Lil Punkins

PAPER PUMPKINS: This morning I came across an article with a headline "Celebrate the Season with 20 Fun Fall Arts and Crafts."   The article listed dozens of fun Halloween-y craft ideas. After looking them over, I decided the first one we'd tackle would be these groovy looking pumpkins.

To get started, we first had to cut strips. The kids each needed two 11-inch ones, two 9-inch ones, two 7-inch ones and one 6-inch one. Once those were cut, they were stacked atop each other, long to shortest and then back up to longest (11, 9, 7, 6, 7, 9, 11) and gathered so that their ends were all even at one end.

Once the even ends were stapled, then it was time to match up the other ends, like this ...

Then, it was time to staple those together, add a couple of leaves and we had ourselves pretty little pumpkins!

GOTCHA!: Despite losing an engine shortly after liftoff on Sunday, the Falcon 9 rocket managed to deliver the Dragon capsule to orbit and this morning. At 6:56 Eastern time, as Dragon flew within 32 feet of the ISS, the capsule was snared by flight engineer Aki Hoshide of Japan, using the Canada arm.  Then Expedition 33 Commander Suni Williams docked the capsule to the ISS,  Today, the ISS crew worked on pressurizing the vestibule between the Dragon and the space station and preparing power and data cables. When I was reading all about it at about 8 this morning my time, I read the capsule was expected to be opened on Thursday morning, just after 6 a.m. East Coast time. Imagine my surprise when I visited NASA.gov this afternoon around 2 and saw the ISS crew floating into the Dragon. Wow! They didn't waste any time. NASA has a video of the opening here: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html?media_id=153679981

The capsule is expected to call the ISS home for 18 days.

BAREFOOT BANDITS: The kids were reading about fingerprints in their "Ideas and Inventions" book, and in one sidebar there was mention of a barefoot burglar who took his socks off his feet and put them on his hands, so as not to leave fingerprints. But, of course, what the dork didn't realize is that footprints are also identifiable.

CJ was displeased with the lack of details about the crime and criminal. I told him there has been more than one barefoot bandit, and pointed him in the direction of the local legend, Colton Harris Moore.

I also found a game online for them called "The Case of the Barefoot Burglar." They had to read clues about a crime scene and then 'convince a jury of their peers' (or, their mother in this case) of which suspect was guilty. I won't tell you who they fingered, so as not to spoil it if you care to give the case a go.

DIG IN!: Mars Science Laboratory had taken its first scoop of Martian soil. Check out this cool, split-screen pic from NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS.

The left photo is the Martian soil post scoop. The scoop, on the right, is 1.8 inches wide by 2.8 inches long. Curiosity continues to perform as planned. Amazing that there's a mobile science lab rolling 'round on the Red Planet.

NOTE TO SELF: In my Internet travels today I stumbled across a Website called STEM-Works (http://www.stem-works.com/). It's a project of Southern Methodist University providing a resource for people who are passionate about getting children eager to learn about science, technology, engineering and math. Looks like I need to dig around on the site some more.