As some of you may know, Brain Play took a break from in-person after school lessons this term to focus on MoE sessions, focus groups, online lessons, events & meeting demand across Auckland. This also gave us an opportunity to create our best course framework yet which we are so excited to share with you. With that being said, I am so excited to announce that Brain Play is back in-person for Term 1 2023, back and better than ever. We missed seeing everyone!
We have new equipment, new kits and new challenges that are ready to be taken on. For one term only, we will hold weekly 1.5-hour STEM sessions at Upper Harbour Primary School, Hauraki Primary School, Pinehurst School, Remuera Primary School, Hobsonville Point Primary School and Parnell District School. Previously, STEM lessons at Brain Play only lasted an hour, but the extra 30 minutes will allow us to dive deeper into some of the bigger concepts we will be covering and will give the students more time with our new equipment.
Past Brain Play attendees may remember that we previously ran a weekly Minecraft club which I am thrilled to announce that it is also back for 2023! Our Minecraft club is a club that we host after every Brain Play lesson for an hour. It allows the attendees to develop their Minecraft skills by asking our expert tutors for help, especially with the trickier parts such as redstone. It also allows kids to jump on each other's Minecraft worlds to see their builds. It is an awesome way for younger kids to get new skills and make friends in the process!
Will Brain Play bring back holiday programmes?
Yes! We will be offering STEM holiday programmes across Auckland as well as a lot of free pop up events at community centres and libraries. We had an overwhelming response of positive feedback on our Minecraft Madness holiday programmes from the October holidays so we will be bringing this back in January 2023. These will be at Mairangi Bay, Albany, Pinehurst and Online, the full timetable can be found on the “Holiday’s” page of the website.
We are also offering a Minecraft and a Roblox online workshop on the 17th of December (a good distraction while you wrap up Christmas presents 😉).
At home STEM experiment of the week: Christmas Magic Milk.
Every week we will add a new STEM experiment/activity for you to do with your kids at home. Be prepared for a lot of fun with a side of mess!
You will need:
Dairy milk
Red and green liquid food colouring
Dishwashing liquid
Cotton buds
A small tray/bowl
Method:
Pour a thin (5cm) layer of milk into your tray/bowl
Have the kids add a few drops of the food colouring all around the milk
Dip the end of the cotton buds into the dishwashing liquid so it is coated
Have the kids put their cotton bud into the food colouring blobs in the milk and hold it there while the magic happens!
They will be so excited and filled with questions, here are some good ones to ask them:
What happened when you put the cotton bud in the food colouring?
Why do you think that happened?
A. Milk is made up of protein, minerals and fat. As the dishwashing liquid enters the milk it chases the fat molecules around to try to attach to them and break them up. The food colouring allows us to see the dishwashing liquid chase after the fat molecules and they will keep running around until all of the fat in the milk is broken up.
Did you see anything else unusual?
If you try this out, make sure to send us a photo of how it went!
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