Shooting a Bit of Magic at Burnaby Village Museum

The winter holidays to us at Ahimsa Kids are all about spending time having fun and laughing with folks we love.  It is for this reason that Lori and I take a break from the pre-holiday craziness each year to be goofy and shoot a holiday card together.

This year’s shoot was even more delightful than usual, as we were fortunate enough to shoot at the Burnaby Village Museum, which is such a magical place.  What an absolutely perfect location for two gals that have a love for hands-on learning in engaging and creative ways.  If you haven’t been, you must go.  Burnaby Village Museum is a living history museum, with historic interpretors dressed in period clothing there to spin tales for you of BC’s history.  Having worked in such environments in my teens and twenties, I can tell you I view such sites with a discerning eye and am not easily impressed.  Burnaby Village Museum impresses me.  It is a place of magic.

To experience a bit of the magic yourself you can visit the Museum from noon until 8 pm each day, up until January 2nd, 2011.  Who knows you may even see Rudolph.  He was after all created there.

After that the Museum doesn’t reopen until May 2011, except for special event openings.  Hoping they host their scavenger hunt again in February and March.

Annual Holiday Activity: Ooey Gooey Good Animal Tracks

At Ahimsa, we have a tradition of sharing a yearly activity that can be enjoyed with friends and family, and you don’t have to be a kid to have fun with it.

One of my favourite winter time activities is animal tracking, especially in the snow.  I love finding animal tracks, identifying them, and creating stories of the critters that left the tracks behind on their travels. And animal tracks can be found anywhere in winter, even if there is no snow.  If there isn’t any snow, go hunting in the mud or on ground where the mud has hardened, for some tracks.

Here are some fun kitchen goodies that are easy for all ages to whip up and can help you to learn your animal tracks.

Peanut Butter Snack Tracks (A Tracey Temple Invention)

Recipe:

• Mix ½ c peanut butter, ½ c icing sugar, 1 tbsp softened butter, and ½ c Rice Krispies together.

Activity:

1. With your young ones or the young at heart, take a heaping spoonful of the peanut butter mixture, flatten the peanut butter ‘dirt’ and make the imprints different animal tracks in it,using the picture of animal tracks as a guide.
2. Stick the peanut butter tracks in the fridge to harden.
3. Whilst your peanut butter tracks are hardening, enjoy a winter walk and search for animal tracks, identify them, and create stories of the travels of the animals that left the tracks behind.
4. Share your animal track stories and teach your family and friends some track id as you enjoy your peanut buttery snacks.

You can also find last year’s paper making activity here.

Happy Holidays!

The Gang at Ahimsa Kids

PB and LA

We have some cool teachers working with us!  Was reminded of that by this Language Arts lesson that Lori Yearwood recently did with Charlie Tahan on the set of Charlie St Cloud.

Lori wanted to stress the importance of including details in his writing. To do this, she had him write out how to make a peanut butter sandwich. She then followed his instructions to the T.  So if he wrote, ‘put jam on the bread’, she would sit the whole jar on top of the bread because he did not specify to use a knife.

Charlie is a funny kid, so at the end of his instructions he wrote that ‘it is always important to add your own flare’. Being two fun and silly soles, this then sparked Lori and Charlie to turn the lesson into a big food art competition.  Their creations:

Wish I’d been there to see this!  Would have been a hoot!

Wet Games to Beat the Summer Heat: Protective Padding

Sufficed to say I thinks it’s been a little hotter then we’re use to in BC this summer. Rather then let our tempers boil over, I’ve got a few activities to help your kids cool down over the next couple of weeks. I’ve set them up like mini-Olympic Games competitions to add a bit of friendly sport in there.

The first one:

Protective Padding

Because it’s not only the athletes that need to protect their noggins…..

MATERIALS:

• Water Balloons (filled up and ready to fire)
• Anything in the recycling bin
• String (an arms length / balloon)
• Tape (a forearms length / balloon)

THE SKINNY:
Here’s the deal kids. Your building a helmet to protect your water balloon from bursting. You can build it in anyway you like as long as you don’t break the rules (I’ll get to those in a minute). Once you’ve built and fastened on your water balloon’s helmet, partner up and take turns tossing your partners water balloon gently in front of their feet. To win, you need to be the last dry kid standing (ie. your balloon has not burst).

THE RULES:  (Yes, there are rules, because without them it would be chaos people, chaos I tell yah)

• You can only use building materials from the recycling bin.
• No, you can’t have more tape or string, if you ruin yours, improvise.
• No whipping balloons at people. Immediate disqualification.

About the Author:

Erica Hargreave is a writer, storyteller, teacher and scientist.  She’s been having fun doing a few summer camps for the Delta School District, including the Wild World of Science, Outdoor Ed and Hogwart’s Travelling School of Magic.  She has two up and coming Hogwart’s Camps, the week’s of August 10 – 15 in North Delta and August 17 – 22 in Ladner.

Bridge Building Challenge

One young scientist piled 288 pennies on a bridge built from a single piece of paper at yesterday’s Wild World of Science Camp.  Can you beat her?

The Rules:

• Only one sheet of paper may be used.
• The piece of paper must bridge a gap between textbooks or boards.
• The bridge must sit on top of the text books or boards.
• All pennies must be placed on the bridge, over the gap (not over the textbooks or boards).

Good luck!

Nutty for Nature: Pond Scum

It doesn’t matter how old I get, the summer still brings with it a yearning to return to my old stomping grounds – the pond.  As kids, some of my fondest memories are of mucking about in the pond. My brother, Petey, and I even had ‘frogging birthdays’.   Rather fitting really that summer brings with it childhood memoirs of time spent at the pond, as ponds are the old stomping grounds for many critters in the spring & summer.  A pond is in fact a ‘creature nursery’.

Here are a few of my favourite childhood pond nursery pals:

And a few that spend their lives in the pond:

Pond waters teeming with life, you just have to slow down to see it.   Heres two ways that I’ve done this:

Building a Pond Scope

Supplies:

• yohgurt / ice cream container
• saran wrap
• elastic band
• exacto knife

1. Get an adult to help you cut out the bottom of the container.
2. Cover new opening with saran wrap and fasten it to the container with an elastic band.
3. Stick the saran wrap side of the container in pond water, hold still and and watch to see what swims by. It works just like a pair off goggles. Be patient and try not to stir up the water.

Creating a Temporary Treasures Aquarium

Supplies

• pond water
• pond dipping nets
• clear glass container
• door screen

1. Fill glass container with pond water.
2. Use a dip net and run it over the vegetation in the pond. Empty the contents of the net into the aquarium.
3. Cover the opening of the container with door screen and place in the shade.
4. Let the water settle and watch the critters inside that you didn’t even realize were there.
5. Many of the critters are babies and leave the water as adults, so don’t keep the critters more than a couple of days before returning them to where you found them.

Have fun and remember to be respectful of the critters and the pond.  Your visiting their home.

For more science fun, check out my science camp this summer.