A Scientific Birthday

The birthday girl’s big day last week was BUSY! We woke up, got dressed, and let her open her card from Pawpaw and Nana and her present from her cousins S&E.

She got a little baking set and is excited to use it. Pawpaw and Nana sent birthday money and of course she is VERY excited to go shopping…one of her favorite activities! :)

She had requested “monkey bread” from Carl’s Jr. so that was our first stop.

Then we picked up Noni and headed to the Science Center. We had never been there before. It was really neat! They had a tarantula, walking sticks, some snakes, lizards, and turtles.

The turtles were so funny! Especially one, which was swimming all over the place and seemed to have quite a personality!

Then we started checking out all the different experiments.

Peanut LOVED this one! It was a wind machine and she pressed the button over and over to make it go! The girls cut various shapes out of the cones and tested which ones flew the best.

The Science center was very interesting because it was all about discovery and exploration. There was very little instruction and NO expected outcome. The girls liked it and had a great time exploring!

I think one’s enjoyment is probably dependent on one’s learning style. I am very Type A, list and task oriented so I didn’t like not having a specific outcome! I much prefer guided learning and knowing exactly what I’m doing, and what scientific principles apply, etc.

Here’s K discovering what happens when you hold a spinning wheel in a rotating chair.

Pretty cool!

They had the same experiment we tried with Noni during her “Light” lesson. K is really good at it! It was SO hard for me!

Rebuilding the lungs and heart.

This was a favorite! SO cool! The only instructions were to put a straw on the bar, gently bite down, and stick your fingers in your ears. We were amazed to discover that you could hear music! Through your teeth! So cool.

I helped A do it and when I stuck my fingers in her ears I could feel the music’s vibration through her ears and back of her head, but I couldn’t hear anything.

Peanut was SO funny because she wouldn’t let go! She stayed like this for about five minutes!

This was really neat…a magnetic wall with removable pieces. You could make your own little path and then crank the balls up to the top and see if your connections all worked to get it to the bottom. If they didn’t you could change them around until they did!

Sound room.

I forgot to mention that we had the only kids in the entire place! It was nice to not have to wait our turn at anything, and have free run of the place!

One of the volunteers brought out a neat experiment for the girls to do.

She had dry ice, which she poured boiling water over. Then she capped it with a funnel connected to a tube and dipped in a bubble solution.

The pressure would blow a bubble and then fill it with the gas from the dry ice. SO cool! The girls LOVED it!

The she took it a step further and let them dip their hands in the soapy water so they could catch the bubbles!

Peanut kept saying, “I POP!”

What an amazing place! We had so much fun!

After three hours we walked down the street to our favorite little pizza place and had lunch with Noni. Then we headed towards home, dropping Noni off at her car. Peanut went with her to try to get a nap while we headed home. The rest of our activities tomorrow!