Does your child love playing Angry Birds? If you don’t know what all the fuss is about – give Angry Birds a try now. At first it was only available for devices such as the iPod touch, iPad, smart phones, and Kindle, but now it’s also playable on your Mac or PC, Nintendo Wii, or even Facebook. There is an Angry Birds 2 available and spin-offs to choose from such as Angry Birds Star Wars I and II (our favourites), Angry Birds Transformers, Angry Birds Fight, and more.
Learning with Angry Birds
Why not make your own Angry Birds game in real life, once you and your children have played the video game? You’ll need:
• Angry birds and bad piggies – buy Angry Birds plush balls and bad piggies, knit Angry Birds with these free patterns, or sew an Angry Bird plush with this free tutorial
• Block set (an architectural set works well, or even the blocks from your Jenga game)
• A slingshot – my children made one out of a branch and some waistband elastic but have your children look around the house and see what they can use to make a slingshot
Set up the blocks with some bad piggies on them and slingshot angry birds at them. See who can get the most blocks and piggies down at one time, or work out a point system much like the one in the game. While you’re playing, discuss concepts such as arc and acceleration, where to stand to get the best knock-down results, angles at which you release the birds, and how far back you pull your slingshot before you release it. Perhaps your children would like to take it further and construct a trebuchet, a catapult, or other siege engines to launch their angry birds as well.
For more enrichment for your younger children, you can use these Angry Birds printables – two different sets of fun, free printables – one for preschoolers and one for kindergarteners.
For your older children, check out these physics articles:
• Wired Science shares The Physics of Angry Birds.
• Angry Birds in the Physics Classroom presents questions with accompanying videos for physics students.
If your children are really enjoying all the Angry Birds fun, take your unit study further:
• into the kitchen for the whole family with the Bad Piggies’ Egg Recipes cookbook.
• how did this feud between the angry birds and the bad piggies start? Perhaps young children would enjoy writing a story all about it.
• if they’d like to act it out, they can make Angry Birds felt masks like these to dress up.
Do you enjoy learning with Angry Birds in your home? Please let me know in the comments below!
Love, Luck &