Fun 'n' Games

MONKEY BUSINESS: Most of our day was spent up north. Annabelle had an art class, during which she enjoyed working with watercolors and learning about using negative space in her artwork. The kids both had a Math Detectives class and then they enjoyed science, as always. Today was about building a better electromagnet, which was big fun.

Once Christian got home, we had some family game time. It included a classic Barrel of Monkeys game. I think it's the first time the kids have played it, and it was markedly harder than the monkeys of my youth. These newfangled monkeys' hands are shaped differently, making them hard to hook together. On glorious moment, CJ did manage to string them all together, though.

We also played a fun Scrabble-based card game. We made up our own rules - a hybrid of poker and Scrabble - 5 cards her hand, build the highest scoring hand you can.

I liked it, because the game ended up being as much about math as it was spelling, as the kids had to tote up every word they played, and often triple or double letter or word scores were involved. 

ANOTHER SUCCESS:  Super cool Morpheus had another test flight today. The prototype craft launched and landed at the Shuttle Landing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center using its recently-installed autonomous landing and hazard avoidance technology (ALHAT) sensors.

http://youtu.be/f_excAMCuuo


I'd love to watch this thing hop around in person!

A VERY BIG DEAL: With great interest, we read a Seattle Times story today about University of Washington researchers who have successfully regenerated heart muscle in damaged monkey hearts. Grafts of programmed human stem cells assembled themselves into muscle fibers, found the heart's beat, and the cells were then nurtured by the monkeys' arteries and veins into functioning heart muscle. AMAZING!  Check out the Times' story here:  http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2023493194_heartregenerationxml.html

SPACE RACERS: Thanks to a post on Facebook from The Museum of Flight, today, we learned about a  new animated series coming to Public Television stations i, "Space Racers."  It features anthropomorphicized spacecraft characters having educational adventures. 

Eagle, Hawk and Robin are an "elite space-bound task force known as the Space Racers," per the promo (See a sneak preview here: http://youtu.be/K8e4YxI3p2U). Their adventures take place in Stardust Bay, and are designed to teach exploration, investigation, observation and collaborating as a team. Per promotional materials, experts at NASA evaluate every episode to ensure the accuracy of science and technology lessons. 


"How did you discover this messed up thing?" CJ asked, looking over Annabelle's shoulder as she was playing a game on the Space Racers' Web site. "That is very, very strange," concluded the kid who has always rather detested inanimate objects or non-human creatures being personified. 

Other kids will probably like it better. :) To find out when it's on in your area, go to this Web site: http://www.aptonline.org/catalog.nsf/vLinkTitle/SPACE+RACERS, and click on 'where to watch.'

Or, you can watch a couple of full episodes online already: http://spaceracers.org/en/. The site also has games and printables.