My daughters class had a field trip to the Planetarium yesterday. We live in Northwest Indiana so most field trips are to Chicago so I assumed we were taking a trip to the Adler Planetarium. Much to my surprise we were going to a local Planetarium, the Merrillville Planetarium. WHO KNEW?

Actually the Planetarium is housed in Pierce Middle School and was a short ride, which is great when on a school bus. They gave us time to eat lunch first while a previus group was finishing up and then it was our turn. We entered a domed room with reclining seats and the kids were pretty excited to get started. They learned how the sun rises and sets, learned about Orion, The North Star, The Big and Little Dippers, The moon and Spaceships and had tons of questions for our presenter! Overall it was a good experience, a shorter trip if you don’t have much time but a great experience and they made it appropriate for our 1st graders.

My co-leader and I took our girl scouts on a field trip to a local grocery store (Strack and Van’Til) yesterday. Sometimes you run out of places to go and things to do, we found this place thru a direct mailing from www.Fieldtripfactory.com. If you visit the site, you type in your zip code and find field trip places in your town, many of which are free.

Our girls got to visit different areas of the store, the Dairy Section, Produce Section, Meat Section, Deli Section and Bakery. In most areas they got to sample a food, learned about making healthy food choices and also learned how items got from other countries to the U.S.A. At the end of the visit they got to scan some items at Checkout and received a goodie bag to take home. Overall they enjoyed the visit, although a few were a little squeemish when in the Meat Cooler (my daughter included).

I just found this picture from the summer. I know it doesn’t have anything to do with where kids like to go…but more about what kids like to do! I walked out of the room to send a FAX, I was gone maybe a minute or 2, just long enough to put the paper in the FAX machine, dial the number and Push Send. My daughter, 2 at the time, just smiled at me when I walked back in!

This brought a smile to my face today..and sometimes you need to smile. And in case you were wondering..YES, THOSE WERE PERMANENT MARKERS

First of all can I say “put on your walking shoes”. My girls were off of school for winter break so we decided to take them to The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. We have gone 2 other times in the past few months, but for very short periods of time.

Our goal for this visit was to see everything we could see….at least that was our Brainy idea for the day. So we visited, the Farm area , The “Future”, The “I Spy” area, we went on a Submarine, went on an Airplane, visited a Ship, a Train, A miniature city with Trains (Chicago and Seattle), Watched Chix hatching…and now my 6 year old will NEVER and I mean NEVER eat an egg again, especially after seeing the stringy stuff in the shell…

Our favorite part of the whole visit was the “IDEA Factory” which is for kids up to age 10. It was awesome! There are wind tunnels, tons of water. Here is a little tidbit from their website:

Children can explore the attributes of four basic objects: cube, sphere, tetrahedron and cylinder. Using these objects, they’ll experiment and test their own theories about the fundamentals of construction, simple machines, light, color, magnetism, balance, air and water. For example, kids aged three to five years can explore the effect of differently shaped wheels on the speed and flow of movement and how air pressure affects the flow of bubbles.

Construction Crane encourages children to use hand-eye coordination to retrieve and move objects with an electromagnetic crane. Kids aged 6-10 years can use a crane to lift heavier objects remotely and determine how weight affects distribution of balance. They can also observe the different ways to manipulate white light versus laser light using prisms, lenses and mirrors.
The Water Spectacle contains 3,300 gallons of water and invites children to build and navigate their own boats, discover how water moves objects and help set off the great geyser—an enormous water spray that is triggered by manipulation of hand and foot controls.

This was the best part of the museum for my girls and a definite when you visit the museum. Just make sure to put on your walking shoes!

I entered this awesome contest over at www.hisboyscanswim.com. They are giving away 31 prizes! The blog is by a husband and wife team otherwise known as Tarzan and Jane. They are documenting the whole pregnancy from both perspectives! Pretty interesting to say the least. They have some interesting things on their  ”pregnancy blog“. I especially like the blog entries about the ultrasound visit and finding out that they were expecting.

 
Here is my favorite blog post of theirs!  http://www.hisboyscanswim.com/1288/yes-the-rumors-are-true-theres-a-penis-growing-inside-of-me

Stop by their site and enter to WIN!!!

So you’re probably thinking that its a little early to search for Halloween costumes but in all reality its not. If your anything like me, I am usually last minute and can’t get the costumes that I want for myself or my kids. Check out www.miloscreations.com . It is a dress up costume and clothing website for adults and kids. Sizes are newborn up to adult and the costumes are durable and sturdy enough for everyday play, PLUS they are machine washable. The princess costumes are designed with kids in mind and are easy to put on and take off. The owner of the site is working on some new designs for little boys!

So we decided to be brave and take our 2 girls to the auto show. We arrived early and parked up close(so we thought). It took us at least 15 minutes to weave our way thru McCormick place, across a walkway to the otherside where the car show was taking place. Once my girls got to the other side, low and behold, they were thirsty from the long walk and of course needed a snack too before entering. We spent the next 3 hours sitting in cars, well at least the girls did. They decided on which cars we actually looked at and which ones were their favorites. I think it was something like this,
1. Denali…favorite because it had multiple televisions and a passage to walk thru to the 3rd row
2. Suburban…very similar inside to #1 and cost much less
3. VW Mini Van…shiny black color and same favorites as #1 and #2, 3rd row folded with the push of a button, back door was also automatic
So we figured out that we need a 3rd row, but not all the time, and that when having a 3rd row it is much easier to have a walkway to the back rather than having to lift up seats. Do you need all the bells and whistles?

The highlight of the trip (in between all of the complaining that everyones legs were hurting and Are we leaving yet?) was the robot which was pretty cool, and the little mini cars and hybrids caught everyones attention.

So here are my final thoughts, if you are going to take children..GO EARLY! Don’t expect for them not to complain, its alot of walking no matter what however they can take lots of breaks sitting in the cool cars. I would rather spend one day looking at all the cars in one spot, than 5 different afternoons visiting seperate dealerships ANY DAY!