out, can't you?

P.P.S. Which sounds are the most irritating for you? Just curious!

Have fun! Find Faces in places***

No words required!

I am privileged to feature the first guest suggestion on this blog today! Michael Balmaceda (thanks!) has these two great sites for kids of any age - and I mean any! To keep things simple in the post title, I am featuring them separately.

The first find is this imaginative blog called Faces in Places. A true collective effort, this showcases photographs of objects or object collections that resemble faces. Go through the archives with your children, and have fun imagining what that face is saying, or trying to see who is it among your acquaintances who has a face like that. Little ones get fascinated just by the positioning of 'eyes' and 'mouth', and whether there is a nose or not. Plus, it fosters imagination offline as well - encourage them to look for faces in all places, and who knows what you will find? Open your eyes to something new today, a new way of looking at things, a new way of finding smileys :)







If you have a photo that fits, upload it to the faces in places flickr group or contact the blog owner via her flickr account - links on the blog.

The url - http://facesinplaces.blogspot.com/

P.S. I am not quite able to figure out if it is Jody or Amy who is blogging, but it is one of them from the old travel blog of theirs they have linked to.

P.P.S. Please do not copy any of these photographs without contacting the owner of the photo for permission.

Liam's pictures from old books. And Baby tv****

Its been so long since I started this post that I have forgotten what I intended saying! Plus, I am distracted by the same reasons that have been keeping me away lately. So, I am going to make this short and simple with this beautiful link for illustrations from old books for adults, not children! Liam Quin of Canada scans drawings and illustrations from books which are in public domain. You could use them as free clipart, or simply visit the site for the pleasure of looking at these drawings.

There is a fierce debate regarding the advantages and disadvantages of tv programs for babies as young as three months. The proponents claim that the programs are so designed as to encourage the babies to observe and learn. The opponents believe that the act of watching the tv goes against what babies have been doing for countless centuries, and what they are programmed to do: explore the real world around them. I take no sides at this time. We don't own a tv set, but not for this reason - simply because we never felt the need to buy one. So, today's featured site doesn't come as an endorsement of 'baby' tv - it is simply another good site for children! Neither is this an indictment, for I rather think that some of the programs are quite useful for infants/toddlers.

Baby tv is a UK based network focusing totally on very young children. The website mentions copyright Elite Sports, but I am not sure about the manner in which the two are related.



The games page is attractively laid out in bright colours, with an intuitive interphase and voice overs. Click on any egg to get to the games related to that show/character. The entire game section is flash based, so initial loading may be a bit slow. However, the tortoise/turtle playing peek-a-boo keeps kids entertained. If you need to go back to the main game page, use the back tab in the game rather than your browser's.

The games are simple and easy with bold, clear illustrations, focusing on a child's problem solving ability for the most part. Computer skills required are mouse movement and clicking. The number of games is not large but sufficient. They do add new games now and then, but I haven't been there often enough to know the frequency. Here are three illustrations -



Some have a couple of levels, like the Baby game (the butterfly is called Baby) above. In the first level, children click on an animal which then fits into its silhouette, and the second requires children to choose the correct animal for the silhouette themselves.



The whosit whatsit game here starts off with only a bit of a figure showing, from which kids have to guess which figure it is. If they are unable to, a spotlight will roam over the hidden figure and finally reveal it fully.



There is of course, the ubiquitous matching game, but the one above is part jigsaw as well. Level 1 shows the complete picture, while level 2 requires kids to remember and logically figure out where the piece shown will fit.

The home page for games - http://www.babytvchannel.com/flashGames/Games.aspx

P.S. Please note that the old books is linked to Liam's pictures from old books, while his name is linked to his own page. Yes, he does a lot of things besides scanning old books :)

Poisson rouge***** revisited

Looking at the earliest entries of this blog, I was surprised at how little I said about the sites, or even otherwise. [Good thing, do I hear you say?] But no, I really ought to do something about the sites: more screenshots, more info about games, a bit more exposure, for I started with our favourites, and I would not have them languishing while lesser sites flourish!

So, delving into Poisson Rouge again today. I guess the site is so familiar to me that talking about it had seemed superfluous, like bragging even, but to someone new, a synopsis is really not suficient. The main page, designed like a nursery, has toys and other icons like windows or a telescope, which are clickable and lead to further environments. In each section, explore fully - almost everything leads to a game, and some are hidden just a bit to make the exploration interesting but not frustrating. The games load very quickly, are excellent in concept and design, and have interesting sound effects. Here are some random screenshots, for really there is no way to select just a few to showcase!

A simple game in the 'bugs' category - leaf colour changes by rolling over them with a coloured butterfly -



From the toy chest, a shapes game. Clicking on the shapes below will lead to its corresponding three dimensional figure to spin. One very cute feature of the toy chest is the appearance of bubbles each time you start a new game or go back to the main page. They pop with the most satisfying sounds by moving the mouse over them :)



Another simple game illustrating camouflage from the same - click anywhere and the tiger moves, vanishing in the striped pattern. Click again, and it reappears.



A favourite from the number blocks - who can resist breaking glass bottles with that wonderful scrunching sound, and no scoldings?



The aquarium, which you navigate by clicking and dragging the submarine around. Let it go anywhere you wish and click on one of the numerous creatures to see what happens. In this shot, both the shark and the squid have been clicked.



One of the favourite games from the aquarium - the fish shrinks each time it touches a jellyfish, till it disappears and a new one appears, so you have to navigate it through by moving the mouse. For some reason, my little one likes the shrinking, so we end up playing the game the other way round!



Check the original post about Poisson Rouge for more details, and have fun!

Rage (and quiet)

There are ideas which germinate, grow, spread out and branch, flower, fruit and become trees. A multidimensional, breathing, living tree with roots that take hold in the soil of your mind.

And then there are leaves on a canvas, around which are painted more leaves, then branches and the trunk, and then the ground and the landscape. The general idea of the tree pre-existed; it was just brought into being on the canvas by a fluttering leaf which fell. But, because this is a creative process, you are free to intertwine its branches with imaginary beings, entangle the roots with other thoughts, insert impossibilities - whatever makes it more decorative, more useful, more elaborate perhaps?

And that is the difference between an insight and manufactured thought. Or is it?

Take rage for example. Not just getting angry. Raging fire. Violent and uncontrollable anger. Something we call road-rage or air-rage or some such, read about in the paper and exclaim in surprise and disgust about. Have you experienced it? Never ever? Or was it possibly-but-that-was-justified-and-I-was-right?

Rage, by definition, is something that is limited, finite in time. A fit of wrath is how Merriam-Webster defines it. Something minor happens; a tiny, easy to extinguish spark falls on flammable matter piled carelessly or tinder stacked in neat rows - it doesn't matter; suddenly flames shoot up, incinerate those in sight. The aftermaths are bloody. And not just for the victims. Rage is a spectrum like any other emotion. It is rage when I lose control and verbally spank my child. It is rage when you abuse and make finger gestures at the driver of that car in front. It is rage when two neighbours fight over a well they have used for centuries together. It is rage when a serviceman denied leave goes on a rampage and shoots four, injuring ten before falling dead by his own rifle. It is rage when a man-beast takes a girl by force because he is incensed by her brother's treachery. Never morally acceptable, there is nevertheless one end which is socially tolerated and practiced by many, although disparaged by all. The other end, of course, is the legal road to the death row.

Have you thought about what happens to the perpetrator in that moment when the spark digs fiery roots? What is happening in that mind? What happens when the fit is past, when the anger and possible pain and guilt and shock have worn off, and also, unknowingly or knowingly, it has become easier to cross that threshold of civility the next time, and the next, and then again? Easier to kill, to rape, to hit, to hurt, to shout, to abuse, to undermine?

Has that person thought of it? Have you? Questioned why? What is it that made that mind so fragile, so unable to accept tiny shifts in values, paradigms, relations that result from mundane everyday events? Was it something in the basic, fundamental motor design? Or the gadgets and accessories we loaded on the way to here? Or was it the stress of recent journeys, the shear and strain from too many potholes, too much weight, too little grease, too much adulteration of the petrol? Was the spark laden with dynamite? Why, what happened?

Try and think - and what you think, desperate to find a solution, to see what happened, is that painted tree. The mind will show you links and branchings and all sorts of reasons and excuses - all plausible, all true - and yet, it will happen again and again. You can follow the chain of events, reconstruct the scene, deduce the reasons, figure out the solutions, and yet it happens, again. For if you are capable of thought, you are also capable of manufacturing it, of building up arguments and presenting your case as fluently as if you were on the school elocution team. You know, and yet you do not know. Until you, one day, reach that insight, that window into your own soul that lets you see what it is that you have known in words so far but not in spirit. Until you find that real growing idea.

It is not an easy process, this finding out the real why, in a way that will make you stop. The onlooker will say, why not stop, why not do things this way and not that, for they can't see the obstacles which you do. For a lifetime you battle them, saying 'no, its not possible', explaining, getting frustrated, clinging on to the little island in your mind that lets you see the whole picture. Till the day you find that insight, and you see that it was that easy, that it was, in fact, those 'outsiders' who saw the forest you missed for the trees. And it is not that complete either. Glimpses, partial truths and untruths, rare fragments of insight - they all are a part of the journey. And that is where the painted tree, the fractal of life on canvas rises up and touches the third dimension here, and here, and there, and the tree of the real idea, bends in to feel the paper and is held fast in its flatness. If I could draw, I would paint this scene for you... this intermixing of the shadow and the object, the weaving of leaves of a tree and its reflection...

P.S. Which of these two categories do you think this post falls in? A real idea, or a painted idea?

P.P.S. The second part of this post has already been posted just before...

(Rage) and Quiet - Orisinal***

Orisinal: morning sunshine. The land of pastel colours, of restful beauty, of gentle tinkling music, and - fast moving eyes and fingers! The personal playground of Ferry Halim, as the artist himself puts it, is an oasis of pretty little games which will appeal to your aesthetics as well as provide you with some finger fun. You? Yes, you, for unfortunately, the colour scheme, no matter how pleasing to adult eyes, just doesn't hold interest for the very young. The games have cute themes and characters, but by and large are too fast for little fingers, so that doesn't help either. The game premise is usually very simple, as in the teatime game below where the mice have to be moved out of harm's way by simply clicking above or below them, but the pace is relatively fast for tiny tots, and they get discouraged after a while.



The main page is a flash animated page but it doesn't take long to load at all. Hovering over a little thumbnail will light it up with brighter colours, and its name will appear below.



There are games which are easy to play of course, and even toddlers may enjoy watching them as you play and provide commentary, but you have to play all forty six of them first to be able to figure out which these are! Whether that is a bonus or extra work is your take! Starry night, for example, requires simple mouse movement to bounce the yellow star in such a way as to light up the other stars.



The site does have ads, but they are unobtrusive, at the bottom of the page, so the experience is not spoiled. The music, as I said, is wonderfully peaceful.

Here is a snapshot from the bungee bear game. Catch a rabbit from behind by jumping (using the left click) and you get points. Bang into it from front, and no good results. Trouble is, mouse movement, even a little bit, will often reverse your direction, so if you thought this was a simple game, just try it!



Below the games, in the miscellaneous section, you will find buttons for the store, flowers, rain, guest book, link back, wallpapers and trailer. Of these, flowers is a sort of ecard - there are a few pale (really pale!) pink flowers to be picked from the garden, resized and rotated and stuck in a crystal orb, so you can send them to - me :) Or anyone, of course. But the best is the rain button. Click to get a visual of a garden, or presumably a garden for only a tiny corner of the screen is really visible clearly - and rain falling unending. The music is not quite just rain sounds, but it comes close. Try it for a tranquil Zen experience!

And now for the disclaimer! Not all the games are as little-girl-in-sunshine as I have suggested. There are a couple of bam-bam games as well - but thats your choice. Even those are cute though!

The url - http://www.ferryhalim.com/orisinal/

P.S. This is actually the second half of the original post, focusing on the 'quiet'. The first half, on 'rage' will follow. Soon.