The American Museum of Natural History has produced this short film, “The Known Universe”, that starts on Earth, zooms all the way out to the afterglow of the Big Bang, and back again. I think our tiny blue planet is the prettiest place in all the known universe. But I could be slightly biased.
And with that, we at the Austin Children’s Museum wish you a very Happy Holidays and a fantastic New Year. See you in 2010!
The Telegraph has released the winners of their Young Astronomy Photographers awards for 2009. These photos, taken by youth ages 11-15, are amazing! It makes me want to go out and photograph the night sky. See all the winners here.
These decorations are so easy to make! They make great holiday flare for Hanukkah or Christmas. All you need is colored paper, a ruler, scissors, and a stapler.
First, cut some colored paper into 1 inch strips. You will need 7 strips of paper. Then use a ruler to measure and cut the strips. You should end up with:
- two 12 inch strips
- two 10 inch strips
- two 8 inch strips
- one 6 inch strip
Stack the strips of paper in this order: 12-inch, 10-inch, 8-inch, 6-inch, 8-inch, 10-inch, 12-inch. It’s a measurement sandwich!
Now, staple one end of the stack. Next, gather the other ends of the strips together and staple them. You can tie a string around the top if you want to hang it up.
Sure, you can shop for tree ornaments, but why not bring out your creative side by making ornaments at home? Homemade ornaments add a special touch to any Christmas tree because they were made by you!
These salt-dough ornaments look sweet hanging on any Christmas tree, but be warned, they’re not sweet to eat! Although inedible, making salt-dough ornaments is similar to baking cookies.
What you need:
-2 cups of all-purpose flour
-1 cup of salt
-1 cup of water
-Rolling pin
What to do:
1. Preheat the oven to 250 degrees.
2. Whisk the flour and salt together in a bowl.
3. Add water and stir thoroughly until there are no more traces of flour.
4. Knead the dough on a flat surface until it’s smooth. This will take about 8 to 10 minutes. Try not to let the dough get too rubbery by kneading it too long.
5. On a floured surface, roll out the dough until it’s about a quarter of an inch thick. (Mine were a little on the fat side, however)
6. Use cookie cutters to cut out shapes or carve out your own. Place the shapes on an ungreased cookie sheet. Make a hole at the top of each ornament big enough for a yard or ribbon to fit through.
7. Bake for 2 hours.
This craft came from Anna Getty’s eco-friendly book I’m Dreaming of a Green Christmas. See what other ornaments you can make from things found around your house!
No hard hats necessary for this type of construction! The Museum is hosting weekly Gingerbread House Workshops starting this Friday, December 4th.
How would you design your house? A one story house or a two story house? Would it have a chimney? How would you decorate it? Would there be a zoo of animal crackers in the backyard? What about a gumdrop garden?
Mmm, the best part of making gingerbread houses is eating them afterward. Yum!
To see more information and the schedule of workshop sessions, click here! You can also check out photos from last year at the Museum’s Flickr stream.
The first traditional Thanksgiving between the Plymouth colonists and Wampanoag Native Americans occured in 1621. That’s over three centuries ago! But did you know there were other feasts similar to that one too? Previously, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés and his group of Spanish colonists landed in Florida where they held a Thanksgiving feast to celebrate their safe arrival. Near El Paso, Spaniard Don Juan de Oñate decided to give his expedition party a rest and throw a Thanksgiving celebration.
Other interesting facts about Thanksgiving are…
…although today’s Thanksgiving meal usually features turkey and pumpkin pie, the pilgrims and Native Americans actually didn’t eat these! Instead of turkey, they ate lobster, deer meat, and duck. Also there were no ovens to bake any pumpkin pies, though some historians believe pumpkins and squash were present—just not in pie form!
…the pilgrims and natives had different eating habits. While the colonists ate breakfast, dinner, and supper, the Native Americans just ate whenever they were hungry and often had pots cooking throughout the day.
…the reason the holiday is called Thanksgiving is because the colonists wanted to express gratitude for surviving the journey from England to the New Land. Native Americans already had a long history of harvest festivals and ceremonial dances to give thanks for a successful crop.
…Thanksgiving is also a symbol of friendship and cooperation between the colonists and Native Americans. There was a lot of tension when the colonists arrived because the Native Americans were already there living their lives. This was one of the few moments of peaceful interaction between the two groups.
Want to learn more about the history of Thanksgiving? Visit History.com – The First Thanksgiving, which is where I found a lot of these interesting facts.
Disney’s Family Fun web site has this great idea to make your regular lunchtime sandwiches more exciting. Not only are these turkey-shaped sandwiches fun to make, they’re healthy too! Click on the photo to learn how to make this turkey snack!
Afterward, satisfy your sweet tooth with these turkey sugar cookies!
All you need is a sugar cookie recipe, different colored icing, candy corn, and candy for the eyes. I think mini M&Ms make good turkey eyes. You can also use a small bit of red licorice for the turkey’s waddle.
For one recipe, check out the Pillsbury web site by clicking on the photo.
These turkey-themed snacks are making me even more excited about Thanksgiving! What are some of your family’s Thanksgiving traditions? What food do you look forward to eating?
These quaint felt apples make sweet trinkets this fall! They fit so nicely in the palm of your hand and make nice giveaways for Thanksgiving as well.
I originally got the idea from the Web site Kaboose, but made a couple adjustments based on the materials I had.
What you’ll need:
-Red and green felt
-A coffee stirrer or popsicle stick
-Hot glue gun
-Polyester fiberfil (like stuffed animal stuffing!)
-Brown marker or paint
-Scissors
What to do:
First, color the end of the coffee stirrer brown with either a brown marker or paint. Break off the end so it’s a couple or so inches in length. Set it aside for later.
Cut a plus-sign shape out of the red felt. If you prefer a shape to trace, you can download a printable shape provided by Kaboose here. I used a red marker to trace the plus-sign so it showed up just enough for me to see where I was cutting.
Tear off a piece of fiberfil and squeeze it into a ball shape. Glue it in the center of the plus-sign with either regular Elmer’s-type glue or the hot glue. Try to keep the puff ball as compact and round-shaped as possible.
Fold up two of the sides so they meet at the top. Then begin hot gluing the other sides one at a time so they stick to the sides you folded up. Hot glue is good because it dries quickly. When you’re done, you can peel off the excess strings of glue.
Now take your coffee stirrer and stick it in the middle. Glue a line along the opening and seal the top shut. Cut out a leaf shape from the green felt and glue it on top.
Voila, felt apples for the fall season! Happy crafting!
Making turkey hands is an easy and classic Thanksgiving art craft!
First, trace your hand on a sheet of paper and use the outline of your hand as the body of the turkey. Then there are lots of different ways you can decorate your turkey.
I painted one of my turkeys with watercolor paint—it dries quickly! For my second turkey, I used markers to write things I’m thankful for in the “feathers.”
Other creative ways to decorate and use your turkey hands:
-Glue on corn kernels, rice grains or other seeds to give your turkey texture
-Cut your turkey out and tape it on your window to make a window cling
-Or, cut out multiple turkeys and write the names of all your family members to make Thanksgiving dinner table place cards
-Tear or cut pieces of magazines and glue them inside your turkey to make a turkey-shaped collage
What are some other things you can do with your turkey hands?
The UT engineering students came to the Museum again, this time to race paper cars using marbles!
After building a car out of paper and attaching toy wheels, the UT students had the young engineers test the drag racers out. Each kid rolled a marble down a ramp and watched how far the racer travelled when the marble shot off the ramp and into a pocket built into the racer. The momentum from the marble pushed the drag racers forward!
The students provided a task sheet with the engineering design process to get you thinking like an engineer as you design your marble drag racer. They also included some helpful hints to think about as you test your drag racer.
Does your racer move farther if you roll more than one marble? Do you think it would be easier for the racer to roll on tile floor or carpet floor? What about a racer with wheels and a racer with no wheels?
Race your cars with a friend and see whose drag racer goes the farthest!
While Natural Sciences was going on, engineering students from UT also came to make toys with electric circuits, similar to the Operatation game!
After coloring pictures of Spongebob Squarepants, Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh, and others, young engineers connected wires to batteries and resistors to create an electric circuit. By touching their tweezers—covered in aluminum foil—to other aluminum foil spots on their game boards, a buzzer would go off and the characters’ noses would light up!
Why aluminum foil? Aluminum foil is a very conductive material. Conductivity is the measure of a material’s ability to conduct electricity. Since aluminum foil is considered a highly conductive material, an electric current can easily pass through it.
Interested in making your own Operation game?
The students provided the instructions for the circuit board, which you can download here.
Things you’ll need:
-Coloring book page or your own illustration
-Cardboard big enough for the illustration
-Aluminum foil
-Tweezers
-9 volt battery holder
-360 ohm resistor (Radio shack)
-Standard LED, for the light-up nose (Radio Shack)
-Piezo Buzzer (AmericanPiezo.com, #KPI – 2210-L)
Some students from the UT College of Natural Sciences came on Saturday to show kids cool experiments about friction, buoyancy and electricity!
A young scientist tests how to make a lightbulb light up.
Another young scientist figures out the density of an object.
This sister-brother team try to guess what object will sink and what will float at the buoyancy test table.
Missed out? UT Natural Sciences will return this Saturday, November 14th, for another day of science experiments. Hope to see you there!
Thanksgiving and the winter holidays are coming up, so everyone is in the giving mood! Maybe you would like to show someone why you’re thankful to know him or her. Or maybe you want to keep track of the things you are thankful for in a Thankfulness Box.
Either way, origami—the Japanese art of paper folding—is a great way to get crafty!
This box is called the masu box. A long time ago, people in Japan used to store their rice in wooden masu boxes. You don’t have to store rice in these paper boxes, but you can keep other keepsakes in it. I think these are great for holding candy, erasers, or buttons!
Here’s an idea: since Thanksgiving is coming up, why not start writing down on little slips of paper the things you are thankful for in life? Try coming up with one each day until Thanksgiving—it sounds like a lot, but there are a lot of things to be thankful for in this world!
After you write it down, fold it up and store it in your masu box. You can get your family to try this too! Then on Thanksgiving, sit down with your family and all of you can share what’s inside your Thankfulness Boxes.
Another thing you can do is think of someone who means a lot to you in life, such as a grandparent, teacher, or best friend. Write a note about why you are thankful to have this person in your life. Put it inside the origami box along with a momento, such as a photograph or friendship bracelet. Surprise that person with your giftbox!
I think the web site Paper Crane gives clear instructions and good illustrations on how to fold the masu box . Click here to see them.
The Netflix Origami website also shows you a cool way to recycle “junk paper” and make a masu box with a lid! It has a lot of helpful pictures that make it easy to follow as well. Check it out here!
To whom do you plan on giving your super neat giftbox? What are you thankful for this year?
Engineering students from UT came on Saturday to show us how to make balloon powered cars!
Air from the balloons shot out backwards, which pushed the cars forward. The cars with the bigger balloons tended to travel a greater distance because there was more air to propel the car farther.
The students were nice enough to provide the instructions so you can make one at home! Click here to download the instructions as a Word document.
Happy Halloween from the Museum! I hope you are all dressed up and ready to go trick-or-treating!
Halloween is a pretty famous holiday in America, but did you know there’s another big holiday just about to happen?
A lot of Mexican Americans also celebrate Dia de los Muertos, which means ”Day of the Dead” in Spanish. Dia de los Muertos isn’t a spooky or sad holiday though—it’s a joyous way to celebrate loved ones who have passed away. People make sugar skulls, Pan de Muerto (a yummy sweet bread made only for this occasion), and the favorite foods of those who have died.
Dia de los Muertos originated a long time ago in Mexico, possibly 3,000 years ago! It’s a very spiritual, festive holiday for people to honor and remember the deceased. Families build altars with marigolds and photographs of their loved ones. The bright colors of the marigold flowers represent a way for the spirits of the dead to find their way back home.
The celebration occurs on the first two days of November. The first day celebrates kids and the second day celebrates grown-ups. On the kids’ day, families usually leave toys and candy on the altars.
Dia de los Muertos is also a celebration about life!
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