We took the kids to the children's museum this weekend to check out the new Wonder Cabinet exhibit. It was really cool, evoking images of the cabinet of curiosities concept that inspired it while at the same time being welcoming to the modern 2-year old. Willow and The Dickens especially loved it. We'll be back.

At work, I'm teaching sixth graders this week and so far it's going pretty well. We found a scorpion and three Garter snakes up in the chaparral today. The two younger snakes were swimming around in the large puddle that serves as the centerpiece of the open space there, and snapping at passing tadpoles. So the kids got to see a food chain in action.




This evening I got to work our new astronomy program. This is only the second week that it has been up and running, so we're still ironing out some kinks, mostly logistical stuff like how to make sure that all 150 kids get to look through the telescopes. My part in the proceedings was to tell a star myth to the assembled groups and then supervise them afterwards as they wrote their own myths. I lit a campfire to set the scene, and told the myth as the sky darkened and the deer grazed on the nearby field. By the time I finished, the stars were out. It worked out pretty well actually, since I was telling a story about how the stars were created.
It was getting the various groups organized and moving them around to different places that caused delays. We need to fine tune that a bit. Some of the kids were really into writing their own myths, but others weren't. Some just doodled. I haven't gotten to read any of the results yet, but will when I get the chance.

I got home about an hour late. Next time we'll be more organized.