We haven’t gone on field trips for a while, and when I offered the chance to Neil, his first choice was the Lawrence Hall of Science. Of all the science museums in the area, it has the most puzzles. It doesn’t update or rotate its exhibits as much as other science museums in the area, [...]
Via Bill Gosper and the regional math circles, Neil’s gotten to know Julian, another homeschooled boy his age who loves math as much as he does. So we naturally included him our round of adventures during Kelly’s winter break and invited him to join us at the Exploratorium on Friday. I wondered whether they’d relate [...]
I’ve always been a Star Trek fan, which is a complement to Peter, who’s a Star Wars fan, and we both take part in properly educating our children to our respective geek pop cultures. Peter sat the children down to watch the original set of Star Wars movies (technically IV, V, and VI, though they [...]
Kelly’s been eager to visit Oakland’s Fairyland, which I agreed would be a wonderful place to her. On Wednesday, I took here there, since I was already almost halfway there, having dropped Neil off at Stanford for his Maya camp. Fairyland is all I could want; and it makes me miss the old Happy Hollow [...]
Kelly likes to watch a TV station called Sprout, and told me there was a contest to meet “Chica” in Philadelphia. It required downloading and coloring a paper “Mr. Mailman” and being photographed with him in various places, a la a travelling gnome or Flat Stanley. So Kelly and Neil took Mr. Mailman out for [...]
I was pleasantly surprised to find out, on a recent trip to the farmer’s market downtown, that one of the little theatres was going to be putting on A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It’s been fun to insert Shakespeare plays into our history education, but the result has been hit or miss. The 1953 movie version [...]
For Neil’s break between sixth and seventh grade, we took a two-week vacation. I asked Neil what he wanted to do, and besides play on the computer, he wanted to revisit the Lawrence Hall of Science, one of his favorite science museums in the Bay Area. For the last few years, we’ve been lucky to [...]
Several years ago, our neighbors Dave and B.J. sold their house and traded it for 40 undeveloped acres separated from the Bay Area proper by a mountain range or two. I rarely see them, but this week Charybdis and Scylla was on break, and I wanted a break away from the urban hustle and bustle, [...]
At the Indian Health Center, I learned that on April 18th, a local Barnes & Noble was going to be hosting a four hour activity/storytime/music extravaganza. So, naturally, Kelly and I were going to be there! I made sure to get there early, because I expected it would only get more crowded over time. Outside [...]
On Thursday, during our “break” from Charybdis and Scylla formal schooling, we took a day to visit the Exploratorium in San Francisco again. I’ve blogged about it multiple times including here, because we visit it often, and it is a fabulous place. It was particularly refreshing after our visit to the disappointing Academy of Sciences. [...]
