Fort Worth Science and History Museum

I can't believe I haven't done a post about the museum yet (other than the one about the new Ancient Egypt exhibit)!  Aaron's parents gave us a family membership, and we are definitely putting it to good use.  We go at least once a month, sometimes more.  They have incredible hands-on learning activities, fascinating displays (both the permanent ones and the temporary ones), and a wonderful staff.  They always have open-ended exploration and/or construction activities and materials available, and I love watching their fascination as they explore.  The boys (and Aaron and I!) have a great time doing and learning every time we go.  Here are some pictures from a couple of different visits.

Brennan exploring with plastic straws (a bit sturdier than drinking straws) and connectors.  I loved seeing his curvy creativity next to the more "expected" box structure behind him (which was totally huge and totally cool!).

Connor's favorite activity by FAR is building marble runs.  He will probably cry if we ever go and they've put it away for a while.  He made this one on his own with a little help from one of the docents.

Brennan and I made this one together (with a few finishing touches from Connor) on another visit.

More pictures from the Ancient Egypt exhibit (since I had the card in the camera this time!).

Learning about how archaeologists study seals to learn about a site

A pottery shard matching game

Seeing how animal bones (from meals) can help archaeologists learn about the people who left behind artifacts at a site

Building the pyramid with Daddy

Arts and crafts, Egypt-style!  I took advantage of the opportunity and counted these as our hands-on activity for SOTW chapter 13. *grin*

Making a paper pyramid

Daddy helping color the bricks

Making a clay scarab

Brennan painting his scarab (Daddy helped him shape and carve it)

Making a cartouche.  He even remembered a couple of the hieroglyphs for his name (from when we made a cartouche a couple of weeks ago) and drew them on his own without the stencil.

Benbrook Heritage Festival

We've had a chance to take some fun field trips/family trips over the last few weeks, and I've got the pics but haven't gotten around to blogging about them.  So here they come!

We went to the Benbrook Heritage Festival on purpose this year--last year were planning to go to the playground and happened upon it.  It was a bit hot for late October (even in Texas), but we still had a great time.  And they managed to learn a few things too!

Trying his hand at roping a "calf"

Ride that bull!

Checking out the model airplanes--they were fascinated!

The owners were very gracious about answering questions!

Friendly cowboy doing rope tricks--who knew what Flat Stanley was (you can see our Flat visitor in his breast pocket)

My little horse lover

Making sand art

Cow milking contest.  A couple of messy squirts and Brennan was DONE!

I have to admit I flinched a bit when they wanted to try the tomahawk throwing.  They did fine, though (fine, in the sense of not hitting anyone or hurting themselves.  Connor may have hit the edge of the target once. *grin*)

Connor was recruited (drafted?) by the Civil War reenactors.  I guess the package wasn't a sweet enough deal for Brennan, because he was definitely not interested!

Drilling with his new buddies

Holding up the train.  Must've been a Union supply train.

Lots of fun, FREE, hands-on stuff to do--a great way to spend a Saturday!

Catching up . . . again

I've been doing really well lately about doing all kinds of fun stuff (school and otherwise) and even about taking pictures, but not so much the blogging about it.  So tonight I'm going to try to catch up!  Coming up: school stuff, a couple of fun trips, and why we really love our vet.  Probably all in separate posts!

Here are some photo highlights of school from a couple of weeks ago.  We took a (much needed!) week off after that, and then this week has been hit-or-miss (mostly miss) due to a doctor's appointment, mommy illness, and a couple of other educational activities.  Ready to hit the ground running and get back into our routine on Monday!

We've been studying Psalm 23.  Here are a couple of activities we did:

Making a shepherd's staff

Making a shepherd's rod

Dressing up was their idea!

Science experiment to go with "My cup runs over": exploring the cohesion and surface tension of water.

Seeing how you can fill a cup with water above the brim and it doesn't overflow because of the surface tension.

Brennan getting his turn to explore

Seeing how the surface tension causes water to "stretch" up with your finger as you pull it away

How high will it "stretch?"

Math:  Exploring symmetry

Folding paper in half

Painting a design on one side

Closing on the fold and pressing to transfer the picture

Opening to see the symmetry!

"That's so cool!"

He folded the paper into quarters, drew a design on one quarter, and is poking holes around the shapes through all layers of the paper

Checking out the vertial/horizontal flipping and symmetry (this one was  a RightStart activity)

Science

Hard at work on his honeybee notebook page

Brennan

Drawing a picture after finishing his handwriting sheet

The finished picture: Brennan and Mommy hugging.  Reduced me to teary mush. *grin*

Now off to see if I can get another post or two done tonight!