September Stuff

The month of September was busy, and it was over in the blink of eye.  Here's a peek at some of what we did.

 Reagan went to see One Direction with Allison.  They had a great time.

Reagan's soccer team.  She has teammates named Tyler, Collin, and Katelyn, and they all spell their names the same way our children's names are spelled.  How funny is that?

 Kate started taking swimming lessons at the Barrington Y.  She LOVES it this time and really looks forward to going.  Her teacher is wonderful.

 Kate and I went to a zoo class where we learned about giraffes.

After the zoo class, we spent some time with the goats.  Kate enjoyed feeding, brushing, and loving them.

 It was just about this time that a zoo employee told Kate she was giving out a little too much love.

 Reagan saw an orthopedic doctor at Boston Children's and we learned that she has extra bones in her feet.  She is doing physical therapy to help with her ankle pain.

 Spirit of Somerset was fun!

Disney on Ice was a birthday present for Kate, and she was very happy to share that experience with Reagan.  We had a great time!

 Reagan started playing the cello through the school strings program.

 Public Safety Day fun!

 I love Kate's corner kick.  So cute!

 Reagan is playing in a weekly field hockey league at Moses Brown in Providence.

 Magna Tiles are awesome; they are played with often here.

I took this picture looking into the top of Kate's Magna Tiles tower.

Kate enjoys patterns.  We have tons of these little erasers, and she used them to make a few different patterns.

We ended September with an early start on Halloween horrors!  Almeida's haunted hayride had some of us in stitches laughing, while some did not find it funny at all.  A few tears were shed that night, but it was fun to have a big group and overall it was entertaining.

STEM Expo

Collin and I recently attended the Wellesley STEM Expo.  It was a great day for the two of us.  We don't get to spend much one on one time together these days and he is very interested in all things STEM, so it was a perfect outing.  I didn't know what to expect from the event, and I was slightly nervous it would just be a glorified science fair with nothing of interest for Collin, but the event surpassed my expectations and there was a lot of fun to be had.

Here he is at the Museum of Science table trying to construct an object that would hover perfectly inside the tube (maybe a pneumatic tube, I'm not certain):

 After some trial and error, he succeeded.

 The instructor is showing him the light path of his object in the tube on the computer screen.

The infrared camera at another table was pretty cool.  Collin put his hand on his coat and then moved his hand away.  The handprint remained visible for some time after with the infrared technology.

Collin liked writing with light on glow in the dark paper.

 He used prisms to move lasers.

Here he is directing lasers with mirrors:

 There was a candy math activity that was super easy for Collin, but he was happy to eat the candy!

I was very happy with the Camp Invention table!  Collin and Reagan are both registered for a week of Camp Invention this summer, and it is a new program for us, so it was nice to see a little of what they offer.  At this table, Collin had to choose objects to place within a plastic egg that would result in the egg floating.

He accomplished the task.  The instructor was incredibly impressed with Collin because after he succeeded, he opened the egg and counted out each piece so that he would know exactly what worked.  She said he was the first student she has ever seen do that (usually they are happy to have succeeded and they go on their way), and she called him a "great scientist".

Kaleidoscope fun!

He built a bridge that could hold twenty-one books.  I'm sure it could have held more, but the idea was to learn about the fact that the Brooklyn Bridge was tested with twenty-one elephants after it was built.

Collin was very interested in the 3D printer.  It was making toys like those in the picture.

The MA state police had bomb detecting robots for the kids to try.  Here is Collin learning how to control the robot:

We had a lot of fun together that day, and we are both hoping to make it back to the expo next year.

Random Pictures from the Last Two Weeks

Collin made this pyramid box by following directions from the book Math Art Projects and Activities.

Tennis lessons started last week.  Collin and Reagan will be playing tennis through the town recreation department two days a week, and they will have a thirty minute private lesson one day a week.

One of the things Collin's teacher recommended working on over the summer in preparation for fourth grade, is states and capitals.  We have had the Sequence States and Capitals game for a while, but we played it for the first time last week.

I get so upset when cool sounding projects flop, and this was a MAJOR flop.  I saw the idea for Crystal Paint in The Ultimate Book of Kid Concoctions.  Supposedly, mixing 1/8 cup of liquid starch with 1/8 cup of water and a few drops of food coloring will make a paint that crystallizes as it dries.  There was ZERO crystallization.  I even tried adding a little extra starch to the mixture, but it didn't work.  The only thing I can think of is that my starch is probably two or three years old; I have no idea if this matters, but if it does they should add that detail to the directions.

Kate has been painting with washable nontoxic paints lately.  She makes a mess, but she has fun and it keeps her busy for a little while.

This is Reagan's television set.  So far, she has presented the news and a few short programs.

Kate wants to be a television celebrity too.