Mission Accomplished

HAPPY LANDING: After a 13-day mission, Space Shuttle Discovery touched down at Cape Canaveral this morning. We started watching coverage on NASA TV in HD around 8 a.m. our time. When we tuned in there were about 30,000 people watching with us. We were able to track Discovery as it made its last circle round the globe after 201 other orbits and a journey of 5,304,140 miles. Amazing!

There were several shots of Mission Control. We noticed that the sign on the Main Man's station said CAPCOM. At that, I joked that he was probably playing video games. A little geek gamer humor - Capcom is a game making company whose titles include the Mega Man series. CJ and Annabelle thought that was very funny. In reality, NASA's CAPCOM means Capsule Communicator, which is the person at Mission Control who is responsible for communicating with the astronauts aboard a ship in space.

We took note of the airspeed and altitude updates announced, and changes in the position of the shuttle in the air. At one point its nose was up at a rather dramatic angle, but that changed to a much flatter profile as it descended further. Our excitement grew as the shuttle entered airspace over Florida. About that point there were over 100,000 viewers online!
A picture perfect landing took place at 8:57 a.m. our time. We talked about the parachute the shuttle uses and why it's used (to create drag to slow them down).
We continued watching for another hour or so, as all of the crews rolled out to the shuttle for post-flight activities. We talked about how weird it must have felt for the astronauts to be back in the Earth's gravity after having spent over 12 days in zero gravity. We figured they might feel like big ol' lumbering elephants for awhile!

TINY HERO: After turning off the shuttle coverage, we sat down with a book. Before I showed it to the kids, I asked them if they realized that a kid their age could be a national hero. That had their attention, and so we plunged right into "The Story of Ruby Bridges." The book is written by child psychiatrist Richard Coles, who worked with Bridges the year that she, as a 6-year-old, was the first African American student to attend a formerly all white public school. In 1960, she was escorted into William Frantz Elementary School by federal marshals every day past seething, hateful mobs. Initially, she had no classmates as parents of white students all pulled their kids out. Throughout it all, little Ruby acted with dignity and maturity beyond her years. Her bravery opened a lot of doors for other families.

PLAY DAY: Normally, we'd be at science on a Wednesday afternoon, but today was different. We had tickets to see "Go, Dog. Go!" at Seattle Children's Theatre.

To be honest, I'm not a big fan of the book by that title. And the book has so few words, I was wondering, "How they heck can anyone make a compelling play from it?"

Fortunately, SCT did just that. There wasn't a lot of dialogue, to be sure, but there was lots of music and nearly non stop physical comedy. The sets and characters were bold and colorful. The kids (and the crowd) really loved it.

CJ and Annabelle wrote brief reviews.

CJ's report: "The play called 'Go, Dog. Go!' has a scence that looks like it's fun wich is when the dogs are playing when they shold be slepping. That's also my faverite part of the play called 'Go, Dog. Go!' I also saw 'Go, Dog. Go!' at the Seattle Children's Theatre just for you to know about."

Annabelle's take:

"Go, Dog. Go!" at: Seattle Children's Theatre.

Story: The dogs going to s pary on top of a tree.

Characters: Dogs: Blue, green, red, yellow, black and white spotted.

Music: Cartooney.

Sets + props: Real good! Seattle Children's Theatre always does good scenes. They chagne color!"

An aside - we got there early so we could get good seats, which we did - second row center. Since we were early, we had to sit there for a half hour 'til show time. Annabelle made several friends, while CJ and I read "Popular Science." :) I couldn't help but overhear some people visiting. There were a number of homeschool families in the crowd and some of them were talking about what types of curriculum they use. I'll admit, that made me feel a little funny. ... If someone asked me that question point blank, I'd have to start blathering about we do this that and the other thing and it would sound an awful lot like we make it up as we go along. We don't HAVE a comprehensive curriculum, per se. Meanwhile, moms all around were rattling off names of their programs. One even said she uses "an Amish Catholic" curriculum. Who knew there was such a thing?! Maybe I just need to make up a name for our curriculum. ... ;)

STICKS & STONES: When Christian got home, we all walked up to the neighborhood park. While Christian and I walked Kirby in circles, CJ and Annabelle played around. They ignored the playground equipment, instead choosing to play with sticks found lying around the grounds for nearly an hour.