Anouk got a rock collection for her birthday and has been really interested in geology lately. I thought over spring break that maybe we would drive to Luray Caverns to check it out but after looking at a map decided it was too far. Much more reasonable for a day trip was the Lucky Lake Gem and Mineral Mine in McKenney, VA, just over two hours west of Norfolk. At Lucky Lake, you can see the same sorts of rocks and minerals you might find at Luray...just on a smaller scale.

Lucky Lake features flume mining, which means that you shovel buckets of dirt into small trays and shake and swish it around in the water to reveal the treasures hidden there. We examined each rock closely, kept the ones we thought might be special and dumped the rest (the staff at Lucky Lake goes through your cast-off pile to make sure you're not throwing away anything remarkable). After you've finished sifting through the bucket, they sit down with you and tell you about all of the minerals and rocks you've found, show you what they look like when they're cut and polished, and share the supposed mystical properties of each crystal (Anouk has been sleeping ever since our visit with her uncut amethyst, which is supposed to take away bad dreams).

We found aquamarine, rubies, beautiful blue sodalite, garnets and a lot of quartz. We also purchased the option where our bucket came with an already cut stone in it, so that was exciting to find our mystic topaz glimmering there. Another slightly more expensive option was to get any stone from your bucket cut and mailed to you.

Besides panning there is a picnic area and fenced yard where the kids can run and play. We brought our lunch, which ended up being good because there isn't much else around the McKenney area at all. We debated stopping in Emporia on the way home but ended up driving back, which made for a lot of driving in one day and some cranky kids. Our advice would be to find a place to camp overnight or to make a detour to McKinney on a trip to Richmond, just to prevent this from happening to you.

But overall, it was worth it, even the cranky kids. One of our coolest road trips to date!

Woof! That's Gus's latest word. And Woof to Wolf is the latest of the changing exhibits at the Virginia Living Museum. So of course we had to spend some time there when we stopped in last week.

Wolf to Woof is based on a book of the same name, which explores why dogs of all the animals became man's best friend? The exhibit follows the evolution of the wolf from wild animal into man's best friend, and gives information on other canines (foxes, coyotes), as well as dogs depictions throughout history, from ancient times to modern pop culture. There are stations in which you can explore the way a dog's senses are different from a humans by seeing an image sharpen when seen through a dogs eye, or tracing scent molecules as they make their way through a human nose versus a dog's nose.







Part of the exhibit features dog skeletons and taxidermy animals, which lead to some interesting conversations with the three-year-old in our group ("Why aren't those dogs...MOVING?") But it didn't seem to matter to our just walking toddlers who loved testing out their dog-spotting skills. They also enjoyed climbing around the "avalanche" like a search and rescue dog.

Admission to the VLM is pricey, at $20 per adult and $15 per child. Considering this, is Wolf to Woof worth a visit for its own sake? After some thought I'd say no -- unless you really have a dog-loving little one or a budding scientist on your hands. But if you're already a member, or if you already have a visit planned, I'd be sure to stop in.

Wolf to Woof runs through May 14. On April 8, the VLM will feature an Extraordinary Dogs day, with service animals and K9 units on hand to give demonstrations. Read more about that here!

Hello, everyone! Today we're going to kick off our return to regular blogging with a recap of the 28th Annual Virginia Children's Festival in Town Point Park that we went to early in October. The festival is not only a wonderful experience in itself but a great way to sample the many kid-friendly vendors and programs around the HRVA area. We have really added to our to-do list after making our way around the many vendor booths and displays that were set up for us to visit.

Some favorites that we're still talking about weeks later: Mad Science and their demonstrations (friction! gravity! hypotheses!), Symphonicity and their instrument petting zoo, and the Hurrah Players singing hits from The School of Rock. We also painted pumpkin ornaments at the Color Me Mine table, crafted with SensoryAbled Kids, and arrrrr-ed with Pirates from the Moody Crewe. We toured the ODU Physics department's real-life science lab, visited the Norfolk Public Library's book mobile, and listened to the Virginia Opera performing Grimm's Fairy Tales.

Sometimes it takes seeing everything your home has to offer all together to make you realize how lucky you are to get to experience it all. We're looking forward to new explorations and adventures.

What have you discovered around these parts lately?

There's just about a month left to see the Washed Ashore exhibit at the Virginia Aquarium in Virginia Beach and it's one that definitely needs to be seen. The giant sculptures that make up the exhibit -- a friendly seal, giant jellyfish, massive coral reefs -- are, at a distance, beautiful and whimsical. But as you look closer and start to pick out familiar objects -- bottle caps, fishing bobbers, soda bottles -- you realize that they are all made out of trash washed up on the beach. And the scope of how polluted are oceans have become is even more striking.



We appreciated how interactive the exhibit was -- you can touch and play with most of the pieces, including a set of drums made of huge blocks of styrofoam (which was fun, but imagining these littering the shore of our favorite beaches is just mind-boggling). There were also stations scattered around the room where visitors could see the effect of all of the trash on the animals and plants that live in the ocean, and a table showing off some of the stranger things that have been pulled out of the waves (shoe skeletons, what?)

The volunteers who assembled the Washed Ashore exhibit did a great job in creating something beautiful and powerful out of something ugly and pretty awful, and in fostering awareness through art. It's definitely worth a look.

The Washed Ashore exhibit will be at the Virginia Aquarium through September 28 and is free with admission.

It's officially spring today, so I thought it would be the perfect time to share a citizen science initiative that I heard about a while ago. This project -- Project Budburst -- deals with phenology: the study of organisms and how they change with the seasons and with variations in climate or habitat. The creators of this project ask ordinary people to make observations of the plants around them in the hope it will help scientists understand how plant species are reacting to climate change.

There are two ways to participate in Project Budburst. You can make a single report -- observing a plant once on a walk or hike and writing down what it is doing (budding, flowering, etc) at that moment. Or else you can choose a plant -- a tree, shrub, patch of wildflowers or grasses -- and observe it throughout the year, reporting the date when that plant buds, flowers, fruits, and loses its leaves. (Project Budburst provides worksheets for thousands of different plants and lets you know what you're looking for if you're not sure).

Anne and I have been watching the plants in our yard for signs of spring for a few weeks now. The previous owners of our house planted a ton of bulbs in our yard, and every morning it seems like something new has come up overnight. So far we have gorgeous hyacinths and crocuses and beautiful double daffodils. We've been watching diligently for the first bud on our our bare hydrangea bushes and found it yesterday.

Happy Spring! What's growing in your yard? And do you think your kids would enjoy participating in Project Budburst?

 

Anne and I spent our last snow day learning how to dye carnations with food coloring. We already had a bunch of white carnations, we had food coloring, it was cold and gloomy and St. Patrick's Day is coming up. Enter: a beautiful rainbow bouquet.

This was a pretty easy experiment -- we filled jars/cups with about an inch of water, added 20-30 drops of food coloring, and trimmed the flower stems and set them in. Within an hour or so, we could see faint tinges of color staining the edge of the petals, and by the time we woke up the next morning, our flowers were pretty thoroughly saturated.





When we mixed more than one color, the results tended to be underwhelming -- our purple flowers didn't saturate completely, no matter how much food coloring we put in (they also looked kind of brownish instead of purple?). Oh well! We're still happy with our cheerful and seasonal rainbow bouquet.

Are your kids as fascinated with rainbows as Anne? She thinks they come from the moon (love.)

A lot of the finer points on sustainability were lost on our young crowd but it was interesting for us to see how many ways we use (eat, drink, even!) trees in our day to day life. This exhibit is a perfect (temporary) addition to the museum for the elementary school set, but the littlest ones will still enjoy a romp through the trees before hitting the bubble room.

Look Who Lives in Trees will be at the Children's Museum through May 17.

My guest post about our visit to the Air and Space Center in Hampton went up at My Active Child a couple of days ago but I forgot to post it here! I guess my brain was moving slow thanks to the cold weather we were having. Anyway, we had a great time exploring and hope to go back soon! Click here to read more about our visit.

Have a great weekend! If you're looking for something to do, check out my post over on HamptonRoads.com's Free&Fun blog about some free historical events this weekend.

• Think pink (and red, and blue...) Each pollinator is most attracted to a certain color range of flowers. For instance, bees prefer yellow and blue flowers, while hummingbirds prefer reds and pinks and butterflies will be attracted to blossoms in the violet range. We made sure to choose plants in several color ranges, but to concentrate our choices in ones that would be most appealing. 

• Go for three of a kind. The more plants you have, the more likely you are to attract pollinators to your space. Ideally, to attract the greatest number of pollinators, you would plant in masses of five or more plants in the same color spectrum. However, for a lot of gardeners with limited yard or patio space, this isn't an option. A good rule of thumb is to place at least three flowering plants of the same color range on each doorstep (front, back, side if you have a side door).

• Do double duty. The space in our backyard is limited, so we made an effort to choose plants that would appeal to more than one pollinator. Our big, bountiful buddeleja (butterfly bush) is also a favorite of bees. Our salvia bush is one of the top plants for hummingbirds, but also attracts the insects that bats eat. And the deep flared flowers of the hummingbird plant (AKA Dicliptera suberecta) will appeal to butterflies as well as its namesake.

• Party hardy. Because our pollinators will need food throughout the summer months, we chose plants that are cool-weather hardy, and will bloom late into the season. Asters, shasta daisies, bee balm, trumpet vine, and blanketflower (gallardia) will all bloom throughout the summer and well into the fall.  

• Stay up all night. Don't forget the late-night pollinators like moths (which are often overlooked). Many daytime flowers close their buds at night, but there are plants that will blossom in the evening. Evening primrose, moonflowers, and flowering tobacco are all examples (we planted a patch of cheerful four-o'-clocks for just this reason). 

A few of our transplanted flowers are looking a little ragged in the heat, but we've still seen an increased number of butterflies (a few gorgeous swallowtails!), bees, and flying ants (?) buzzing around them. Anouk no longer screams when she sees a bee, but says, "Hi! Hi!" I guess those bee-friendly books are really changing her attitude?

Our garden last year was a bit of a bust. We moved into our new house in July, and by the time we got our plot ready and put our plants in, it was too hot for anything to really take hold. Our squash and greens fizzled, and aside from a few root vegetables, we really didn't get much of a crop.

This year, we're getting a jump start and are already busy getting our garden ready for spring planting. We've freshened up our garden plot, loosened the soil, added more, and gotten rid of all of those pesky weeds that took root over the winter. We also have added a layer of compost to our soil to get it nice and rich for our plants. Courtesy of my dad, who gifted us with our very own composter to get us started. (This is the one we got.)

So far, we're taking to composting really well. Something about it is deeply satisfying to the minor obsessive in me. And Anne is happy to help in any way she can. I don't think much of the concept really sank in, but she does bring me her banana peels every morning, and we put them in the old coffee can we keep on the counter. When the can is full at the end of the day, we take it out and dump it in the composter and talk about what's going on in our nice stinky mix of leaves and dirt and veggie detritus, and how when it's ready, we'll put the compost on our garden, our flowerbeds, and in with our houseplants to make them grow big and strong.

I think composting is a great thing to do with kids -- not only does it set a good example of recycling and reusing and being kind to our planet, but it's just fascinating, the idea that something familiar can change into something else. Since we started, I've been scouring the internet for composting activities and links. Here's what I've come up with so far:

• This infographic gives a really good overview of general composting rules with words and pictures to explain what's compostable and what isn't.   

• The budding scientist can make a miniature compost bin out of a soda bottle -- the clear sides make it easy to watch decomposition in action. 

• Even if you don't have a lot of extra room, here are a few ways to compost  in small spaces. 

• I love these ideas for decorating a compost jar for the kitchen -- it seems like creative way of getting kids involved in the act. 

We also came across several picture books about composting while at the library the other day. You can find a list of our faves here.



Do you compost at your house? What do your kids think of it?