Science Camp - Day 1

Wow!  This summer has FLOWN by!   We are already on week 6.  WOW.

I purchased this kit off of a daily deal site.  I cant remember if it was 1saleaday, or Woot, im thinking it was WootKids, but dont remember for sure.

 Anyways - Its at a much higher grade level than the boys are so my husband and I decided we would do it with them & read them threw all the activites.  The first group was explaning volume and other stuff, they wanted you to do all this weighing and stuff like that.  We did not.

We filled a measuring cup with 200ml of water

We added an alkselser tablet

We watched it

What is happening to the tablet?  "Its bubbling"

Yes, Is the water level going up? "Yes"

I wonder why that is?

Cool, on to activity number two.  Whats in side a diaper?

An aboorbing plastic you say?  hmmmm

Lets take a look



Cutting diaper length wise

ta da!

Dumped cotton & plastic beads in to measuring cup

adding water - next time will add just a bit at a time

substance thickened.  The boys squished it and felt it, we watched the tiny plastic beads aborb water and talked about how this material works in the diaper

That wraps up day one!

Dinosaur Week - Week 6

Week 6 was our Dinosaur week.  We had a blast learning about dinosaurs.  Originally I had planned on taking the kids to Glen Rose TX to look at REAL dinosaur foot prints, but we did not make it.  We still learned plenty!  Click on the picture to be taken to that days activity!

We varied from our original "bucket list"  due to not traveling

ICE EGGS

DINO DIGGING

TEXAS DINOSAURS

DINOSAUR TRACKS

Dinosaur Fossils

So we wrapped up Texas Dinosaur day by talking about the fossil foot prints at Dinosaur Valley state park, I decided to talk a little more in depth about the fossils and about how they thought they were made.

For this activity I had cement, stones, rocks, and jewels

They made their hand prints in the cement - just like the dinosaurs did all those years ago.  We talked about how they thought it happened and why.

The kids had so much fun decorating their stepping stones & learning about dinosaurs this week!

Texas Dinosaur Day

I had originally planned to take the boys to Dinosaur Valley in Glen Rose TX, but I decided that it would not work out this summer being by my self with the 3 boys.  So instead we learned about Dinosaur Valley and the Dinosaurs who used to live there.

 I created my own coloring sheets with facts on the two dinosaurs know in that area.  I had to use generic pictures. The Acrontharus is a smaller version of the T-Rex (we used a T-Rex picture) and it is his foot prints that are mostly found at Dinosaur Valley

 The Paulxyasuraus Jonsi is similar to the brontosaurus (again I had to use a brontosaurus picture) and these particular foot prints that were found let them know this HUGE animal was able to support its weight on land.  Until these prints were found it was thought they had to use water to support their great weight

You can click on the two pictures below to make copies if you would like to color with your little ones.  Also click HERE for a print out on Texas Dinosaurs

Dino Digging - Week 6 - Day 2

This activity is very similar to Dino Fun that we did a while back.  This time I had them pretend they were paleontologist digging up dinosaurs, instead of them hatching.

It was a very similar set up.  I provided dinosaur toys for pretend play after the "excavation", rocks  and digging tools

ROAR!!!  All set up and ready to play

There was a living dinosaur in there, the one that's half showing was supposed to have been trapped in some goo.

This time the dough was still soft, so it was easy to "break them out"

After we dugg them out, or helped them hatch, your choice, we made mountains with the soft dough.

 I love it when you have one idea for "creative play" and their minds take it somewhere else.  Its really cool.

 Here is our baby, he is always sitting and observing with us.  I say things like

 "you like dinosaurs? 

He is Blue, a blue dinosaur. 

Can you touch him? 

How does he feel?  Smooth?"

This way he is learning sensory with us

Dino Week - Ice eggs

Day one of Dinosaur week. 

We were going to discover some frozen dinosaurs.  You know they were just walking around one day, and then BAM they were frozen.

This activity required a little prep work.  I got out some regular size balloons and shoved little toy dinosaurs in them.

Then I filled them with water and let them freeze a few days

When I got them out the boys were pretty suprised.  I cut the knot off and took the balloon off the ice.  It came off pretty easy.

Then I gave them a hammer and said "help get your friends out!"  Boys and hammers can be dangerous, so I said "lets put on saftey goggles"

They loved this!  I would say it kept them busy for about 45 min.  They each had three "eggs" and they shared a hammer.  I also heated water & let them pour it on the eggs.  We talked about what was happening.

"Why do you think the ice is melting when we pour water on it?"

"Is the water still hot after it runs on the ice?"

Clean up was pretty easy since I had the table covered.  But this is a wet activity and would be good out side...it just happened to be raining

Camp Create

One of the VBS style camps my kids attended was camp create.  I really, really liked this idea.  It was based on Genisis that God created the world & that we have a creative creator.  Basically they asked members of the church what their gifts were.  They responded with things like Creative Cooking, cake making, legos, mosaics, gardening, dance, karate, etc.  When you signed your child up you labled the choices one to twenty five in the order that your child would like to do them.  They were put in one main class (one hour long) and two side classes (30 min each) each night.   The main choice they went to each night.  Eli got Legos for his main choice and Noah got cartooning

This really helped Eli build his confidence with Legos. He came home and played with his legos after camp.

At the end of the week he was given this cool lego set to go home and work on.

Mosaics was one of the classes

I LOVED the frames

Eli with his frame

Both boys frames

sock puppets was another class, they made a dog and a sheep

yarnation was cute.  two cute little yarn lambs

This is  a great idea & I think its a way to get a lot of chuch members involved sharing their skills.  Many people asked for an adult "camp create"  I think that is a great idea too.  You could have a lot of fun with it.  Photography etc.  Love it!

Week 4 - VBS

I signed the kids up for 5 VBS this summer.  Two day time VBS (Noah went to one, and they both went to one)  Two night time, one was an actual VBS at our church and one was a Art camp at my moms church.  They have one more art camp coming up later in the summer.

Camp Create

Windsocks

Stain Glass

Plane

They had a great time learning about God this summer

La Torretta

I had purchased a daily deal from the Houston Chronicle to La Torretta resort which is about an hour north of where we live.  So its close enough for a close get away.  Turns out our "deal"  is about what they are charging for rooms right now anyway, so you can get this deal too!

Eli fell asleep on the way with his goggles on!  Silly boy

I  took pictures through my dirty window as we arrived.

Pay attention to the slide in the back ground of the left picture.  It will be important later

We unpacked and made ourselves right at home

So if you are wondering, Eli is not my favorite child, he just so happens to have jumped into every picture.

This was our view from the hotel window

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We grabbed our map & our bracelets & headed out to the water park area

There was an awesome lazy river, it was about wide enough for one round tube float to go though & you want to catch it early.  It gets hot later in the day.

There was this fun kid area, I took pictures over and over until I took one that I was impressed with.  I love my "action" setting

 Okay - so we are having a good time, playing splashing around going down the slides I mentioned earlier.  When Eli bumps his head.  BAD  A huge purple bump popped up and he started telling me he was tired.  So I found someone who worked there & they directed me to the first aid person who worked there.  He was really nice, brought Eli inside the resort checked him out & told me not to let him fall asleep for a few hours.

You can kind of see it here but not really.

We came back to the room and chilled out enjoyed the cable since we don't have it at home.  And Eli just rested.  No sleeping though.  I think its the only time EVER he has said "mom can I go to sleep?"  and my answer was no

While we were resting our "amenity" arrived.  It was cookies, and strawberries and a nut/raisin mix.  Eli and I loved it.  He ate all the strawberries

On our way to dinner Eli suggested that if we were Batman we could just fly through this thing.  Indeed we could.

This is the dining in Prime restaurant.  Here is my suggestion.  Don't eat here.  They have pool side dining & a sushi bar & a Mocha cafe.  All of those places are good.  Prime offers a buffet for breakfast lunch & dinner and we were not impressed for the price.  They do have menu items, so if you go here ask for a menu - you do have to ask - they don't make it known they have one.  Or do room service.

After dinner we played a game of giant chess and checkers

Now your thinking - shesh this is the longest post ever.  Sorry!  Massages were part of our package & it was Wes's first massage ever.  He loved it!  Its about time.  The boys relaxed while we were waiting for him.

Noah did a little meditation.

Then it was off to play put-put (also on the resort)

 Four!

 Man it was hot!  But very pretty!

So to recap - every thing you saw except the food is included in your hotel price.  Food is extra and as long as you don't eat at Prime, its pretty reasonable.  Everyone was very nice & I would totally recommend this as a fun get away for those of you who live in the Houston area.