Explora Edventure

This past week we stopped by one of our favorite museums in Albuquerque, Explora Science Museum. Since we have a membership, we appreciate being able to just stop in for a few hours and don't ever feel rushed to do or see everything. In fact, quite often we will spend our entire time playing and exploring one exhibit or station. We love that the entire museum is hands-on.

The music exhibit area is a favorite of ours and we like to try our hand at playing different instruments.And recording music and sounds for play-back.Jackson & Jeremiah like to ride the balance bike when we visit, too. The next few photos are of Jackson pedaling through the air.Fearless Jackson.Brave and adventurous Jackson.The Jacksonator!While each of them is riding the balance bike, the other one heads to the 'spy camera' to keep an eye on the activities of their brother."Hi Jackson!". Notice Jackson looking up at the camera on the screen.Meanwhile Jenna has fun playing with the balance bike model. Flipping it upside down is such a thrill.And now it's Jeremiah's turn. Super Jeremiah!Jenna always enjoys playing at the water table so we spend a lot of time here.And no visit to Explora is complete without a visit to the restroom. Jenna got a kick out of the 'poop poster' on the wall of the restroom.See? There are learning opportunities everywhere in Explora Science Museum!

Explora Homeschool Science Club~Electricity

Jackson & Jeremiah were excited about today's class at Explora.

Exciting Electricity (Grades 3–4)
Use batteries and wires to make bulbs light up, and explore open and closed circuits. Then make a gigantic complete circuit you won’t forget!

While Jax and Jem explored electricity, I took a couple pictures from outside the windows of the room.


Jax and Jem each created a working motor with spinning, whirring parts. Pretty cool!

Jenna and I hung out in the young children's section. She explored the water tornado and filled shaker jars.

Jenna also enjoyed viewing the world through different colored and affected lenses.
Here she is seeing rainbows wherever she looks.

Jenna's not feeling "blue", she's just seeing blue!

Jenna's cute face magnified!

While Jenna was playing I was drawing a quick sketch...again of Flumbra, but this time I did it by memory and in only 5 minutes! That was fun and I enjoyed the challenge! Afterwards I dropped it in the Opinion box, as a sort of creative gift. hehe


After the Electricity Class, we hung out for a bit in Explora playing with different exhibits. Today the Surveillance Camera caught their eyes. This is the Explora camera that travels on a metal track all around the inside ceiling. What is interesting about this is that the Explora staff have set up all sorts of odd and unique items in out-of-the-way places up near the ceiling, that only the traveling camera can see. Jax and Jem had a great time discovering these items as if they were on a treasure hunt.
And then Jax went traveling around Explora so that the rest of us could observe and follow his movements. He put on quite a show for us and we were laughing so hard! hehehe

Explora Homeschool Science Club~Water Testing

John took Jackson & Jeremiah to their Explora class on Monday. I was still recovering from a nasty flu virus. Jax and Jem said they were very interested in the water testing experiments and wanted to come home and test our water, the Corrales water (they think it smells bad), and the Rio Grande River water.

The Class was called:
Water on the Move (Grades 3-5)
How does water move through the soil? Students designed, built and tested aquifer models to track contaminants, water tables and well levels. They also experimented with a variety of filtering materials and tested their water samples before and after for turbidity, hardness and pH.

Here are the charts, with test strips attached, that Jackson & Jeremiah completed. They said they both liked recording and seeing the actual number results of the different water samples.

Gravity of the Situation

Last week John took Jax and Jem to their Homeschool Science Club class. I stayed home with Jenna as she was coming down with a cold and not feeling her usual cheerful self.
Jax and Jem told me it was a pretty cool class called:

Gravity Rules! (for Grades 4–5)
Do heavier objects fall faster than lighter objects? Students investigate the force of gravity by balancing unusually shaped objects and experimenting with their own centers of gravity.

I couldn't wait to tell them one of my own gravity-related 'experiments' when I was just a young girl.
A girlfriend and I rode our bikes to the mini-mart near her apartment to buy some milk and bread. On the way home, we stopped to talk and I had the adventurous idea to find out if a Milk jug would bounce. Now, come on, people! Haven't you ever wondered about this yourself?

Well, I'm hear to tell you that a milk jug does not bounce.

But I'd have never believed it unless I tried it for myself. The old Milk Jug Bouncing experiment is not listed in any text books that I can remember. So, I found out for myself that a milk jug does not bounce when dropped. No, it goes SPLATT!! And the plastic splits open and milk pours everywhere.

Jax and Jem got a kick out of this. They loved it when I told them that all discoveries are made by accident....just like my milk jug 'experiment'......

Explora Explorations~Water & Sound Waves

While Jackson & Jeremiah participated in this week's Homeschool Science Club class, Jenna and I explored our usual favorite exhibits...anything that included water!

Jackson & Jeremiah's class was called:
Classy Investigation (Grades 3–5)
We take the mystery out of animal classification! Students discover the five major vertebrate classes, build 3-D classification keys, and use their new skills to solve an animal mystery.

Taxonomy has always been one of my favorite subjects, so it was exciting discussing the classification of organisms, including mammals, birds, fish and insects. The rankings are separated into Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species, and Subspecies, with over 40 various other ranks , such as subphylum, superorder, subfamily, subtribe, etc.(Which is very helpful in regards to classifying insects).
Jackson & Jeremiah learned mostly about the subphylum of Vertebrates, which includes most creatures with spinal cords or backbones. Vertebrates include: Fish, Amphibians, Reptiles, Birds, and Mammals. They seemed to enjoy finding out how to classify animals in a scientific way.

Here's Jenna playing at the water table. She created a River Rapid for her Triceratops to ride down stream.

Jenna enjoyed letting her Triceratops bury through the sand on the Erosion Table.

The details of the scales and skin on her plastic Triceratops fascinated Jenna.
Jenna creating watercolors using markers and a dropper.
Making music is one of Jenna's favorite things to do.

Jackson & Jeremiah never tire of this exhibit in the Sounds and Vibrations area. It's called Sound Circuits, and here they can create their own personal Soundbytes using various sounds and rhythms. They then record it and play it back. Jackson is below making the background sounds for a 'music video'.

Jeremiah and Jenna exploring an exhibit called a "Nomograph", which basically shows the speed of sound by measuring between the wave lengths when the water vibrates from the sound played.

Explora Fun

Jackson and Jeremiah participated in another hands-on interesting Homeschool Science Club class called:

Density: Liquid Layers (Grades 4–5)
The students explored density, which is the property of matter that determines whether objects float or sink. Students compared the densities of salt solutions and a variety of liquids, and made a submarine that both sank and floated.

During that time, Jenna and I decided to take advantage of the warm, sunny day and play outside on Explora's playground. While Jenna played with her friends, Quinn and Skye, I chatted with some fellow homeschool friends, Sharon and Laura, too.

On the way inside Explora, Jenna likes to stop and check out the distortion mirrors. Our distorted images always make her giggle.


Outside walking over the 'bridge'. She still likes me to hold her hand going across, no matter if it's a foot high, or just a few inches. I'm glad that she still needs me around.
Jenna swinging on the rings.


After we came home, Jeremiah felt like trying out some more science experiments with the Young Scientist's Kits we received from Aunt Aeri and Uncle Skip for Christmas.
Here's Jeremiah writing out a chart to keep record of the various results from the Static Electricity experiments.

Another busy run-around day....

We started off our day at 6:00 am (ack!) and then drove down to Albuquerque to our friend Carol's house, dropped off Jackson and Jenna to play with her kids. And then Jeremiah and I drove over to the Imaging center to have a PET scan done of Jeremiah's brain (see below post for details).

Afterwards, we went back to Carols' and visted for quite a while. That was such a nice time after the not-so-nice PET scan. Jenna enjoys playing with Carol's daughter, Eryn. And Jackson and Jeremiah have a great time playing with Sean. And I just love chatting with Carol. She and I seem to have quite a bit in common and she is just so kind and sweet, too.

We then headed out for a little lunch followed by a trip to Explora for Jackson & Jeremiah's Science Club class. The class was called:

~Playing Around with Polymers (Grades 4–5)
What is a polymer? Do the properties of polymers change when they’re made from different substances? Students investigate the properties of this special material by making a number of different polymers and comparing their bounciness, stretchiness and more.~

While the boys were in their Science class, Jenna and I enjoyed some exploration time together. Like usual, we visited her favorite exhibits and did a few new things, too.

This day we also visited and explored with some of our homeschool pals, Becky, Sharon and Margo, and their kids, too.
I love going to Explora, but it always seems like we spend forever there and we just can't leave, as there is always something interesting that draws me or my kids in for a while.

In the picture below, something new that Explora had laying about for folks to pick up, shake, roll, turn and observe. Jenna spent a bit of time manipulating and observing each one, but especially the tube with the white balls w/ dolphin and shark confetti inside. Then she lined up all the tubes for display.
Jenna gathered up a bunch of balls and then created ramps and race tracks for her then newly created 'race ball cars" to race on.
Jenna likes playing with the plastic tunnel tubes in the toddler room. She races up and down the ramps to put the plastic balls into the tunnels and watch them roll into different buckets.
Jenna practicing her famous future speech. (I think she may have gotten quite interested in watching MLK Jr's "I Have Dream" speech and the President's "State of the Union" speech. She has been making speeches all over the place)
Jax experimented with different types of plastics, cut at various lengths and widths, to evaluate the strength of each type, which is something that manufacturers do when planning their packaging and building materials. Here he is loading weights into the bucket after setting up the plastic polymers.
Another Polymer, the kids melted #6 plastic to create recycled "Shrinky Dinks". This one was made by Jackson.

Explora Explorations

On Monday, we took Jeremiah to his Post-op surgery appt. And then we headed over to Explora for Jackson & Jeremiah's Homeschool Science Club.

Last week, John took the boys because I was suffering from a back/neck injury, so this was my first time back to Explora for the Science classes.

For the record, last week's class was called:
Crazy Light (Grades 4–5):Why do we see ourselves in mirrors? How are shadows made? Students explore the basic properties of light, including reflection and refraction, and investigate the properties of lenses.

This week's class was called:
Chemical Changes, II: What’s the difference between a physical change and a chemical change? How do simple mixtures differ from chemical changes? Students explore these differences and investigate several fascinating chemical changes.

While Jackson & Jeremiah enjoyed their Science class, Jenna I played in Explora doing her favorite activities. It was nice hanging out with Jenna, just the two of us.




Right after the boys' class, they signed up for the Lego Mindstorm's RoboLab. One of their favorite activities in Explora. The new layout is called Robo Sports.

Jenna got into the action building snowmen with the sport's balls. Guess we've had too much snow around here. Snow is on the brain! heheh


The newest exhibit in Explora is one devoted to music, vibrations and sound waves. It is way cool! We spent over an hour just playing and experimenting.

Jackson & Jeremiah had a blast creating sounds, music and voices, recording them and then playing their creations back. Some of their sound mixes cracked me up! One rendition they created, sounded just like the background noise heard in their Star Wars PS2 game, with all the cool sound effects, too!
Jax observing how different levels of sound vibrations causes the salt to bounce.
Jeremiah trying out various programmed plastic discs, similar to vinyl records, and listening to the unique sounds each made.
This display was unique and fun! Basically a 'bellows' device that blows air into numerous different musical instruments, pipes, harmonica, horns, etc. by pressing on the bellows. And with two air openings, Jeremiah and I experimented with mixing two instruments in tandem, too.
We really were impressed with this display, too. By rubbing the strings, fast or slow, on the violin (making music), and turning on the spinning 'light meter', we could see the actual vibration shadows of the violin, reflected through the magnifying glass onto the sheet of paper in the background.

This display was like those old-time Peg pianos and music boxes. By positioning the pegs in various holes on the wheel, we could produce different musical tunes.
This was like a massage! When playing the piano, the vibrations of the individual notes were sent to the back of the chair. Aaahhhh!
(And, yes that's my favorite scarf. I wear it everywhere! It was the first scarf I ever knitted. I've knitted more than I can count now. I call this scarf "The Turquoise Zebra")
Explora has an extra-large elevator, that houses a sofa and chairs, and feels more like a living room, than and elevator. Jen and Jax relaxing....going down!
Jem kicking back. We didn't push the down button for a while, just so we could relax inside the elevator together a little longer.