Daily Delights

SEEDY:  This weekend, we harvested the heads off a couple of our now-severely-drooping sunflower seeds. 

The birds already beat us to some of the seeds, but we're OK with sharing. 

We plucked out what we could and saved some to plant next year, but we also roasted hundreds. They were delicious!

RAFTER TALES:  It was a gorgeous day from the get-go, so we decided to get a good long walk in. We wanted a view and full sun, so we chose the Queen Anne Boulevard stroll. It never disappoints!

As we walked the west edge of the bluff, I pointed out some architectural details to the kids, including some thoughtful, beautiful rafter tails cut in an artistic manner.

It's amazing how much organic learning takes place on these walks ... history, architecture, botany, geography ... it's more than exercise with a view. :)

Queen Anne hill is covered in chestnut trees (both sweet edible chestnuts, pictured below, and horse chestnuts - don't eat!), and we spotted many of both kinds still hiding in their spiky armor. 

In researching the population of chestnuts on Queen Anne, I found a Super Cool "tree walk" map of the hill, delineating different species of trees. We are totally going to have to do this in the future: http://www.seattle.gov/trees/docs/Queen%20Anne%20Tree%20Walk.pdf

Definite signs of fall could be seen today. In the photo below, you can see deciduous trees turning color near the fishing pier we sometimes walk by. 

And we walked under some grape vines, laden with fruit, we spied leaves turning pretty autumnal tones. 

WEDNESDAY FLASHBACK:  Catching up on uploading a few photos from the kids' classes in Shoreline on Wednesday.

In science, they're learning about the skeleton. We humans are oh-so-lucky to have opposable thumbs. The kids found out just how lucky when they had to tape their thumbs to their pointer fingers and then perform everyday tasks. 

Their last class of the day, the kids are learning about being good detectives (asking good questions, being observant, etc.). 

Here, they had to study a 'crime' scene.

GOO-EY:  This afternoon, we played around a bit with a Steve Spangler Science kit we scored at Value Village, intact and unopened, "Gravity Goo."  It was a rather major time investment, as the kids had to pour water and a polymer back and forth between cups for 8 minutes, then wait 35 minutes and pour a couple minutes more before they saw the goo 'defy gravity' and basically run uphill.

Wish I could tell you it performed as advertised, but not-so-much. 

On the Web site it says "Mix up your own batch of Gravity Goo (it's simple and only takes a couple minutes) ." Um, no, by your own instructions, it takes over 45 minutes ... and then  "watch the gravity defying magic happen." Again, um, no. It's thick, sticky and stringy, but "defying gravity?" Not even. 

Still, they had fun with it, and we'll give another experiment outlined in the box a go, hopeful for better results. 

VIOLIN SOLO: We don't listen to a whole lot of violin solos as part of our day here at MPA, but this one we say on Facebook today was marvelous to our ears.

The violinist plays the music and sound effects of part of the first world in the original Super Mario Bros. game. I wish I knew the genesis of this video, or the musician's name, but none of those identifying items were included in the post, unfortunately.

Post by Skylinkradio.com.