Engineering, Games, and Puns - The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where it's a brisk 24F while I wait for the sun to rise. After the sun rises and it warms up a bit, I'm going on my favorite bike route for one last time before cold and snow make it unpleasant, if not impossible, to ride again until spring. If you're curious, I'll be pedaling over Height of Land in Roxbury, Maine then meeting my family at my kids' favorite playground. It's not quite as exciting as last weekend's trick o' treating, but it will be fun. I hope that you also have something fun planned for your weekend. 

As I do every weekend, I have put together a list of the most-visited posts of the week. Take a look and see if there's something interesting that you missed during the week. 

These were the week's most popular posts:
1. A Cute Series of Videos About Engineeering
2. TinyTap - Create Your Own Educational Games in Your Browser
3. It's That Time Again...
4. A Punny Explanation of Savings Bonds
5. Certify'em - Send Personalized Certificates via Google Forms
6. Reading Progress + ReadWorks in Microsoft Teams = Awesome!
7. How to Use Google Books

Thank you for your support!
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Other Places to Follow Me:

• The Practical Ed Tech Newsletter comes out every Sunday evening/ Monday morning. It features my favorite tip of the week and the week's most popular posts from Free Technology for Teachers.
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• I've been Tweeting as @rmbyrne for fourteen years. 
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This post originally appeared on FreeTech4Teachers.com. If you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission. Sites that steal my (Richard Byrne's) work include CloudComputin and WayBetterSite. Featured image captured by Richard Byrne.

Questions from my Daughters - What is Frost?

On my phone I keep a list titled "Questions from my Daughters." Whenever they ask a question that is interesting to them and is one that I haven't thought about for years, if ever, I add it to the list. This week's addition to the list came from my four-year-old who asked, "what's frost?" when I told her that what she saw on our lawn Wednesday morning was frost and not snow. 

While driving to preschool I did my best to try to explain to my daughter that frost condensation (water) that freezes on plants and objects. I'm not sure that she quite understood my explanation, but she said, "thanks, Dad" anyway. All that to say, the conversation prompted me to look up some better explanations of what frost is. 

Where Does Frost Come From? is a SciShow Kids videos through which students can learn how the right combination of cold temperatures and moisture can make frost appear on plants. Students can also learn why sometimes frost seems to just disappear while other times you can clearly see frost melting.

For an older audience, What is Frost? explained by MET Office - Weather provides a short overview of the conditions that create air, ground, grass, and hoar frost. (Note for my American audience: the video lists temperatures in Celsius).