Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Day 3: Science Center

On day 3 we spent most of the day at the Saint Louis Science Center.


We went to a show about gravity. It was great! She was teaching about gravity, drag, and weight. And, another lady was 3 stories up (63 feet, I think they said) dropping things like an apple, different kinds of balls, etc. I actually understood why a golf ball would bounce higher than a basketball - a basketball "gives" and that takes up some of the energy while a golf ball is hard and can't "give" and so all of the energy goes into the bounce. She had great explanations for drag and weight, too.

This was a great science museum - this is in the body part of the museum - bottles that you squeeze and try to identify different smells. These worked much better than others I've seen.


We cracked up playing with this mirror. It's too funny!

My mother-in-law and I cracked up listening to this version of Little Red Riding Hood which I also found online. Here's what the website says: "This story, believe it or not, is the very familiar fable of Little Red Riding Hood. This curious version was written in 1940 by a professor of French named H. L. Chace, who wanted to show his students that intonation - that is, the melody of a language - is an integral part of its meaning. The words here are all common English words, but not the ones you'd expect to tell the story of Little Red Riding Hood. "

Alexandra practicing suturing - it was harder than it looked!


This was a station where a lady helped Alexandra do some - oh, I'm forgetting the word! It's late & I'm tired - anyway, I really liked how she had a sheet showing how each of the different markers looked when finished. She talked about the different colors in each of the markers - but first she had Alexandra guess which circle showed which color marker. It was a great use of logic and deductive reasoning.


Alexandra and another boy doing a "hamster wheel" - wouldn't that be cool to have one in your house???

We actually learned about binary numbers!!! I could actually give Alexandra a number and she could tell me what it was in binary numbers! I think we'll play some more with this when we get home. Detective Digit looks like a good site, though I've just looked at it briefly.


This was quite a challenge! We did have someone take a photo of all 3 of us under this arch, but it was very blurry. Anyway, the 3 of us worked hard to build this 7 foot arch! Then, we finally had another mom help us lift up pieces as Alexandra couldn't put them in place anymore. Then, at the very end, we yelled "help!" to a 4th mom who passed by and helped us put in the key stone. We were so proud of our accomplishment. :-) After a few photos, Alexandra had fun knocking it down.

4 comments:

Rhonda said...

Looks like a great time! I love science. Thanks so much for sharing.

Teacher of One said...

That mirror picture is a hoot!
Christie

Unknown said...

Your homeschool is SOOOO fun! You guys are always doing something amazing!

Robin said...

What a cool Science Museum!
It looks like they had just tons of hands-on activities, which is what we like the most.
That arch you guys made is amazing!
GB and I had a lesson on binary in our Time4Learning class, but I have to admit, he seemed to understand it better than I did. I hated it. Why do people think that's so easy?
Take care of yourself. And give Alexandra a hug!

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