Learninghaven.com

Author: admin

  • Marco Polo Unit

    Marco Polo Biography


    A reading of the Marco Polo biography reinstates the fact that throughout the ages there have been men who, bitten by the travel bug, have taken to the roads, ridden the waves and trudged across mountains to chart new courses, discover new lands and cultures. Marco Polo’s wanderlust had served to extend the geographical boundaries of the world.

    Marco Polo stakes his claim in the annals of history as the Venetian merchant and explorer who was amongst the very first from the Western World to traverse the Silk Route to reach China, or Cathay, as was known in those days. He then visited the court of the great Mongol king Kublai Khan. His journeys have been immortalized in “Il Milione” or “The Million” or “The Travels of Marco Polo”.

    Marco Polo began his travels around the world when he accompanied his father and brother to the court of Kubla Khan in 1271. Marco Polo soon gained the favor of king Kublai Khan and served him for 17 long years.

    In 1291, the Polo family began their journey back to Europe and Kubla Khan asked Marco Polo to join an embassy to the Khan of Persia and accompany the Mongol princess Koekecin to her fiancée, the Ilkhan Arghun. Marco did his duty and they set sail for Venice via Trabzon.

    Even a casual flip through the pages of Marco Polo biography will bring you face-to-face with a myriad of hitherto unknown facts about China in the 13th century. In fact, his biography and Il Milione are considered authentic sources if you want to stock up on information about the Chinese way of life, their customs and beliefs and their system of governance as prevailed in the 13th century.

    In fact, after their return to Italy in 1295, the Polo trio became celebrities of sorts with people from far and wide thronging to hear about their eclectic travel experiences and encounters and to wonder at the tales of faraway lands.

    Marco Polo was a traveler at heart. And so even after he settled down in Venice, a wealthy merchant and no longer traveled, he still sponsored other travels.

    Marco Polo’s age was no age of jet planes, cars and bullet trains and it is no wonder that his exploits, arduous and perilous to say the least, earned him the awe and admiration of his contemporaries. But there was no dearth of a skeptic Venetian who refused to believe him. And Marco Polo continues to court controversy till date.

    The Marco Polo biography has had some historians doubting its veracity about his travels. They believe that Marco Polo had not actually been to China and that he has merely retold facts stated by other travelers. Historians who hold this view point out to the omissions regarding chopsticks, tea and the horrendous Chinese ritual of foot binding in the Marco Polo biography and Il Milione.

    On the other hand, there are historians who are all praises about the Marco Polo biography with its references to the hierarchy in the Mongolian army, the currency and the Imperial Postal systems. They also hail Marco Polo as being the first among Westerners to refer to Japan in a text.

    Despite the storm brewing in the cup, Marco Polo and Marco Polo biography are still held in great esteem by historians and laymen alike.

  • Cultures

    This unit covers different aspects of culture. Some articles on holidays children celebrated in different parts of the world, with related crafts, recipes for food and some fun craft activities like origami.

    Holidays Around the World

    Guy Fawkes Day (UK)

    On November 4,1605, Guy Fawkes was caught red-handed in the basement of the British Parliament. He was trying to blow up the Houses of Parliament with gunpowder. Ever since then, on November 5, the British have celebrated his capture and execution by burning an effigy (model) of him on bonfires around the nation. Learn more about why he wanted to blow up Parliament, how he was caught and the celebrations.

    St Martin’s Day

    Falling on November 11, German children celebrate St Martin’s Day as the start of Carnival season. They walk around the streets, after dark, carrying lanterns, and singing special songs. A bit like trick or treating, they are rewarded for their singing and the beauty of their lanterns, with sweets and other goodies.

    Thanksgiving

    This is a North American Holiday.
    Celebrated in November it remembers the original Thanksgiving. On that day the
    Pilgrims gave thanks for their survival, which was largely due to the help
    they received from the Native Americans.

    Kwanzaa

    Kwanzaa is a fairly new holiday. It is an
    African American Holiday, intended to maintain cultural heritage. It is
    celebrated in December.

    Hannukah

    Hannukah, also known as the Festival of
    Lights, is a Jewish holiday. Find out more about what it is and how it is
    celebrated.

    The Origin of Some Christmas Traditions

    Christmas is celebrated in every corner of
    the world. Although each culture has differences, many of the traditions are
    the same. Find out a little about the origins of such traditions as Santa
    Claus, Christmas trees, Boxing Day and cards.

    Eid Al Fitr

    Eid Al Fitr is a Muslim Holiday which marks
    the end of Ramadan. Ramadan is a month of fasting. Find out more about
    Ramadan and about the Eid Celebrations.

    Recipes, Crafts and More

    When is a Pancake Not a Pancake?

    American children know that a pancake is thick round and dry, and that you add a topping to it. British children will tell you it is thin, slightly oiled and tastes best rolled up with lemon juice and sugar in the middle. Egyptian children eat it as a snack, folded in half, stuff with nuts or cream, deep-fried and soaked in sugar syrup. So who is right? When is it a pancake and when is it something else completely?

    Origami: The Japanese Art of Paper Folding

    Although Origami is known to be a Japanese Art or sometimes Craft, it actually started out in China. The Chinese invented paper, and when the invention spread to Japan, so did the art of paper folding. Most Japanese practice origami, but it started out as an art form for religious ceremonies. Find out more about the history of origami, and try your hand at a simple model.

    Make a Paper Lantern

    There are plenty of sites online showing how to make paper lanterns, but none quite as impressive as this one. It takes basic materials, a little skill and a lot of patience. Follow these simple instructions and make your own. This one is similar to the lanterns the children carry on St. Martin’s Day.

  • Challenge Activites


    Bookmark this page so you can keep checking back for new activities.

    To get started:

    First read the profile on Harriet
    Tubman.

    Next, make yourself a glowing star chart, by
    following the simple
    instructions    . You are going to travel along the chart until
    you reach the end. There are 5 more activities to complete on the way.

    Put a marker on the first star ~ a post-it note is
    ideal.

     

    Activity 5

    The last activity is a little different. It is a writing assignment. Write one of the following:
    A biography of a great African American. Include your reasons for choosing this person.
    A poem about racism and tolerance.
    A short essay on the destructive nature of racism and why we should work to stamp it out.

    Congratulations, you have finished! You may contact us in order to pick up your certificate of completion.
    Email directly or leave a message on the
    forum.

    You may move your marker to the sixth star once this
    activity is completed.

    Activity 4

    Read about Sidney Poitier.

    Now make a collage showing racism AND tolerance. You could use pictures of race riots, signs showing segregation and some of the marches from the 60’s for the racism side. For the tolerance side try to find pictures showing mixed marriages, kids of all races working or playing together, and perhaps some mixed sports teams. Use your imagination!

     

    You may move your marker to the fifth star once this
    activity is completed.

     

    Activity 3

    Read about Patricia Cowings.

    Print out and make this model of a space shuttle.

     

    You may move your marker to the fourth star once this activity is completed.

     

    Activity 2

    Another page to read about the drinking
    gourd. 

    This time YOU have to be creative.
    Try and make a drinking dipper. You could try using a tin can and stick, or a
    yogurt pot and stick. You may like to cover it with paper mache. Whatever you
    do, be sure that an adult considers it safe, and is supervising. Then get your
    helper to post to the forum, telling us how you got on.

     

    You may move your marker to the third star once this
    activity is completed.

     

    Activity 1

    Read about the drinking gourd song. 

    Following the instruction for making a
    glossary    , make a
    glossary for that page.

    It will not be like a normal
    glossary. You need to use the definitions the slaves used.  

    Include these words: 

    • Drinking
      Gourd
    • Old
      man
    • Great river
    • Little
      river
    • Left
      foot, peg foot

    You may move your marker to the second star once this
    activity is completed.

     

  • Eli Whitney Biography

    Boy Inventor Adventure Guide


    Eli Whitney – biography is the story of an innovative yet simple inventor who changed the history of America forever. Eli was born on December 8,1765 in Westborough, Massachusetts. He was the son of a farmer. Whitney completed his graduation in 1792 from Yale College and got married to Henrietta Edwards on January 6th, 1817. He fathered four children, led a simple life of an innovator and died peacefully on January 8, 1825 at New Haven, Connecticut.

    The Prime Inventions Of Eli Whitney- Biography Of The Creative Inventor 

    Eli Whitney led a simple yet eventful life marked by some great inventions, like:

    The Cotton Gin Developed By Eli Whitney

    A cotton gin is a mechanical device, which removes seeds from cotton. Whitney, the eminent American inventor is credited as the creator of the first cotton gin. The earlier versions of the machine used in colonial America work well with long -staple cotton but could not be used for short-staple cotton.

    Eli Whitney developed a machine in 1793 to separate seeds from short-staple cotton. Eli gained a patent for his cotton gin in 1794.

    The cotton gin was ingenious yet stunningly simple. The machine was a wooden drum with hooks which when turned removed the seeds and pulled out the cotton fibers. It revitalized the declining cotton trade and slavery of southern America with little innovation. Horse drawn and water-powered gins speeded up the seeding process a lot. Thus cotton production was increased as the cost lowered making the cotton textile the most used textile of the time.

    However, Whitney couldn’t make much money, his designs and mechanisms were easy to imitate. Whitney’s company, which produced cotton gin, went out of business in 1797.

    Whitney invented many other machines, like the milling machine, which he never patented.

    Eli Whitney- Biography Of the Manufacturer Tells The Story Of Another Invention

    Whitney’s greatest contribution to the sphere of American manufacturing industry and assembly line is the production of muskets for the US government. Eli Whitney is also credited for inventing the interchangeable parts of a machine. He was also the pioneer of mass production of rifles in the late 18th and 19th century. The concept of interchangeable parts is based on separate specific part production by unskilled laborers who do not possess the exact gunsmith skill. The parts are interchangeable and are put together to make a whole gun.

    This interchangeable part mechanism lasted long and is responsible for the boom in American mass production. Henry Ford and others later used the concept of Whitney.

    The Last Era Of The Biography Of The American Inventor

    The old musket factory is now the museum preserving the memory of Eli Whitney. Biography of the inventor is colorful as I present an excerpt from the writing of Jim Whitney. He wrote on 17th March 1998:
    “Eli [Whitney] spent quite a bit of time in the New Haven, Connecticut area, where he studied as a student at Yale. I believe there is a museum at Whitney Ville, which is a suburb of New Haven. The museum is in an old mill where he worked on a number of inventions. ….”

    Thus ends the anecdote on Eli Whitney. Biography of the famous American inventor whose creations changed America.

  • World Time


    World time is measured by the world clock. Now, everybody should know how this clock, which records time world wide, works.

    To begin lets know a bit about its history. World time truly came into existence in November 1995. It all began in 1884, when the International Meridian Conference held in Washington declared the Greenwich Meridian as the Prime Meridian for the measure of Longitude. Greenwich is in London and was the site of the Royal Observatory with the same name until 1946.

    The Greenwich Meridian was also adopted as the World Time or GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) and the opening point of each time zone in the world.

    Since the duration of a day is 24 hours, World Time is divided into 24 time zones, with longitude differences of 15° or one hour. GMT is mean solar time calculated at midday. This system became internationally official on January 1st, 1885.

    On January 1st, 1982, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), identified UTC (Universal Time Coordinated). This was to bring parity in universal time where there were differences in the duration of a day throughout the year, due to the earth’s rotation.

    An international agreement declared UTC time as Greenwich Mean Time, though they are calculated differently. GMT is calculated from noon whereas UTC is measured from midnight. Each World Time Zone is set as an integer offset of hours to UTC time, +7 hours or -10 hours to UTC. If time reads 12:00 (Noon/PM), then people having offset +7 hours, have local time 19:00.

    If the time displays a ‘-‘ (minus) after the time, this means the day before the current UTC time. A ‘+’ after the time means the place has already entered the day following the current UTC time. Such divisions are necessary to manage time in different countries and continents.

    Then there are cities that follow Daylight Saving Time (DST) and are denoted with a star (*) after the city name. In such a system, the clock is set to correctly to display DST.

    There is another concept called the fixed time. Here you press the relevant key to select a city and a time on the world time table and you get to know the worldwide time right at that moment.

  • Math Worksheets


    Math worksheets are the answer to those butterflies in the stomach that seem to flutter just before the math examination or worse still, in the examination hall itself. Bacon had once remarked that “practice makes a man perfect” and these maths worksheets aim at just that. To hone your maths skill with rigorous practice sessions so that you are cured of your maths phobia.

    Maths worksheet is the rage amongst parents, teachers and of course, the maths-weary students themselves as a great means to step up on the maths workouts. As it is with the textbooks and the classroom teaching bound by constraints of space and time, the students are perennially short on practice.

    The timed maths worksheets help them to speed up their math solving skills so that they can perform stealthily and accurately when thrown in the pressure cooker setting of an examination. 

    Preparing the maths worksheets for your kid is a great way to take part in his studies. Not only do you get to know his syllabus, but you can also keep a tab on his progress. You can also brush up on your maths as you prepare these worksheets so that you can extend a helping hand to your kid once in a while.

    Preparing a maths worksheet doesn’t demand the world from you. After you have gone through the syllabi and the textbooks, take your cue from the worksheets designed by the teachers. This way you can make sure that you are taking the right path.

    While designing the math worksheets, your aim throughout should be to incorporate problems that will stimulate your kid without taxing him overtly. That is to say, your intent should be to tickle your child’s gray cells suitably to whet his interest in maths and drive away the fear of the subject.

    Incorporate variation and fun in the worksheet with some real-life maths problems. Thus grill the basics of average in to your kid by setting him maths problems that require him to find out the average number of hours he sits in front of the TV or the basics of addition and multiplication with sums say, on the number of pizza slices had during his birthday party.

    While you are drawing up the maths worksheet, it is always a good idea to provide the entire solution to the problem in the answer key. Knowing how to work around a particular maths problem is more crucial than knowing the right answer. Besides, your kid may also learn new ways to solve problems from the solutions you have provided in the worksheet.

    If all these seem too much of a bother, then you can ask your child’s teacher for any extra worksheets she might have with her or you can visit the numerous web sites housing maths worksheets. These are basically web sites designed to help your kids with their maths concepts and their homework and most of them provide free and printable versions of maths worksheets. These sites have virtually endless stocks, so that whenever you need one, you can visit one of them and take out a print.

    The math worksheets are a truly great way to add a zing to your kid’s maths routine.

  • Black History Month Challenge


    This month we are inviting you to participate in our
    challenge.

    You will be required to read some pages about Black
    History, and then do a related activity.

    In all there will be seven activities to complete. We
    will post a new activity twice a week. When you have completed them all, an
    adult should post to the forum, or send us an email.

    We will then send you a certificate saying you completed
    the challenge. The certificate will be sent via email, and you can print it out.

    No cheating and NO giving up.
    Remember, Harriet Tubman was willing to shoot anyone who gave up.

    We have made most of the activities best suited to
    around fifth grade. We are more than willing to make some adaptations for
    younger kids if they want to participate.

    The challenges will be added to this
    page    , bookmark it
    so you can check back for new challenges.

    Note to Parents or Teachers:

    We would love to hear about how the children are doing
    as they progress through the challenge. We have made a special folder for this
    on the forum. If any challenge was too easy or too hard let us know. Give us
    your feedback.

    Please do NOT give out personal details of children on
    the forum, a first name and age is the most you should ever post.

    On completion of the challenge, and your posting, we will
    contact you via email asking for a full name for the certificate. We do not
    share any information we receive with any third party.

  • Easy Projects


    Build A Volcano
    Here you can chose from a very simple model, to a complex electronic one. There are clear instructions given for each. Let’s get busy!

    Clay Seals
    Find out how to make a clay seal. Make one and try it out. Compare your seal with that of a friend. How different are they?

    Make a Civil War Drum
    During the civil war young boys used to carry drums. Read a bit of background history and then click on the link. You will be taken to a page of simple directions for making your own drum.

    Make Your Own Weather Station
    First make a weatherproof box. Next, make all the instruments to put in it, following the very simple instructions, and using readily available objects. Finally, keep a weather journal, showing your findings.

    Make Your Own Compass
    Find out why we need compasses, and then make your own. This is a very simple project, but fun to do.

    Make Your Own Fossils
    Although real fossils take millions of years to form, you can make your own in a few minutes.

    Make Your Own Sundial
    Enter coordinates for your location and the computer will generate a template for your very own accurate sundial. Download the template and away you go.

    Make a Thunderstorm
    This site has instructions for making just about every kind of weather. Try the thunderstorm first, and then have a go at the lightning and even a tornado. Do the experiments in order, so that you can understand how they work.

    Mummy Crazy
    Make your own life size mummy. There are very simple instructions to follow and links to mummy galleries made by Grade 6 students.

    Weather Experiments
    Lots of weather experiments for 8 year olds. The topics covered include how to weigh air, how to keep paper dry under water and even how to measure relative humidity.



  • Economics


    Chokky Bikkies – Looking at Fair Trade
    Find out more about fair trade and the production of chocolate in Ghana. After you have read about fair trade, click on the chocolate bar to take the quiz. Can you work out who gets the most?

    Cool Bank for Kids
    Links, the dog, and his friends explain banking in terms suitable for grades 3-5. Just click on anything in Links’ backyard and get information on banking matters.

    164 Currency Converter
    This currency converter lists and exchanges all 164 world currencies.

    Econopolis
    Join Mega Money, his horse, Bill, and dog, Dollar, on a tour through Econopolis. Start by learning about barter, and end with goods and services. There is a small quiz at the end of each page to check your knowledge and understanding of the lesson.

    A History of Money
    From wampum, shells used for barter, through the different forms of paper currency, this is a short history of money in the United States.

    The History of Money
    What purpose does money serve? Find out why people stopped bartering and switched to money instead.

    MoneyCents: Making Money Make Sense for Kids
    How kids can earn, spend and even save money, plus interesting facts about money.

    The US Mint Kids Site
    Learn about the history of coins, and find out how the Mint makes money. Visit an online clubhouse for kids and teachers. Find games, lesson plans, project ideas and more.

    United States Treasury Currency Information
    Did you know that the US Treasury used to print a $10.000 bill? Find out all about US paper money, what bills are still printed and what they look like.


  • World Geography


    Earth’s Greatest Features
    If you want to know which are the world’s tallest mountains, longest rivers, largest deserts and more great features, this is the place to look. Click on the topic you are interested in and see the list. No details of size are given, but this is a great starting point.

     

    Everest – Crown of the World
    At this Think Quest Junior project you can learn interesting facts about Mount Everest, including why it’s called that, who climbed it, and the accidents that have happened. There is also a map of the climbing route, and a game.

     

    Flags of All Countries
    Pick a country to view its flag, and then click on it to learn lots of interesting facts about the country. There is also a flag identifier here, so if you want to know which country a flag belongs to, this is the place to find out.

     

    Frozen Toes: Arctic Millennium Expedition
    Take a virtual field trip. Join five people on a 7000 km trek across Canada’s Arctic sharing knowledge, exploring cultures and celebrating Canada.

     

    Latitude and Longitude
    Here you can find a well-illustrated explanation of latitude and longitude. It is in 4 parts. You will need to go back to the menu, from the button at the bottom of the page, to get to the next page.

     

    Natural Wonders
    You have heard of the Seven Wonders of the World, but what about the natural wonders of the world? Click on the map or list of names to see pictures of these amazing features!

     

    Physical Geography – Canadian Communities Atlas
    This atlas presents the physical geography of Canada, including tectonics and geology.

     

    Why The World Goes Round
    This site gives a brief explanation of what makes the world turn, with a look at how we discovered that it turns.

     

    World Fact Book
    Find everything you need to know about the location, people, land use, government, economy and anything else of interest, from any country in the world. The countries are listed alphabetically, with clear, uncluttered maps for each listing.