Rockfest

This weekend I took the boys up to the Tellus Museum. They were having their annual “Rockfest.”

Rich had to work so the boys and I decided to go up and have fun!

There were all sorts of fun things for the kids to do.

They got a free crystal from one of the vendors.

 

Back to the Future?

Yesterday I took the boys back to the Tellus Museum. If you hadn't guessed, it really is one of our favorite places to visit!

This time, we brought our friends, Mary, Cade and Jack Felts. It was there first visit and the boys had fun while Mary and I talked and watched the kids!

It was so much fun! Jack loved the dinosaurs! His little face lit up like it was Christmas when he saw them! It was so cute!

We went to see one of the Planetarium Shows, Two Small Pieces of Glass. It was our second time watching this show - it is absolutely amazing! It's about the history of the telescope, but it's put in a context that kids of all ages will love. Highly recommend it if you have it showing near you!

At the end, there's talk about the Hubble Telescope and it talks about how we can look back in time as we look at the stars because the light from the stars is, sometimes, millions of Lightyears old.

After this part of the program, Sam whispers to me: "Mom! Do we have a telescope?"

I said, "No, but Grandmother and Grampa have one and maybe we can find a place to set it up when we go visit them."

Then he said, very excitedly, "Well can we get one because I want to build a time machine and go back in time!"

We Celebrated National Astronomy Day!

If you haven't guessed, the new science museum in our area is our new favorite place to visit.

We had lots going on yesterday but for one reason or another, almost everything got canceled or "re-prioritized."

First of all, Rich had to work yesterday -- and today too. And Josh has been busy working on his Constellation presentation for school this week.

Josh was invited to two birthday parties at the same time - obviously he could only go to one and it was a slumber party for his friend Sean. He's home now and extremely tired!

One thing Josh really wanted to do was go to the National Astronomy Celebration at the Tellus Science Museum. But with his baseball game and the slumber party we didn't think it would be possible. We've had a few days of rain and Josh's baseball game was canceled. So we jumped on the opportunity to head up to Tellus.

It really beat sitting around the house all afternoon counting the hours until it was time to go to Sean's!

There were all sorts of activities planned, like solar viewings and looking through telescopes and other "outside" activities. But, unfortunately, the weather had other plans and it rained off and on all day yesterday!

That didn't stop the fun though. We only had a limited amount of time there this time so mainly focused on the "extra" events they had going on.

The Observatory was opened and the astronomer was there to explain about the telescope and answer questions. Josh was totally enthralled by this! And when the astronomer said he was going to point the telescope toward Betelgeuse, Josh impressed all present by saying that was in the constellation Orion!



Now we can't wait to go back one evening when they have the observatory open so we can see some stars!

They also had some people from the local Astronomy clubs answering questions and handing out things. Josh was able to get a handout that he can use for his presentation so he was very excited about that!

The boys made bracelets with UV Beads. The beads are white and when they get hit with UV light they change color. They were surprised to see even on a cloudy day, the beads changed bright colors! And yes I used this as an "Always Wear Sunscreen Even on Cloudy Days" lesson!



The local meteorite collecting club was there with meteorites for the kids to look at. This one was VERY heavy!



And then we played in the children's area for a while.



Their favorite part is running around the inside of a (fake) large hollow tree. The ceiling has a screen and you can choose different weather to show on the screen. Of course the favorite is thunderstorms! But they go in the tree and just run around in circles. Sam will do this as long as I let him I usually have to pull him out!

We weren't there for long, but we were there long enough to kill some time, learn something new and make use of our family membership there! That's the best thing about having it so close to us.

Grandmother & Grampa's Visit

My parents came to visit us this weekend and we managed to keep ourselves busy!

They arrived Friday night just as I was trying to round up the boys for bed. We'd had baseball practice and just after we got home, I was trying to round up the boys and in walks Daddy. I'd just about managed to settle them down when in walked Grandmother & Grampa!

But that's okay - they did manage to settle eventually! There was lots to tell -- Josh took a few Accelerated Reader tests on Friday and managed to push his point total up over 50. This is big. At his school, once you get 50 points, you get your name painted on the AR wall. What's amazing is he was not interested AT ALL until after the Christmas break. After the break he started taking the tests because we told him he had to. Then he discovered Harry Potter and LOVES them! The books were out of his reading level so he couldn't take the tests on them (an they are upwards 13 points each - most books seem to be between .5 and 5 points). So he bothered his teacher so much she let him take the STAR Test which determines reading level and thus the AR Level.

He tested above 5.0 - which is 5th grade - so he could take the Harry Potter books. We are not all about Harry Potter! Which makes me excited!

Anyway -- off track -- Josh had to tell Grandmother and Grampa all about his AR tests and Harry Potter...
Saturday was quite busy. We got up and went to the Big Shanty Festival parade. This year it was really good. It's amazing how many good events the city of Kennesaw puts on for families. And they do a good job too!

Here's everyone waiting for the parade to start. Sam was being grumpy.



After the parade, Josh had a baseball game. He did really well yet again! Grandmother and Grampa really enjoyed watching him play too!

I had to post this picture... notice him "licking" his shirt? He chews or sucks on his shirt when he's concentrating. It's so funny -- at the games I'll yell out, "Don't chew on your shirt!" and he'll spit it out and immediately put it back in again! I guess he can't help it!


I guess whatever he needs to do to get a hit is okay!!


Then in the afternoon we went to the Big Shanty Festival. It's a bit arts and crafts fair with booths, food, entertainment and lots of Civil War Reenactment demonstrations.

I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but my Dad is a Civil War Historian, and an Artillery man. He taught Military History, preRevolution to Civil War at West Point when we lived there -- and he was in the Artillery when he was in the Army. Here he is making friends with the guys who fire the big cannons.

It's fun to do this stuff with my dad because he'll talk to the guys, then explain stuff to you, and tell you all about what ever you want to know -- or whatever you don't want to know. I think the boys were a bit young yet to appreciate his wealth of knowledge (yeah, I'm buttering him up...) but hopefully they have many more years to pick his brain!

And as tired as we were, Saturday night Rich and I still got to go on a date! Yay!

Sunday was a bit more relaxing. We did head back up to the Tellus Museum for a few hours, but that was pretty much the whole day.

Monday, yesterday, was my Dad's birthday so the boys helped him eat his birthday cake and sang Happy Birthday to him.

And then they left this morning! One thing about my parents, they never stay long enough to over stay their welcome! We were all sad to see them go, but now they're retired they have more commitments than they did when they were working!

I'm just thankful they took some time to come see us!

Pictures from Tellus

As promised, here is a short video slide show of our trip to the Tellus Museum yesterday.

It's only about 5 minutes and it's just pictures. Mainly put here for family, but all are welcome to view!

Science is Fun!

Yesterday we went up to the new science museum that just opened near us. It was really fun!

I took so many pictures I can't share them all! I would link you to the Flickr page, but I've uploaded my limit for the month -- already!

Anyway, here are some highlights. I've put together a slideshow with the pictures and I'll try to get it uploaded to YouTube and add the link.

In the parking lot they have some trucks - and one really big dump truck. Josh didn't believe me that the wheels were bigger than Dad! They wondered how the drivers got in a truck that big and when we walked around front, they discovered some ladders.

In the lobby they had a big compass with a swinging pendulum. They had some domino type blocks that the pendulum would knock down. Josh really liked this and kept asking me questions I couldn't answer. So I did what every mother would have done. No I didn't make something up - I directed him to the lady working there who COULD answer his questions. Turns out the pendulum knocks down three blocks an hour. Since Josh figured out this was one block every 20 minutes, we decided to not sit and wait to see a block knocked down!

We moved on to the Mineral Gallery. Now, when I read about this on the web I thought the kids would find it boring. Not So! They have all sorts of interactive displays and exhibits. They have meteorites and lava rocks that you can touch, petrified wood, rocks and all sorts of cool things. They had some rocks and minerals they showed under white light, then the lights dimmed and they put different types of light on them and we could see the minerals glow.

They also have a whole display on earthquakes. One of them you banged on a drum and could see the vibrations on the "earthquake" you created. Another display had a map of the world with little circles on it in different colors. Each circle represented an earthquake over the last 5 years. They had a color for Earthquakes in the last 5 years, 2 weeks, 2 days and even for earthquakes today! If you rolled the mouse over the spot, it showed when, where and how strong the quake was. Josh couldn't believe there were so many earthquakes yesterday! When we were there they must have had 7 red circles indicating today's quakes.

After we were done with the rocks and minerals, we went off to the fossils - this means Dinosaurs! Of course the favorite part was the "Touch this if you dare" sign. We touched the rock and lifted the panel and it said, "you just touched dinosaur poop!" How perfect for my two kids! Josh also loves ammonite fossils and they had plenty of them too!

Then we moved on to the "Science in Motion" gallery and saw all sorts of old cars and planes, a replica of the Apollo 1 space craft, space suits, a Rolls-Royce Viper Jet engine, and other cool things. The Henry Ford Museum it is not, but it had enough to keep my boys entertained! They kept saying over and over, "We HAVE to bring Grampa here!" So I think we're going back next weekend!

Then it was time to get our hands dirty! The kids panned for minerals - and could keep all they found - then dug for dinosaur fossils - and could keep just one of them. Josh took home a small ammonite and Sam found a piece of a sharks tooth. Afterward we went tot he "Collins Family My Big Backyard" which is a big room with lots of hands on things for the kids. There are benches in the middle so parents can sit (if they don't want to play too) and the kids can go off and learn by doing.

We were very tired by the time we were done. But it was so nice outside the boys just had to roll down the hill! We stopped at a local bakery (thanks Dina for the recommendation) on the way home to get some cookies and we were set!

Now we can't wait to go back!