Halloween 2013

Here are some pics of Halloween 2013! 

Levi the decorator crab:

 Video for a 360 view

Boo at the Zoo.  This was the first year I got his costume done in time to go the first weekend!  He won 1st place in the costume contest, this is the 5th year in a row! 

Waiting for the results of the contest...

Winner!   He got a book and some craft supplies, a game and Mr. Potato Head- like pumpkin stick ins. 

In the dragon's nest

Another event, Owl-O-Ween.   Each treat station had something to learn about owls.  

Trick or Treating in Downtown Melbourne.

 Indialantic Fall Festival: 

I convinced him to go in the haunted house having heard it wasn't too scary but it was VERY scary though and he was terrified.   Poor guy. 

There was a fire truck there.  We met our neighbors at the event, and they talked to the firefighters with us, they asked a bunch of great questions so we learned a lot! 

Hay Ride

 They have a few games, and kids get a ticket for each.  1 ticket = 1 prize, all of which are toys (so good for Levi, because he can actually keep them!) 

Cocoa Halloween Event:

This event was $5 for a wrist-band good for all of the activities. When I went to pay, a guy who was buying tickets for his own kid paid for Levi's too!  Love random acts of kindness.

Giant hamster ball (good for hermit crabs too!)

Pumpkin decorating

Train ride

Pumpkin Patch!   We had such a hard time with pumpkins this year.  The ones at the pumpkin patch were either super expensive or rotten.   We ended up getting them last second from the pumpkin patch by our house, where they had a sign saying "take the icky's for free".  They were icky all right!  I found one that was sunken and wrinkled, but no gross bits (we were afraid to carve it though!).  Another I found had a hole in the back where it was rotten, but the inside wasn't rotten, so I snagged it.   Levi got a tiny pumpkin from Publix to carve, a pie pumpkin.   

Grossed out! 

Annual Halloween party!

The set up: 

Craft table (stickers, coloring book, paper, white paint/googly eyes for ghosts)

Nasty Pit, or Pit of Nastyness!
It includes: borax/glue slime, cornstarch/water slime, green hair gel with eyes in it, shaving cream, dyed pasta, agar agar (kinda like jello), cooked beans, old dates.  

A spot to sit the food table, and a reading area

Levi wanted a mad science lab, so this is what we came up with: 

 Inside we have a tornado tube, baking soda with liquid water coloring hidden in it, vinegar in a spray bottle, eye droppers, coffee filters, glitter, eyes, and a glow in the dark chalk kit. 

In action:

Annual attempt at a group photo (always funny to see!)

Trick or Treat! 

Levi collected 12lbs of candy, all of which we donated to the troops!  The dentist does a buy back program, and pays $1/lb + a light up tooth brush.  

(He said he would show his wallet instead of the cash)

We went to Barnes and Noble so he could spend his cash.  He chose a cursive handwriting book, a "Did you Know?" book and those annoying rubber bands for making bracelets (which he has really enjoyed making) 

And a random piece of art Levi made, using magazines for the face pieces.   

And thats it!   Happy Halloween!  

Our trip to Santa Cruz, Monterey and San Francisco

I know I promised these pictures forever ago, finally getting around to posting them:

Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk ("where everyone has a good time" as my dad always adds)

 Levi loved the swing ride, it was so much fun to see him so excited!

I remember wanting to ride this hang glider ride when I was a kid, but I was never tall enough.   Well, I am now! 

And then we went to the MontereyBay Aquarium.   They have a great website, check it out!   They have all kinds of curriculum and activities for classrooms and homeschoolers, and live videos of various exhibits they have, and a whole lot more. 

It was a beautiful day, unusually clear. 

This glass dome is under a giant gushing "water fall" like thing, the water goes in and out with each wave.  

This is the building, taken from the back by the bay.

 The Touch pool, always my favorite as a kid. 

There was another exhibit with birds that dove into the water and swam by.   They had another dome kids could get into to check them out closer.

There was a scuba diver feeding the fish and sharks in the big tank, which also has giant kelp.   My kid of course, made his way to the very front through the crowd of people, and then stood up when everyone else was sitting.  And I was way too far away to get to him or tell him to have a seat!   

With some "connections" my mom has, we were also fortunate to get a behind the scene view of the jelly fish.  From the main rooms, the tanks look endless, but they don't go very far back at all.   They are all round, jelly fish tend to get stuck in corners.  

Here our guide is explaining a tank of tiny jellies (that is behind where I'm standing, I didn't get a good picture)  When the aquarium first opened, they got a bunch of them from the bay.  Then, when they needed replacements (jellies don't live long), they tried to find more, and there weren't any.  Jelly fish come in "waves", meaning sometimes there are a ton, sometimes there are none.  So the aquarium now has their own nursery. 

We were also taught the phases of a jelly fish.  They larva forms a polyp that looks like a sea anemone, circles of it pop off and each one becomes a jellyfish.  

Another view of the big tank.  

The backs of a bunch of tanks.  Its interesting how "magical" these look from inside the aquarium with special lighting and everything - and from the back it all looks very industrial.  They have everything very well organized back there. 

These are the jellies from the biggest tank you see in the above pictures.   (Mute the video, its just people talking away in the background, it was a weekend so a pretty busy day to go!)

 They have an entire section that has all different kinds of sea horses. 

I always remembered this giant whale when I was a kid, it hangs above the main lobby. 

Nai Nai, Buddy and Levi outside

This guy is an albatross.  We learned that you can tell the difference between albatross and seagulls because albatross don't flap their wings, but seagulls do.  

And Levi volunteered himself for the demonstration:

 The front entrance (yes, my dad bought a new shirt while we were there!)

We drove around afterwards along the coast. 

And stopped at an artichoke farm

And then went to San Francisco.

Levi and the crookedest street in the world.  

Legoland's version:

We planned on going to the Exploratorium.  We haven't been sense they moved to a new, bigger location.   Unfortunately it was closed!  
We checked out the gift shop and then found this "skateboard science" thing outside.  It had all kinds of hands on skateboard experiments you could try - from standing on a board to rolling a wheel around in a giant ball to testing different bearings. 

Then, we went to see where they do the America's Cup sailboat racing.  No racing that day, but they had things set up that you could look at.   They had large patches of astroturf with giant bean bags on them, and screens to watch the race.   They also had random large beds around, I guess to lounge on and watch.  A little strange, but also fun to test out.   

This is one of the junior boats.  

In the kids area, they had a bouncy castle, rain gutters with boats to race (by blowing on them), a coloring station, and these sails to hoist.   

And a neat looking sculpture outside.  

And as usual, Levi had a new outfit for the trip, which you can see in the aquarium photos.   It is a button down shirt (that I made with just 2 fat quarters of print fabric I've been hording plus some scraps of solid colors), and a pair of red skinny cords, complete with some unique knee patches.  The back of the pants also have a shark embroidered on the pocket!

So sorry that took so long to post!  If we had made it to the Exploratorium as well, it would have been a perfect trip.  We had a great time!

Piagetian Conservation Tasks

One of my college classes is a "Child and Adolescent development for educators" class, and in the textbook, there was a section that showed examples of Piagetian Conservation tasks.  (conservation is the properties of an object).  
I remembered that we had done several of these "experiments" on Levi when my mom was taking a similar class, so I repeated them to compare.    These videos are a bit rough, but they are all done on the first try, no out takes!  

p.s. he is wearing the same shorts in both videos, I made them when he was 3, a little big to grow into, they are STILL a little big, they fit the same! 


Solid quantity - 2 balls of dough the same size/shape.  Roll one out, is it the same amount, or different? 

Solid Quantity, age 3

Solid Quantity, age 6

Liquid Quantity: Show 2 glasses with the same amount of water in each.  Pour one glass into a taller glass.  Is the amount of water the same?

Liquid Quantity age 3

Liquid Quantity age 6

Number:  Put out equal rows of objects.  Spread out one row  - does it have the same number, or different?  

Number, age 3

Number, age 6

Area:  Put out 2 pieces of paper, with 2 sets of squares covering the same area.  Spread out one set of squares - does it still cover the same area? 

Area, age 3

Area, age 6

Volume:  Put out 2 glasses with the same amount of water in each.  Drop a ball of clay in each, then remove.  Change the shape of one ball of clay, and drop them in again.  Did the water rise in the same way, or different?   (Note: at age 3 this experiment was done a little differently)

Volume, age 3

Volume age 6

It was very interesting to compare Levi at age 6 compared to age 3!