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Which is why I was so keen to get my hands on the John Adams Hot Wires set, which looked like everything his online lessons weren’t; fun, exciting, colourful, inspiring. Basically, everything that good teaching should be. And my suspicions that this might finally provoke an interest in him were well founded. If you want to help further your children’s education at home that goes beyond phonics, reading and maths then Hot Wires is the perfect set to encourage their scientific learning. Who knows, you may just find that you have a budding electrical engineer in the house. The experiments in the book are really fun and do encourage children to learn in a fun way. With making Morse Code generators, simple radio sets, flashing lamps etc. there is a lot to do and enjoy. I have loved helping the kids with the experiments and, I must admit, to doing a few whilst they haven’t been around (it is quite interesting and you’re never too old to learn). The youngest member in the house (age 8) has even made her own designs, blowing a fuse along the way but creating some interesting and working designs! I can’t say there have been many occasions over the last year of home schooling that I’ve genuinely looked forward to. Certainly not listening to pre-recorded lessons explaining fronted adverbials to my nine-year-old, or split diagraphs to my six-year-old. But one set of lessons I did get excited about – before they started – were the pre-recorded electronics lessons on the Oak National Academy.
Understanding electronics is a vital part of children’s scientific education but this set teaches more than that. It also helps with problem solving, critical and logic thinking when something doesn’t work as it should – where did we go wrong and what can we do to fix it. It also teaches patience, being meticulous, how to read and follow diagrams and instructions, and having a clear thought process.The experiments in the book are really fun and do encourage children to learn in a fun way. With making Morse Code generators, simple radio sets, flashing lamps etc. there is a lot to do and enjoy. I have loved helping the kids with the experiments and, I must admit, to doing a few whilst they haven’t been around (it is quite interesting and you’re never too old to learn). The entire set is just quality. The components feel tough and durable, and are not flimsy so will stand up to being snapped together and unsnapped for a long time. After that he was hooked, first building more complex circuits – in series and parallel – while adding resistors and light emitting diodes. He’s progressed with enthusiasm through the experiments involving light and sound and is well on his way to the lie detector and burglar alarm experiments. For example, if you are buying a toy for a toddler that is too advanced, they may get bored and turn to other activities while they wait for the toy to be played with. Thus, early learning toys are appropriate for toddlers, instead of too complex toys. The next thing to consider when choosing toys for children is what do we want them to learn? Do we want them to learn about animals? About colors? About counting? These are all important topics that you may want your child exposed to from an early age so that they can begin learning about these things before school starts and continue learning throughout the year. Educational toys play a big role in this, as they keep on introducing and nurturing children with educational topics, their surroundings, life skills and many more.
The first experiment is Making a Simple Circuit. This is something I do remember from school – using a switch to turn on/off a small light bulb. All the components are ‘snapped’ on to a plastic board (supplied) and then the components snapped onto each other. The kids found this easy to do and followed the simple illustrated picture diagram quite easily. By building a simple circuit and using the information in the book it shows how electricity flows and how opening or closing a circuit will give a result, in this case turning on or off the light.
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Hot Wires Set is the ultimate electronic starter kit. Can you beat the lie detector? There’s so much to build, and even more to experience! For example, if a child wants to play with cars but can't yet reach them without climbing up on furniture or standing on boxes, then consider purchasing an attachment that allows them to play with cars without having to stand up or climb up things. Unfortunately, Harrison didn’t quite share my enthusiasm, which was disappointing as he’s always loved knowing how things work. But to be honest I could see how he wasn’t enthused, because the online lessons on building simple circuits seemed so abstract. It wasn’t hands-on, he’d watch the teacher build a circuit, then draw the circuit diagram, then say “can I have a break now?” I am very impressed with the quality of the electronic components. All wires are secured within the components so the kit is very safe and simple to operate. Each individual component is also very well made and well labelled. I believe that this Hot Wires kit will last for a long time. The Hot Wires kit states that it is suitable for children 8+ but our six-year-old daughter Ella has been perfectly capable of putting together experiments 1-15 so far and judging by her enthusiasm she’ll be building the logic circuits (experiments 96-100) in no time.
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