Family Learning

One of the most popular activities at the museum are the Dig Pits in Dinosphere and Treasures of the Earth. With this Hide and Seek activity courtesy of The Children's Museum Preschool, your family can create your own archaeology activity at home!  Make a batch of "salt dough" and add some treasures, and before you know it your kids will be learning the process of excavating an archaeological site. 

Materials

• Salt dough (recipe below)
• Small objects that are related (e.g. items that represent the ocean like shells, pretend coral, etc.)
• Shallow plastic tray
• Excavation tools: toothbrushes, spoons, and popsicle sticks
• Covered work surface

Advance preparation

• Help your child make the salt dough (instructions below). When your child is out of the room, hide the small items in the dough.
• Let the dough pieces dry for 12 hours on the plastic tray.

Process

1. When dry, explain to your child that they are going to be an archaeologist excavating a dig site and present the dough.
2. Explain that there are pretend artifacts hidden in the dough and they must gently remove the artifacts using special tools. Be sure to explain that an artifact is an object with cultural significance.
3. Encourage your child to display the artifacts and make up a story about how they were used, where they came from, etc.

Salt Dough

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 ½ cups salt
• 1 ½ cups water
• Few drops of food coloring (if desired)
• Mix the ingredients. To store, wrap tightly and keep at room temperature.

For more fun facts about the Dig Pit, check out the blog post and This Week's WOW, "How to Re-Pour the Dig Pit."

Cathy Southerland, Children's Museum Preschool Director of Early Childhood Education, shares how you and your family can experiment with the science of motion—at the museum and at home! This article first appeared in the May Issue of Indy's Child magazine. 

Walking through The Children's Museum, you hear the oft-repeated plea, "Can't we please go back to the Hot Wheels™ exhibit?" It is one of the most popular exhibits with the flashing lights, the roaring sounds of the engines and the variety of tracks that propel the little cars down, up and around. Young children love launching their cars on the Hot Wheels™ Fearless at the 500 jump track as they slide down the slide alongside the track.

Stacy O'Connor acted as an advisor for the Hot Wheels For Real™ exhibit at The Children's Museum of Indianapolis May 26, 2012–Jan. 27, 2013. Read on to hear about how she got started in the business and her foundation for inspiration.

Stacy O’Connor, Track Designer in Mattel’s Hot Wheels division

Product design (and toy invention, in general) is not just a job to me—it’s who I am. My dad was an at-home inventor who was always tearing stuff apart and combining it in new ways. I grew up in an environment where if it didn’t exist in a store, it didn’t matter—you just made it yourself. One of my favorite toys growing up was a cardboard refrigerator box.  Sometimes my dad would come home from work with one in the back of his work truck and it would feel like Christmas to me. I would build houses, forts and rocket ships. My earliest Hot Wheels memory is when I was 7 years old. I had all brothers. I was surrounded by boys. I remember being fascinated by these cars that rolled really fast and went through loops.  After high school, I took a job at Tomy Toys where I discovered the design department where they researched and developed new ideas for toys. I couldn’t believe you could do that for a living!

Now I lead a team of designers that build Hot Wheels track sets at Mattel, like Wall Tracks, and other track sets you see at the store. My favorite product I’ve worked on while at Hot Wheels is the Trick Tracks track system because it launches cars through a series of dynamic stunts in a chain-reaction manner and all the stunts can be rearranged in any pattern you want to try. I think these are very creative track sets.

The foundations for my inspiration are my ongoing fascination with how things work and watching science fiction movies with my family on Sunday afternoons when I was little.  My dad loved science fiction and I guess I still do.  These two childhood experiences helped me develop the ability to imagine things that did not exist yet and knowing how things worked helped me make the things I was imagining.  I spent a lot of time, as a child, daydreaming and imagining a future that did not exist yet.  

The kids of today are the future.  I think they need more time to daydream and create the stories that will help to create a better tomorrow. When I was 7 years old I didn’t have endless choices of entertainment on cable, computers or video games. We would make up our own stories and games.  One of the goals I have when I design toys is to make sure our toys allow kids to use their imaginations and to create their own stories.  

If you want to follow in my footsteps and be a conceptual designer or inventor when you grow up, take time to imagine a future that doesn’t exist yet and learn how to make your ideas come to life. This could mean building, drawing or writing about your idea.  Being creative is all about taking action! School is a great place to learn the skills you’ll need to be a designer or inventor.  Being creative is also about believing in your ideas and keeping that passion going!
 

With its days full of warm weather and sunshine, summer is the perfect time for your family members -- from young children to parents to grandparents, and everyone in between -- to get outside and ride bikes.

But before your family takes advantage of all the health and leisure benefits that biking affords, it’s important to learn the ins and outs of bicycle safety. For those who didn’t catch this spring’s Trauma Services’ Bike Safety Fair put on by Riley Hospital for Children at IU Health and Riley Hospital at IU Health Trauma Services and hosted at The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, don’t fret!

We’ve compiled safety tips from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration below to help keep you and your loved ones safe and active all summer long while cycling. Make safety a family learning experience.

• Make yourself visible. Wear reflective clothing and outfit your ride with bike lights or reflectors on the front and back.
• Get road ready. Before embarking on a bike ride, be sure tires are properly inflated and brakes are functioning properly.
• Check fit. Wear a properly fitting helmet and adjust the fit of the bicycle seat and handlebars.
• Know the rules of the road (or trail or sidewalk). No matter where you ride, it’s important to pay attention to your surroundings at all times. Go with the flow of traffic and obey laws or regulations that apply to the street, trail or sidewalk you’re riding along.
• Be alert! Be on the lookout for traffic in all variations -- cars, pedestrians, other cyclists and so forth. Remember to watch for people or vehicles turning, merging onto your path or stopping ahead of you. Pay attention to any obstacles on your path, like potholes, puddles and parked cars.
• Remember! It's generally safer to bike in the street, children under 10 should ride their bikes on the  sidewalk.

For more info check out this great post on Tips for Biking with Kids.

With a little planning and effort, your family is sure to enjoy this summer cycling safely!

The Playscape gallery--a family favorite for more than 20 years--will close for renovation July 9, 2012. A temporary space for families with children ages 5 and under, Mr. Bear's Playhouse, will open July 28, 2012. In the meantime, there are tons of great places for you and your toddler to explore!

Check out the list of top 10 toddler spots:

10) Dig area in Dinosphere
9) Nest in Dinosphere
8) Train tables in All Aboard
7) Pretend dino play between Dinosphere and All Aboard
6) Lilly Playhouse and ice cream shop in Carousel of Wishes and Dreams
5) Market in Take Me There: Egypt
4) Construction area in ScienceWorks
3) Active play Twister game in Health House
2) Toddler hide outs like popping up in the train model, cave in Dinosphere, and the log, pond cubby, and tunnels in ScienceWorks.

And the number one spot for toddlers??

1) The Carousel in Carousel of Wishes and Dreams, of course!

A new early childhood learning experience will open in 2013. Stay tuned for a special episode of This Week’s WOW that will give you a sneak peek into what to expect in the new space.

Have you seen this video for the world record-breaking paper airplane throw? At McClellan Air Force Base, Joe Ayood and John Collins made a paper airplane that flew 226 feet and 10 inches. Watch.

These guys are just playing around. Pilots and astronauts really do use models like the paper airplane in this video to test scientific theories about flight.

Kids love making paper airplanes—airplanes that fly far and fast, ones that do flips, ones that glide. But what can we learn about flight, aerodynamics and science from models made from folds in a paper and foam test airplanes?

As it turns out, a lot.

The same forces of lift, drag, thrust, weight and control that apply to airplanes and rockets apply to the types of models your kids make at home with materials around the house.

Want to know more? The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis has a new and exciting display called Curious Scientific Investigators: Flight Adventures. With CSI: Flight Adventures, your kids can see how NASA uses models and wind tunnels to test their aeronautic designs before producing the real things.

Additionally, we have online resources including educational videos and flight games to accent the continued learning even after leaving our extraordinary museum.

After seeing the amazing CSI: Flight Adventures display at the Children’s Museum, see if your kids or students can make an airplane that flies further than one they made before visiting The Children’s Museum. Try making minor adjustments to the wings or weight and take note of how your model flies differently than before.

Take your kids’ love of planes and dreams of flight into a love of science and learning. It may seem like magic when an airplane takes off or a rocket shoots into space, but it’s the result of rigorous scientific principles and testing. But that doesn’t mean it can’t also be fun!

Often, the first lessons most kids learn about flight come from paper airplanes. Need some design inspiration? Check out these video tutorials to make a paper airplane jet, a basic glider or even instructions on how to make the same paper airplane the previous world record holder for distance used.

 

Alton Takeyasu helped design the track layouts for the Hot Wheels For Real™ exhibit at The Children's Museum of Indianapolis May 26, 2012–Jan. 27, 2013. Read on to find out how Alton finds inspiration, and hear his advice on how you can follow in his footsteps.

By Alton Takeyasu, Chief Designer in Mattel’s Hot Wheels division

Growing up, I lived on a 40-acre flower farm in California, so we often had to make our own fun. I drew cars on paper and then folded them into car models for friends. I still remember the first Hot Wheels car my mom got me—a gold Deora. My sister was really into cars, too, and we used to run track from one end of the house to the other, clamping it to beams, and ending it in the kitchen right in our mom’s way.

Today I’m a chief designer in Mattel’s Hot Wheels division, working on special cars – like one that’s a bottle opener on wheels!

Part of my job is to find ways to expand the Hot Wheels brand into all parts of life. For example, I work with Team Hot Wheels, a group of professional drivers in life-size Hot Wheels car who do amazing stunts, like the big jump at the Indianapolis 500 last year. I also helped design an innovative iPad app that works with a Hot Wheels car. Every day is something new. It’s unpredictable, which is what makes it fun.

Inspiration is all around. I find mine on the Internet, in movies, in personal hobbies like building RC models, in animals, flavors, color, and personal experience. When you’re looking for inspiration, it’s important to stick with something people can relate to, and something that causes a reaction in people. For example, if you’re looking at a series of different colors of orange, think, “which orange looks good to eat?” Pick that one.

If you’re interested in a career like mine, you have to be interested in how stuff works. I used to unscrew stuff and take it apart. Ask yourself, “why is it this way?” and “could this be done better?” Don’t just accept things the way they are; look at every perspective and view point.




 

If you have been to a public event at the Children's Museum of Indianapolis, you have probably noticed a whole gaggle of teenagers wearing black shirts helping you at table top activities, character appreances, or just being there to lend helpful information. Have you ever wondered who they are? Or what they do?

This black-shirted army of champions is better known as  the Museum Apprentice Program, or MAP for short. The MAPs are 13-18 year olds who help out at public events and family programs; however, being a MAP is so. much. more.

Every year the MAPs complete 2 or 3 projects that are related to the exhibits and create programs for the public. You may have recognized some of their work if you've ever scanned a QR code at one of the major icons in the museum. They actually created Wikipedia entries for those icons! In the summer of 2011, they traded their wikihats for shovels and sunscreen and became connoisseurs of archaeology. They used their expertise to create and facilitate activities as the MAP Summer Archaeology Festival. This spring they will be creating their own lemonade stands and activities and selling lemonade for national Lemonade Day.

To learn about the brainstorming process and how to create programs from exhibits, the MAPs spent their last meeting with a guest LEGO® builder, where they learned how to take their LEGO brick building to a new level. They built mansions, dungeons, cats, landscaping, and more, all in a quest to brainstorm future programming possibilities related to exhibits.

Keep your eyes out for their next big project on Lemonade Day, May 19, when they will reveal their lemonade stands.  I'll keep you updated on their progress so that you can be with them every sweet and sour step of their lemonade way.

By John McCollum, Biotechnology Learning Center Supervisor

This is a great at-home science activity for your kids! Seeds often use the genetic material from two parent plants to grow into a plant with a new mix of traits different from the parent plants. Since farmers want their crops to consistently have the same types of traits (such as large size, good taste, fast growth, etc.) they try to grow certain crops like potatoes without using seeds. Instead, plants like potatoes are reproduced using a process called cloning.

When planting potatoes, you will cut a fully grown potato into pieces and use those little pieces to start your new plants. In cloning, there is only one parent plant and the genetic material stays the same, so the offspring produce the same traits as the parent. 

Be sure to prepare your potatoes the day before you want to plant them, as you need to have the seedlings dry overnight. Any potatoes could be used, but special “seed potatoes” are preferable to grocery store-bought eating potatoes if you actually want to grow plants for food. Store-bought potatoes will be more likely to have problems with disease.

Materials:

Potato
Paring knife
Mulch and/or potting soil

Procedure:

• Take a potato and locate the "eyes." Use the knife to cut the potato into 1-inch cubes, each cube having one eye.
• Let the potato cubes dry overnight.
• Put the cubes on top of well-drained soil, 16 to 24 inches apart, in a sunny location.
• Cover the cubes with 6 inches of mulch, and water them until the mulch is wet.

If you would rather start your clones indoors, it is acceptable to plant each potato cube into its own pot with potting soil. Once you see a sprout in your pot, you’ll want to transfer it to a garden area outdoors as soon as weather permits. A typical growing season starts in the early spring with some people choosing to plant as late as mid-June.

You can do even more programs like this in the Biotechnology Learning Center at The Children's Museum of Indianapolis!

Note: Adapted from content by Andrea Helaine
Read more: How to Clone Potatoes | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how_7786227_clone-potatoes.html#ixzz1kalVdnQ3

 

Today is the first day of spring and the Vernal Equinox! An old myth claims you can stand an egg on its end ONLY during the Vernal Equinox, when day and night are equal in length. Supposedly, this is because there is equal gravity between the Earth and the sun on that day. But that's a myth! In reality, you can stand an egg on end any day. Why?

On the bottom of an egg you will find tiny bumps in the shell. Those bumps are simply irregularities in the eggshell that hold the egg up (similar to legs).

To prove this point, we successfully balanced an egg outside of The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis yesterday– a full day before the Vernal Equinox.

Also, while we were having fun with eggs, we tested out the strength of an egg. Because of the shape of an egg, it can hold up to five pounds of weight on top without breaking! Don't believe me? Check out this photo!

This is a fun science experiement you can try at home, too! You’ll need:
* 2 caps from 2-liter bottles of pop
* 1 egg
* hardback books

1. Place one bottle cap open-side up on a smooth, level surface.
2. Put the large end of the egg on the bottle cap.
3. Put the other cap, open-side down, on the egg.
4. Gradually add some books or other weighty materials.
 

More egg trivia:
* Spin an egg to see if it’s hard-cooked or raw. If it wobbles, it’s raw!
* The expression, “It’s so hot you could fry an egg on the sidewalk,” could only be true if the sidewalk reached a temperature of 300°F.
* Eggs have tiny pores just like human skin. Through these pores they can absorb flavors and odors, so it’s best to store eggs in a carton in a refrigerator.
* Eggs age more in one day at room temperature than in one week in the refrigerator.
* If you accidentally drop an egg on the floor, sprinkle it with a lot of salt before you clean it up. This makes clean-up easier.

All over the world eggs symbolize the release of earth from winter and the coming of new life in the spring. We hope you enjoy the first day of spring!

As part of Literacy Month, we asked Children's Museum of Indianapolis staff to share their favorite or most influential book from childhood. Today, we talked to Joan Emmert, manager of InfoZone Brand Library here at the museum.

Don't forget to keep shopping at the online Scholastic Book Fair throughout March. Each book purchased earns us points that will go toward buying new books for the kid's in our community. Last year we were able to provide more than 300 new books!

By Joan Emmert, Manager of Info Zone Branch Library

As a young child I could always be found in the mystery section of our local library.  I would check out stacks of Nancy Drew and the Boxcar Children series.  I loved being outdoors and my books would go with me so that I could read and then act out all the scenes from the books.  Part of being outside meant that I spent time with animals, spiders, and worms!  When I was given a copy of Charlotte’s Web it immediately became my all-time favorite book.  Although I’ve added several more favorites to my collection of books, I still like to recommend Charlotte’s Web to young readers.
 

Spring is quickly approaching (can you believe the warm weather this week?!), and here at the Children's Museum of Indianapolis, spring means Spring Break! This Spring Break we're especially excited about the LEGO® Travel Adventure exhibit that just opened.  The exhibit invites you to use one of the greatest building materials of all time—LEGO® bricks—as a vehicle for imagination. Where do you need to go? What does your vehicle need to do? You're not just along for the ride! You imagine the journey and the destination, and build your dream machine!

In This Week's WOW, Josh, Claire, and a special guest Nicole take part in a cool LEGO® challenge similar to what families will get to do at our LEGO® Late Night event on March 31. You pick the destination, determine what terrain you'll have to cross to get there, then build a vechicle to take you.

If you want to participate in a challenge like the one here, be sure to sign your family up for Spring Break LEGO® Late Night on March 31. If you're visiting from out of town this Spring Break, check out our hotel packages and get the most out of your family trip to Indianapolis.

LEGO® Travel Adventure is at the museum through July 22, 2012. Be sure to see it before it leaves!

By Ashley Zrosec, Family Programs Teacher

It’s National "March into Literacy" month!  At The Children's Museum of Indianapolis, we're celebrating with a series of activities and events to get YOU excited about reading!

We're kicking it all off at our Scholastic Book Fair opening today! We have books for the whole family.  The best part? Your purchase will earn points that allow us to purchase books for kids in our community. Last year we were able to provide more than 300 brand new books for kids to keep! This year, even your online purchases in the month of March will earn points, too!

In celebration of Literacy Month we've been compiling a list of our favorite books from when we were kids. Check out some of our favorite authors, titles, and book series:

Top 5 Authors

• Dr. Seuss
• Robert McCloskey
• Shel Silverstein
• Eric Carle
• David A. Carter

Top Book Series

• The Mad Scientists’ Club
• Harry Potter
• Nancy Drew
• Hardy Boys
• Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
• Little House
• Pinkerton

Top 10 Favorite Books

• The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
• Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett
• The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams
• Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney
• The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by Frank Baum
• Pat the Bunny by Dorothy Kunhardt
• Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault
• Catherine, Called Birdy by Karen Cushman
• The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton
• Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
• The Little Engine that Could by Watty Piper

Stay tuned, all month we'll be posting blogs about books that were influential in the lives of staff members here at the museum.

We’ll see you at the book fair where you can purchase new favorites of your own! And don’t forget...

"The more you read, the more you know, the more successful, you will grow!" - Dr. Seuss.

On February 25, the museum is launching (pun intended) a new experience called Curious Scientific Investigators: Flight Adventures. It’s not an exhibit, but more a series of experiences, programs, and a new multimedia show that teach children and families about flight. We’ve been thrilled to work with some great partners on this project including The Academy of Model Aeronautics that, believe or not, lives right down the road in Muncie, IN. When it comes to model aircraft, these are your guys and gals! This week’s guest blogger is Bill Pritchett from the AMA to tell you more about their organization and how they’re helping with this project.

By Bill Pritchett, Director of Education at the Academy of Model Aeronautics

Before planes and space shuttles, there was aeromodeling, or the making of model aircrafts to test ideas and principles of flight. All the way back in the 1800s the father of the Wright brothers gave them a rubber-powered model aircraft, and less than 100 years later man walked on the moon! Aeromodeling is a truly significant component of actual flight. Plus, it provides learning, excitement and, most importantly, fun for its many followers.

We’re not just talking about paper airplanes here! Aeromodeling includes everything from Free Flight (FF) models, such as Hand Launched Gliders or Catapult Launched Gliders (now that sounds cool!), and also includes any powered aircraft (rubber band, electric, or gas) and radio-controlled flight, and the AMA has activities for all of these! (Check out this video to see a professional remote control pilot and AMA member flying his plane at The Children's Museum of Indianapolis!)

AMA has been a proud participant in a significant NASA grant with The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis.  CSI: Flight Adventures  has developed some amazing opportunities for kids to be introduced to aeromodeling, the educational aspects of model aviation, and having fun while they learn.  

This program promotes and supports aviation as an educational tool to educators and the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) qualities of flight. Flight Adventures is just the beginning. The partnership between the museum, NASA and AMA also begins a collective journey to a more comprehensive understanding of building and flying all types of model aircraft for America’s youth.

If your kids are interested in getting started with the AMA, visit our website!

One of the things that makes The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis the biggest and best in the world is its ability to extend learning beyond the walls of 3000 N. Meridian Street. In fact, every summer, museum staff and paleontologists escape the Dinosphere dome and travel all the way to the Badlands of South Dakota where they dig for real dinosaur bones! And the best part? You can do it too. That’s right, families, teachers and adults are all invited to register for single or multiple days of dino digging fun. And yes, we find stuff. Lots of stuff.

For example…

Last summer we found over 200 65 million year old specimen including Nano-tyranous teeth, femora from school bus sized Edmontosaurus annectens (aka Duckbill Dinosaur), ribs, mandible pieces and so much more! 

Check out This Week’s WOW to see what a day at the dig site looks like and learn the answer to the question Just what happens to all those fossils once they’ve been discovered and can I use mine as a paper weight?

To learn more or to register for this summer’s dig, click here.

As you probably already know, our Jolly Days exhibit goes into the same gallery where the Children’s Museum Guild Haunted House is during the month of October.  It takes our hardworking Facilities staff plus our amazing Guild Witches 2 months to build and decorate the Haunted House—and it all has to come out of there in a week!  Starting November 1, it’s a scramble to get the Haunted House pulled down and packed away, and the gallery cleaned and re-painted so that Jolly Days can start going in.  So while that’s going on in the gallery space, our exhibits and production team are working hard to get all the decorations in our welcome center and Sunburst Atrium into place. 

The giant tree in the Welcome Center requires a crane to put it in place and decorate it, so we usually do that on the first closed Monday after Halloween so we don’t have to worry about visitors’ safety.  Then it’s about 4 straight days of work to get all the other decorations out of our storage facility, into the building, and arranged on the deck around the tree.  We also have a new resident in our welcome center—the Transformer, Bumblebee!—and he has to be moved several times to allow us to get equipment around the welcome center and hang all the snowflakes  from our ceiling.  Once we’re done with the Welcome Center, the crew moves to start unpacking the rest of Jolly Days!

The Yule Slide—everyone’s favorite holiday tradition here at the museum—takes a crew of four people a day and a half to install and decorate.  The tree in the Atrium has to be assembled and decorated before our collections department staff can put Jingles and his stuffed animal friends into place; they are real artifacts from our Steiff animal collection, and have to be handled with care! The gallery façade (the house, the lights, and the title graphic) takes another day to put up.  Meanwhile, inside the gallery, our paint crew finishes re-painting and touching up so that the exhibit can be unpacked, installed, cleaned, and tested—4 full semi trailers worth of stuff! 

When the walls are in place, the curator brings in the toys and games from our collection that make Jolly Days special—from old board games to stuffed bunnies, even Santa’s antique desk!  The graphics staff adds trees to the walls and snowflakes to our theater, replacing any of our signs that are damaged or dirty, and our cleaning crew washes and sanitizes all the toys from the play areas. Once the lights are focused and the floors swept, the exhibit is finally ready for you to visit! 

So from start to finish, getting Jolly Days ready to open the day after Thanksgiving takes us about 2700 work hours total!  I’m tired just thinking about it… or it might have something to do with the fact that I’ve still got work to do….

Jolly Days is open now through Jan. 8, 2012. It's a great INDOOR winter activity for kids and families in Indianapolis!