Another Day At the Science Center

We really should buy a pass to the Science Center. There are so many things to learn there and our kids seem to be a perfect age for it. It's interesting to watch them. They're a little neurotic about a few things. Today we watched Sea Creatures in the Discovery Dome and we had a big problem - we only had one notebook and so both couldn't draw pictures and take notes at the same time. I'm not sure how I got two kids like that (okay, kind of not sure - I have to admit, I'm the mother who used to make them stay in their rooms until 7 am and require them to write/draw every morning....I didn't know they'd become so obsessive about it. I was just trying to get more quiet time in the morning...or at least make it so the fun didn't start until 7 am!) but it sure is entertaining.

This picture just makes me laugh. Peirce is looking slightly crazed. lol




Usually I take a bazillion pictures and post them. Today I took a bazillion videos. LOL

This screen is in the center area at the Science Center. It's interactive and you can touch it and make it change. I joked that they were messing up the universe again.

There's another screen on the other side that must be attached to a heat sensitive camera. Peirce was the one that noticed it first. You can hear him trying to tell us about it in this video - and we keep ignoring the poor kid. In time we did clue in though. :0) After we took this video they watched themselves and talked about their different body parts for the longest time. It was interesting! When they lifted up their shirts you could see organs that weren't hot! You could also see their brain and how it is hot/red and the rest of their head wasn't. It was really cool!

WOW TOWN is a separate section in the Science Center. They have a real bee-hive there! That was really cool especially since we've been talking about bees around our house a lot lately with our purchase of honey for our food storage.

This microscope has some bees that you can examine at all the different stages.
Jill has been studying plants in her science class and they had some slides with different parts of flowers and other plants. She was thrilled to confirm that the things she'd learned in class were right.
This is a treehouse that Peirce loved playing in. He kept calling it his classroom. It was really cute.

They also have a store there. Peirce was ringing up those sales like crazy.

In WowTown there's a toddler section - but no one was there today so we played there for a while. This is just some random running around and chaotic fun. :0)

Next we went to the Creative Kids Museum. This is a section of the Science Center that I really love!! They have done a fabulous job of creating places where kids can create and explore and play in every area of the arts.

First the kids put together a play. In their theatre they have a back stage with a mirror and great lights and lots of costumes. There is a controllers desk out front with buttons that have different sound effects, and there are curtains and interesting propts. Recently they added a real organ too (with one broken key) and have some music there so you can play songs on it. Jill and Peirce had a TERRIFIC time playing here. I'm always amazed at how kids just organize themselves and recruit each other to get involved in this theatre. It's the perfect example of collaborative learning and play. We didn't have quite enough time to truly enjoy it all today though.

These pictures were all taken "back stage"

Next we go into sculpture making. This lovely piece of work is a sculpture that Jill made. They had a sculpture on display that had been built over time...and they took pictures of it every week or so. Jill has great plans to do something similar at her school in the fall this year. :0)

They have some young people they employ to go around and do experiements and demonstrations and such. We ran into a couple girls that had set up a craft table where they made stamps. Jill and Peirce worked on their crafts here for almost 45 minutes.
Next to the stamping table there was a newspaper sculpture area. Amazing what kids can do with newspapers and a LOT of masking tape. This is the butterfly that Peirce made. Jill made a girl....but I didn't get a picture of it. Oops!

Our real joy today was found in the music though! This is J&P creating their own music, Stomp style. If I hadn't gone to a performance of Stomp myself I might just think this was noise....but it is really cool when you've experienced Stomp!

However, the airband area was where they really hada a good time. We stayed here for more than an hour and I watched them sing and dance and have a GREAT time.

Michael Finnigan......

I don't really know why - but Peirce spends half his life pretending he's a cat....like he does in this video.

Toast and Jam!

Jill will, Jill will rock you!