This weeks STEM activity is an interactive game called Mockup. In this game participants will be prompted a challenge by drawing a card from three categories that create a dilemma and asked to create an invention to solve their particular problem. I personally played this game with two of my friends and our problem was that "superheroes" needed a way to "detect poison" using something "magnetic" (see the picture below to see our example)! The problem was a difficult one but we had two minutes to draw a sketch of our invention on a white board and show it to the group to compare and contrast our ideas. We created some great outlandish inventions and it was so interesting to see the different trains of thought collaborating on this idea. 

Alternatively I have also come up with this great quiet time activity inspired by 'What Miss Mitchell Saw' and the popular 'I Spy' series. I had a left over jar (thanks Bread Hive!) though I recommend plastic in case we drop them. I filled mine with glitter, star sequins, and foam space stickers I stuck together, black beans, and dyed rice. The stars, black beans, dyed rice, and glitter were meant to give it the feel of the night sky! Before assembling the 'hidden' objects, my space foam pieces, I made a list, can you find: Two orange planets, a planet with three rings, four astronauts, etc.

But you can make your jar any theme, with any 'hidden' objects. Small toys, Dollar Tree items, Marbles, etc. filled with beans, rice, glitter, or Styrofoam pellets! What will you make?

Ps, to dye my rice for my jar (or sensory bins!) I use this great recipe below:

2020 we have been doing a lot of updates. With more updates in the works in our Children's Gallery, we are not offering all of our classic HCFM Coloring pages available now for free download, happy coloring!

...wouldn't you say? No? You don't think so? I do. Think about it... The Strong National Museum of Play for example. What are some things you think of right away? I think of toys! The Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site: Theodore Roosevelt, History. The Buffalo Museum of Science: Science. The Herschell Carrousel Factory Museum: Carrousels, Amusement, Band Organs. 

Those museums are homes to collections and collect the things they embody. But what do they do with them? Museums groups them, sort them, preserve them, research them, display them, share them. But wouldn't it be silly if you went to... let's say The National Cowboy Museum, excited to see things all related to cowboys in history and today. You pay for your admission tickets and you walk in and it is just one big room. In the center piled high to the ceiling is a mound of cowboy boots, spurs, posters, film reels, photographs, horse shoes, a random alarm clock that says "GO GET'EM COWBOY". Why is that there?