Planes, Trains and Star Mobiles

This weekend, we finished our session of soccer and then went to Michael's for their Saturday morning craft.  Genevieve made a cupcake keychain and painted a happiness rock.  In the evening, we watched the stars come out, but the mosquitoes chased us inside before we could see the Perseids.

Sunday we enjoyed some time at the Crocker Art Museum which has some very colorful pieces both kids enjoyed and an installation called Plink which had several sparkly triangles and triangles for the kids to use for building.  They have art activities for kids, as well but Genevieve was having too much fun with everything else.  We then walked to the Railroad museum in Old Town Sacramento, which had large train engines and cars to explore and several train tables on the top floor.  On the way there, we stopped at the School House.  After our busy morning, we hung up Genevieve's solar system and created the constellations Cepheus, Cassiopeia, and the big Dipper with her glow stars.  These are great constellations for young astronomers as Cepheus is basically a house shape, with a triangle on top of a square and Cassiopeia is a W.

We went to a park with a train theme for a playdate.  We took some walks to the train station this week as well, and read some of our favorite Thomas stories.  We had a second park play date later in the week as well, trying out a new park.

We made some paper airplanes and compared how the different styles fly.  Then we launched some stomp rockets and noticed how they fly differently.  For a different look at propulsion, we blew up a balloon and then just let it fly.  We've been noticing airplanes that fly by as well.

We did a few more experiments from Nick Arnolds  DIY Science book.  Genevieve used a balloon, funnel and bottle to observe how a lung works and explored camouflage by hiding "bugs" she cut out on different colors of paper.

We took another trip to Rocking Jump, the trampoline place, where the kids had great fun bouncing, playing dodgeball, and balance beaming through the foam pit.  We then went right next door to Imagine That, where the kids had a blast exploring the exhibits.

We ended our week by making a solar system mobile.  Genevieve painted a Styrofoam ball to be the Sun and some paper stars and the Earth.  We tied them to some sticks, and are noticing balance in action.