december days I

These December days. They seem to inch along and yet time flies. It does not seem like December, so we are behind on holiday making/preparations. But that is OK. It looks and feel like fall. Or is it spring? Either way, we keep busy. Card games, board games, science experiments, robot building, reading, crafting (or should I just admit that I have done more craft supply organizing than actual crafting recently? ahem.), music making, microgreens growing, and ... more! What are you working on?

into the world of audio.

My boys have never really enjoyed children's museums. But science museums? Love. And I love having a family membership. Because no matter how often we go, there is always something new to look at even if the exhibits don't change.




The older they get, the more they focus on the details, they stand and read the screens, or move to areas they were not that interested in before. This trip we spent time in some of the familiar places. They love the robotics, flight simulator, aquarium and submarine. They love the bed of nails, the energy independent house, the touch tanks, the large ship hanging from the ceiling.




And then we ventured into the audio/music area for the longest ever this weekend. We banged and played and watched and listened. We made music. We made noise. We saw sound. And we learned about sound and the history of audio recording. While they still don't really care about the Les Paul guitars (Who is Robert Plant? Why is a signed guitar behind glass?), there is a lot of cool stuff in there. Keyboards, guitars, drum machines, funky interactive music consoles, sound wave generators. Not to mention a recording studio.

Like mother like sons.

fun science at home.

Dark wet fall weekends are perfect for family home life. We cozy up, bake, make, read, play, and spend time together. Science is big in our house - there is always something on the to-do list, and there is always a basket filled with something or other we want to play around with. Sometimes we do bigger projects - program a robot, make a solar oven, look through the microscope for specific somethings, test water or soil, see what happens. But sometimes the small projects are really fun too. And they are fun to repeat and even if simple they never quiet get boring (at least with my boys).


One of those endlessly fun things is the cornstarch project. You mix water and corn starch and get a funky substance that is both a solid and a liquid. The thing is water and corn starch don't completely mix. Their molecules slither around each other. The corn starch molecules get tangled up, but the water molecules flow around them. So, if you whack the substance hard, the molecules don't have time to move and it feels like a solid. When you move into it slowly however, the water molecules have time to flow around and it is a liquid. It is messy. It is fun. And it is easy to do.

You might want to cover your table with something.
Pour 2 cups of corn starch into a bowl. Measure 1 cup of water and add a few drops of food coloring if you want. Stir. Slowly add the water mixture into the corn starch, stirring as you go. Mix it up - it should be really thick and hard to stir. If you can't stir at all add a little more water, but it should be a bit of a struggle.


Now, go! First try to hit the mixture with your knuckles quickly.


Next, gently press your fingers or hand into it.


Goo is a long time of fun.


Another easy and fun one is making a lemon battery - with your tongue as the final connection. Batteries of course are made with two metals and an acid. One metal has a positive charge, one a negative and the lemon is the acid. By sticking your tongue on it, you complete the circuit and get the tingle.

Take a lemon and push while you roll it on the counter to get it juicy inside. Straighten a paper clip and stick it in the lemon. Take a piece of copper wire about the same length as the paper clip and insert it into the lemon near the paper clip. Touch it to your tongue! You should feel it tingle.



We had zinc and copper plates from another science kit, so used those and got a bigger tingle. Whoo hoo! :) We could also test the current by connecting it to a little LED light.


Very fun. Perfect family fun for a dark rainy day.

science!

My husband is a software engineer who loves technology and even spent a few years in a robotics club. So, it is no surprise there is a lot of technology, robotics, and science in this house. A is a science/engineering kid like his dad. He loves it. We build from kits, program things, sometimes follow instructions, and sometimes come up with some fun ideas - usually inspired by something we have seen or read.


On Saturday, after a morning of watching some robotics competition inspiration and looking up fun looking projects, we decided to try something new. Brice found an application where we could visually map the wii-mote and the wii balance board onto displays and graphs. The boys loved seeing how movement affected displays, and played around with measurement and finding a balanced center. Even G thought this was cool.


From here my guys plan to create a program for the wii-mote and wii balance board to interface with and control a LEGO Mindstorms robot! Sweet! Can't wait.

weekending ... kitchen catch up.

While we don't really need to treat weekends differently than weekdays we do love having Brice (my husband) home so it does make weekends special. The boys have always been 150% during the day and fall asleep early kids, and so don't get a lot of time with their dad in the evenings during the week. And my husband works a lot. So weekends we try to do *at least* one family thing to spend time together - a park, a lake, a museum, a walk, a small town treat. And we try to always have home time so Brice can relax and just hang out with his boys. He needs that down time and they need that dad time. That is usually my time to get stuff done in the kitchen...


So while the boys are playing at the park or riding bikes or building radio kits or flying kites or playing Pokémon or board games or just snuggling and reading books with dad I play mad scientist.


This weekend we had a home day on Sunday - and it was HOT outside! We did a lot of deck clean up and yard work, and then the boys spent the afternoon outside with Brice while I caught up on some things. Catching up for me includes things like baking, bottling a batch of kombucha, soaking something or other, making almond milk, making yogurt cheese, or attempting to organize the pantry after a week of boys rummaging through it. ;)


And lately of course it also includes starting more seedlings, checking trays, and hardening trays off to go out. In the summer it usually means canning and preserving.


By Sunday evening I am usually happy to be out of the kitchen (and the garden).


And have something to show for it.


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science extravaganza.

This weekend we had one day of perfect weather - Friday was snow, Sunday was rain, but Saturday was glorious. It was perfect for our outing to the UW-Madison Science Expeditions. This annual event happens all over the UW-Madison campus and includes exhibits, museums, shows, displays and interactive activities for kids. As you know A is our science boy, so we had to go!


Both boys had a lot of fun, although A was just in heaven. We rode the trolley from building to building and visited so many great spots on campus...Physics Museum, Microbiology Building, Zoology Museum, and Greenhouse to name a few.



The main exhibit area had over 50 stations. We saw bio luminescent teeny tiny squid, learned how to use micro pipettes and did a few fun projects. Oh yeah. And did I mention robots? There were several robotics and engineering tables with Minstorms, battlebots AND even an autonomous robot. A even got to look inside to see the circuit board, motor and all the good stuff. I know he would have been happy only seeing robots and the physics museum, but it was nice to wander.



The main exhibit area was too many people for us, so we went in for specific tables (robotics!) and then focused on the trolley rides to the other science buildings which were not at all over crowded, and we got to explore and chat with UW students at every location.




We were able to visit areas on campus we didn't even know existed - like the zoology museum and collection. A 'had' to go see it. We toured the collections and saw room after room after room packed with really old specimens...and heard about the flesh eating beetle population housed in the basement of that building.


One tiger we saw was over 100 years old. The boys would not step foot into the large room full of thousands of jars of reptiles and fish (some very old!)...and I was the only one to go in there to look around.


But still, in the end robots won the day. And the boys were only grossed out a few times (ohhhh, the throat and vocal cord exhibit!!!!).

Very fun!

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rover!

A was pretty excited to get the snap circuits wireless RC rover for his birthday. So of course today we had to build it!


The boys took turns snapping each element onto the grid (A is an awesome big brother, always including G in EVERYTHING), carefully reading and re-checking the instructions/schematics as they went. They did a final schematic check and decided they were ready.


The cool thing is that not only did they assemble a remote control vehicle - but one that has a headlamp and forward/reverse lighting. Oh, and a beeper.


They immediately went to the dark of the hallway and bathroom to get the full effect. They took turns - one driving while the other filmed with their video camera, and then switched.


They also read all about how the wireless remote works, the internal motors, gears and ratios, and electrical circuits. There are 19 more projects with this kit...so I know there is much more to come. Lots of fun!

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dubuque.

We had a mini-trip this week...an overnight trip to Dubuque, Iowa. We go once a year or so to the Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium there. This visit was our first since they expanded and added another building with more river history and preservation as well as a splash play area and big aquarium.


We love going to museums right after school starts - it is too early for the field trip buses, and we get the whole place practically to ourselves. That gives us plenty of time and quiet to really explore, read, listen, look, absorb. My oldest is a very sensory sensitive kid, so this is necessary for us - he can go at his own pace without the noise, smells, and distractions of too many people!


Having time and quiet means we can really get into the exhibits too, and often get to chat in-depth with the people working at the different areas ... both boys spent a lot of time chatting with the lady at the touch tank about crayfish and river pollution, and we even watched them feed an alligator and huge alligator snapping turtle! We wandered for hours - there is always something new to explore each time we go, and we all learn so much.


While Dubuque is less than 2 hours from home, it is always nice to make it an overnight, and with my husband home for 2 weeks (woo hoo!) we decided to stay in an awesome hotel. We swam in the pool, spent time in the hot tub, the boys got cozy in the hotel robes (love!), we ate at a nice restaurant, played board games in the room, looked at the river and city at night from our window, and wandered the downtown area. Perfectly wonderful - spending time exploring with my favorite people on the planet.

Just from asking about the name of the hotel we were in, we found out about the history of Dubuque and learned about the tales of how Al Capone may have been tied to the this place. Of course getting little morsels of information about gangsters, prohibition, smuggling, racketeering, and how that all played into the history of a small midwestern city sitting on the Mississippi River...well, my guys are totally interested in finding out more!


So we are back home, re-charging, getting ready for the Sheep & Wool Festival this weekend. What a great little trip...can't wait for the next one!