Colorado Springs Science Carnival

Dan was out of town for six days last week, including most of the weekend. He was doing this...

My non-animal-loving husband actually enjoyed himself at this leadership class. Who would have thought?

Anyway...I braved two weekend activities alone with the girls. On Saturday we went to the Colorado Springs Science Carnival. I didn't really know what to expect. I read about it on a homeschooling forum. It was free and it was great! I think it will be an annual event for us. The fair was held at UCCS. We went through two buildings and some of the outdoor events. I don't think we even managed to see 1/10th of it.

We learned about weather and made pinwheels. We also saw a demonstration of how a cloud is formed and made liquid tornadoes.

At the next exhibit I lost Anna. Yep. I had a feeling it would happen, so many people everywhere. I was trying to focus on taking a picture of Mia. When I was done Anna was gone. We were in a gym and I knew she couldn't have made it all the way to the door yet so I didn't panic too much. But it was so weird that we couldn't see her anywhere! Finally I heard her call my name! She was laughing. From the stage. Where she was being corralled by some teenagers who were trying to protect their exhibits from her wandering feet. They proceeded to tell me that all of sudden she was just there and that she had almost stepped on a set mouse trap!

Mia LOVED this exhibit. She turned all the pelts over to look at the animals from all directions. She asked a lot of questions. She was so interested. I loved it that she loved it.

Anna got about this far away and that was close enough!

They got to make a tile for a bench that will sit in a park. The bench will be shaped like a fish and the tiles will be the scales.

They made the tiles with some sort of sand mixture and stencil that was later baked. Anna's is the frog and Mia's is the deer (or elk?).

The foundation sponsoring the bench will email us when it is completed so we can go see it.

Some other things we did were making rafts and sailing them on the Colorado river... (Which had lots of holes where water drained out representing all the water being drained from the river nowadays.)

Learn about erosion...

And get airlifted...

Mia was very interested in learning things rather than just playing. Such a difference between three and four years old! Anna was strictly there to play! :)

Can't wait til next year's fair!