Saturday April 30 at 8am - meet Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi at El Camino Space Day

This is an update to my last blog about El Camino Space Day .... it looks like the astronaut who is presenting the keynote presentation is a veteran astronaut with extensive experience with both US and American space programs.  It will be an exciting presentation, I am sure.  Here's the detailed info on your choices of activity this year with a new paper airplane contest :)

Again, if you would like to have me stand in line at the front of the line for our group (Familyfunlearning or DaVinci Academy), please leave a comment here or email me at familyfunlearning@gmail.com.

I can only collect 6 tickets per breakout session ... so be sure you know which sessions you want to attend.

GCB

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Dear Space Enthusiast;

Preview

The attached information will help make your experience with Space Science Day, this Saturday, April 30, an enjoyable one. Our guest NASA Astronaut is Soichi Noguchi and his bio can be viewed at www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/noguchi.html

LUNCHES

ONLY THE FIRST 800 STUDENTS TO CHECK IN WILL RECEIVE A FREE LUNCH TICKET

GROUP TICKETS

INDIVIDUALS COLLECTING BREAKOUT TICKETS FOR GROUP CHECK-IN WILL ONLY BE ABLE TO SELECT 6 TICKETS MAXIMUM PER BREAKOUT PRESENTATION

Traffic Note – Around 7 a.m. the morning of April 30^th, Manhattan Beach Blvd. on the north side of the ECC campus will be closed from Crenshaw Blvd. to Hawthorne Blvd. for the Lawndale Youth Parade. 

The day will begin at 8 a.m. with check-in at the Marsee Auditorium located at the corner of Crenshaw and Redondo Beach Blvd in Torrance. Parking is free in Lot L located on the south side of Redondo Beach Blvd. A map is attached and can also be found at www.elcamino.edu or www.elcamino.edu/about/directions.asp

If you have received this email, you have a reservation.  Only the first 800 students to check in will receive a lunch ticket. After you check in and pick up your lunch ticket, you will move on to select tickets for the two breakout sessions for the students only. 

Important Note: Because of the demand to attend Space Science Day, we want to allow as many students as possible to participate in the breakout sessions. Therefore, parents, adults and young siblings are asked not to select tickets to the breakout sessions. Adults will be able to stand in or outside of the classrooms or you may enjoy our outside demonstrations. Thank you in advance for your cooperation. Again, we want the students to access the breakout sessions.    

The following breakout sessions will be repeated so students may select two of the following (more details on these breakout sessions will be available in the program which will be provided at check in):

See Tonight's Stars and Planets, and Constellations:  Planetarium Show

Let’s take a Birdwalk!

Paper Airplane Contest (*New for 2011)

Eyes on the Solar System

Paint-Making: Prussian Blue (Participants must be at least 10 years old)

Get Your Hands On Chemistry

Robotics Demonstration

Ready for a Close-Up?

Explorations in Science

The Buzz on Space “Bugs”

Conversations with the Astronaut (1^st Session Only)

The World of Insects

So You Want to be an Engineer?

Rock and Fossil Discovery Zone

Solving the Mystery of the Owl’s Dinner

Dude, Where’s My Air – Getting to Mars

Egg Drop Construction

Puzzlers in Everyday Physics

After selecting your sessions, find a seat in the Marsee Auditorium by 9 a.m. for our morning presentation featuring our astronaut.  The first breakout session will run from 10:30 to 11:15 and the second session will begin at 11:30 and end at 12:15. Lunch will follow the second session and the Egg Drop Competition will be presented during lunch.

Have a great day rain or shine!!

"Magical" aid to spelling long multisyllabic words - great discount for the next few days

Does your child read very well and even fluently but find multi-syllabic words more challenging?

My three children all read very well even though reading aloud is not their favorite way of reading.  Kids who need more brainfood may also need a different way of learning.  Sometimes being very quick to process some aspects of life makes it very hard to slow down to process others.  Being impatient with long multisyllabic words may be one of their challenges even if they could spell correctly a targeted spelling word such as "paleontologist."  Spelling challenge words is not difficult when they can memorize for a test, and if they use a photographic method of learning spelling, they can even spell them correctly in reverse order.  Some kids who are stealth dyslexics do this all the time and you often can't tell that they are dyslexic.  But try some nonsense words (but not "superfragilisticexpialidocious" as that is a word they could have seen!!) that they have never heard or seen before and have them try to guess the spelling.  If they cannot, they could be stealth dyslexics.

In any case, I came across this Spell-A-Cadabra "magic spelling" tool ... it captures what I have been doing with my kids with long multisyllabic words when I use my fingers to count the syllables in order to slow down each sound and spell each separately.  It also helps with learning Greek and Latin root words if you want to make it more connecting fun.  It will also help with generative spelling skills once they learn that "tion" sounds like "shion" or "shun" regularly.

Turns out someone had already marketed a kit just the way I have always used.  See this link if interested and it is a great discount only for the next few days.

http://a6060c1a-0c9e-11e0-830a-0024e8696030.kgbdeals.com?id=18371

Two of these spelling aids for just $8.  Expires in a few days, though.

"Operation Backpack" for Tsunami relief - please support a Kids-Helping-Kids project by girl scouts and boy scouts of Camp Zama in Japan

When the earthquake and tsunami struck on March 11, my daughter asked if we have any relatives affected since we have extended family connections and some friends there.  Our family visited Japan not too long ago, so my children have real memories of bullet trains, Tokyo, Nikko, Kyoto, and Lake Hakone.  I said, "No, we don't personally know anyone affected, but we sure could help in some concrete ways."  I searched the websites on tsunami relief, and found a "kids-helping-kids" Operation Backpack relief effort organized by the girl scouts and boy scouts (and Venture Scouts) of Camp Zama not far from Tokyo.  Read more about what they have done by following the links below:

We plan to send to Camp Zama's girl scout troop the money we raised specifically for Operation Backpack within approximately two weeks so that the Camp Zama girl scout troop could buy what they need but which have not been donated to put into the backpacks they already have.  Here is what we are telling our friends:

While selling our remaining stocks of girl scout cookies, we are also fundraising for a kids-helping-kids project called OPERATION BACKPACKS for the children still in shelters in Sendai and nearby coastal areas, the area most affected by both the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.  These age-appropriate backpacks with comfort items and necessities are packed at Camp Zama not far from Tokyo and delivered directly to children at Sendai's and other coastal cities' shelters.

http://www.stripes.com/news/pacific/operation-backpacks-delivers-supplies-toys-to-kids-in-disaster-zone-1.140447

http://picasaweb.google.com/100177996620476619730/Backpacks?authkey=Gv1sRgCP2hkqH9pIqH7QE#

There are two weeks left for this project, and at this point in time from Los Angeles, it is best for us to collect cash and we will send it to them in the form of an international money order or by wire transfer.

http://www.zamagirlscouts.org/operation-backpacks.html  (for a list of items they pack into the backpacks and origami project)

http://www.facebook.com/backpacksforchildrenofjapan
http://www.zamagirlscouts.org/operation-backpacks.html

If you are or if you know of anyone interested in sending us a check for Operation Backpack, you can send it to me payable to "Cub Scouts Pack 400" with "Japan" on the memo line.  The cub scouts in my son's pack will be helping to raise funds too.  Both cub scouts and girls scouts at Camp Zama are working together in this effort.  Please email me at familyfunlearning@gmail.com for address to mail check to.


Thanks for your support,

GCP

LOCAL HISTORY at 7.30pm on Tuesday evening at Temescal Canyon on the Marquez Family Land Grant from Santa Monica to Topanga

The Chautauqua Series - a monthly Tuesday evening event that is reminiscent of the Chautauqua Movement.

Sere http://sdrc.lib.uiowa.edu/traveling-culture/essay.htm to learn more about the movement:

"Theodore Roosevelt called it "the most American thing in America," Woodrow Wilson described it during World War I as an "integral part of the national defense," and William Jennings Bryan deemed it a "potent human factor in molding the mind of the nation." 

We have been attending the Chautauqua Series for a few years ... topics range from tracking the mountain lions corridors in the Santa Monica Mountains ... to exploring San Andreas fault .. to wine-tasting from local vineyards. 

It would be interesting to learn about the Marquez family after which the Marquez Knolls and Marquez Elementary School is named after.

6,656 Acres of Family History - Culture in the Canyon at Chautauqua Series

 

• Where: Temescal Gateway Park, 15601 W Sunset Blvd, Pacific Palisades, CA 90272
• Date: April 19, 2011
• Time: 7:30pm–9:00pm

• Cousins Terri de la Peña and Sharon Reyes, descendents of the Marquez/Reyes family, began a journey into their genealogy that all started in 1839 with the Mexican land grant of Rancho Boca de la Santa Monica. The grant stretched from present day Santa Monica to Topanga Canyon. Spend an evening with rich family stories and ancestral photographs that connect to all of us living in the Santa Monica Mountains of today. Meet at Woodland Hall. Parking is free for the evening. 1.5hrs
  Program sponsored by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and presented by the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority
• Features: Free, Open to All

• Website: http://lamountains.com/parks.asp?parkid=58
• Phone: 310-858-7272 x131
• Email: robin.smith@mrca.ca.gov

• Price: Free program, free parking for the evening

Friday April 22 from 6pm is Car-Free Earth Day Celebration - see AVATAR on 3700 Wilshire Blvd

Have you noticed that children today are much more conscious of the vulnerability of our Planet Earth than previous generations?   Perhaps the detection of the radiation particles in California carried by the jet streams from the earthquake-damaged Japanese nuclear reactor demonstrated how connected we are as inhabitants sharing the atmosphere of Planet Earth.  Perhaps it is from program such as the PBS Nature that our children are able to see how fragile our ecosystems are and how so many birds, amphibians, and mammals are still at risk for extinction in their lifetime?  Perhaps it is their participation in public volunteer programs such as Heal The Bay's Nothing but Sand and LA River Clean-up Days that gives our children the hands-on sense of power from being able to make a difference one hand at a time?  Both organizations have Earth Day clean-up volunteering opportunities --- and both are great events for families to have fun together on a day in environmental service.

http://www.healthebay.org/volunteer
http://folar.org/?page_id=5   You can choose from many locations closest to you or most interesting to you.

But this Wilshire Center's Earth Day celebration - its second annual event - is new to me.  Imagine a car-free day, environmental and watching Avatar on an outdoor screen.  However, it will be a challenge to find a bus that gets there in a reasonable time :)  Anyway, here are the details:


THIS YEARS EVENT WILL TAKE PLACE ON FRIDAY, APRIL 22ND 2011 AT 6:00PM AT 3700 WILSHIRE BLVD., LOS ANGELES, CA 90010
The WCBID staff is currently planning the 4th Annual, April 22nd Earth Day – Car Free Day event, which will take  place on the lawn at 3700 Wilshire Blvd., between Oxford Ave. and Serrano Ave. This year’s event falls on a Friday (4/22/11) and is scheduled to begin at 6:00 PM and will feature a (35 foot) movie screening of the director’s cut of “Avatar." Other features include a presentation of the Cool District Program and the Carbon Master Plan, face painting for the kids, community booths, ewaste recycling and free tree adoption. The Earth Day banners are now up along Wilshire Blvd.


http://www.wilshirecenter.com/earthday/

April 17 Sunday 1pm to 4pm -- UCLA's Fowler Museum's Monthly Free Family Art program

UCLA's Fowler Museum has one of the best free monthly family art programs.  Always inspired by a specific exhibit, this Sunday's art project is about shape poems and impermanent and symbolic ritual ground drawings!   Enjoy the Haitian exhibit and all the current exhibits at the same time.

Free admission, but campus parking is $10 per entry. 

Kids in the Courtyard: Vévé

Vévés are ritual ground drawings used in Haitian Vodou. They are meant to be impermanent, and symbolize the lwa or spirit being honored during a ceremony or celebration. Come discover the vévé symbols on the floor in the corners of the exhibition Fowler in Focus: Art and the Unbreakable Spirit of Haiti, then use colored chalk to embellish the Fowler courtyard with vévé-inspired symmetrical drawings and calligrams (shape poems).

EVENT DETAILS

Kids in the Courtyard: Vévé
Sunday, April 17, 2011
1–4 pm
Fowler Museum Courtyard

http://www.fowler.ucla.edu/events/kids-courtyard-v%C3%A9v%C3%A9

Current Exhibitions

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Jam Session: America’s Jazz Ambassadors Embrace the World

March 20 – August 14, 2011

This exceptional collection of photographs and documents drawn from important archives around the country chronicles the tours of American jazz legends as they traveled the globe on behalf of the U.S. State Department. From the mid-1950s through the...

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Central Nigeria Unmasked: Arts of the Benue River Valley

February 13 – July 24, 2011

"Surprises appear at every turn: a strikingly abstract buffalo mask carved of wood; an ax with a tongue-like blade that emerges from a metal figure's mouth; an ominous ceramic spirit vessel with spiky...

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His Masters' Tools: Recent Work by Allan deSouza

January 23 – May 29, 2011

In a specially commissioned edition of new and recent work, San Francisco-based performance and photo-conceptual artist Allan deSouza uses digital manipulation to play with notions of artistic and technological mastery and to blur the...

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Fowler in Focus: Art and the Unbreakable Spirit of Haiti

January 9–May 22, 2011

Showcasing selected works collected by the Fowler Museum over many decades, Fowler in Focus: Art and the Unbreakable Spirit of Haiti juxtaposes pieces fashioned for the international art market with those used in Vodou ceremonies and popular...

El Camino College Space Day on April 30 -- join us for egg drop and airplane competitions

Every year since our children were in early elementary years, we have attended this annual amazing day of hands-on science.   If your children have always needed extra brainfood and are hands-on curious little scientists, age is not an issue as six-year-old kids can easily beat middle-schoolers in the egg-drop competition.  The prize is a T-shirt and a medal :)  The airplane competition is new, but there is plenty to engage your child if you do not get into the first session of the egg-drop sessions where these protected eggs will be dropped from a tall building to see if their egg survives the fall. 

You will need to arrive as early as 7am to be sure you can get in line for these sought-after first egg-drop session tickets.  Every year, I register for 50 kids in my group ... so if you would like me to hold your space in our group, do leave me a comment with your email address and your children's first name and last initial as well as the ages. You will still need to be there by 8am to get your tickets for two selected sessions.  You can always register in advance for your own family, but you need to be there in person to get session tickets.

There is a healthy free lunch for the first 800 participants, including adults, but the session tickets are for students only.  No tickets are needed for the auditorium presentation by the featured astronaut --- this time a high school teacher astronaut, Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger.  There is an excellent planetarium presentation, very fun insect lab where you can make a Madagascar cockroach hiss, physics fun demonstration, Q and A with the astronaut, chemistry tables in the open areas for hands-on exploration, geology, and many others .. something for everyone.

Here are more details from the organizers, including an essay competition open to 5th to 12th graders and the prize is dinner with the astronaut:):

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On behalf of the Ellison S. Onizuka Memorial Committee, El Camino College, and American Honda Motor Co., Inc., you are cordially invited to participate in Space Science Day 2011 at El Camino College on Saturday, April 30. This year marks the 25^th anniversary of the Space Shuttle Challenger accident that took the lives of the seven crew members including Ellison Onizuka.

We are expecting another great turnout as well as an enjoyable and informative day. Once again, the whole event is FREE -- including lunch for the first 800 students. 

This year's featured speaker is Astronaut Dorothy M. Metcalf-Lindenburger. Astronaut Metcalf-Lindenburger’s NASA Bio can be found at www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/metcalf-lindenburger-dm.html. We are anticipating another inspiring presentation for 2011. 

Because of limited space, and to ensure a seat and early check-in, students should sign up now. You may register by replying to this email, or to spaceday@elcamino.edu or by calling 310-660-3487. 

More information will be sent to all who sign up as the date nears.   Check in will begin shortly after 8 a.m. on Saturday, April 30. The day will end just after lunch with the awards for the Egg Drop and Paper Airplane Competitions.  Once again, parents, teachers and administrators are welcome and encouraged to attend.  Important Note: Because of the demand to attend Space Day, we want to ensure as many students as possible participate in the classroom breakout sessions. Therefore, parents and/or adults will be asked not to select tickets to the breakout sessions as you are checking in that morning. Adults will be able to stand in or outside of the classrooms or you may enjoy our outside demonstrations. Thank you in advance for your cooperation.    

Please feel free to forward this email to friends and family.

Finally, for El Camino College’s Space Science Day 2011, an essay contest is being conducted with the winner receiving an invitation to meet and attend dinner with Astronaut Metcalf-Lindenburger on Friday, April 29, 2011 at a local restaurant to be identified shortly.  The winner will be able to bring 3 guests to the dinner as well – usually the parents and one sibling or friend.  Only students in grades 5 through 12 are eligible.

Essay Subject

Describe the first time you remember being impressed and awed by Space  

Please submit the essay of 150 words or less in the body of an email (no attachments please) to Robin Dreizler c/o spaceday@elcamino.edu or fax them to 310-660-6786 or mail to 16007 Crenshaw Blvd. Torrance, CA 90506. The deadline to receive the essays will be Thursday, April 14, 2011 at 10 p.m.

Include with the essay, the student’s name, age, home address, phone number or parent email, grade in school and school they are currently attending.

All essays become the property of El Camino College and may be reproduced in print form, along with the identity of the author, in our Space Day Event or Dinner Program. 

Thank you and we look forward to seeing you at Space Day 2011!

Robin Dreizler

Director, Outreach and School Relations

El Camino College

16007 Crenshaw Blvd.

Torrance, CA 90506

Office 310-660-3487

Fax 310-660-6786

rdreizle@elcamino.edu

spaceday@elcamino.edu

7pm on Friday, April 15, and Saturday, April 16, Charlotte's Web - the musical - at Redondo Beach's St Andrew's Presbyterian Church

St. Andrew’s Light Theater – SALT

presents Charlotte's Web

- the Musical - 

at 7pm on 

Friday, April 15th

Saturday, April 16th 

Location: 

St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church

301 Avenue D, Redondo Beach, CA 90277.

Tickets are $5 per person (free if under 2)

Refreshments and snacks will be available for purchase during the intermission.

Charlotte’s Web – What a story!  All the enchanting characters are here: Wilbur, the irresistible young pig who desperately wants to avoid the butcher; Fern, a girl who understands what animals say to each other; Templeton, the gluttonous rat who can occasionally be talked into a good deed; the Zuckerman family; and, most of all, the extraordinary spider, Charlotte, who proves to be a true friend and a good writer.

Please come and enjoy a fun community production that is sure to make you smile.  If you are interested in trying out acting or improve on your acting or singing abilities in a supportive environment, I highly recommend St Andrew's Light Theater for a first theatrical experience.    If you are interested in learning about stage management or volunteering in any way, please contact the church.  Every production, usually with different directors, from the amazing big production of HONK! The Musical (The Ugly Duckling story) to small The Three Fables ice-cream social production, has been a great learning experience for all at a minimal cost.

Come and audition for the next production after seeing this production.

Tickets are available ahead of time as well on the evening of the two performances.  Please contact familyfunlearning@gmail.com for tickets to be held for you at WILL CALL table.

ENJOY! 

See the following links to add to your child's enjoyment and deeper thinking into this classic story:

http://www.sdcoe.net/score/charl/charltg.html for excellent ideas for a unit studyof Charlotte's Web.

http://www.pocanticohills.org/charlotte/index.htm for a second grade's exploration of the story

http://school.familyeducation.com/literature/childrens-book/34670.html for more links, including
what E.B. White wrote about his inspiration for Charlotte's Web:

"As for Charlotte's Web,I like animals and my barn is a very pleasant place to be, at all hours. One day when I was on my way to feed the pig, I began feeling sorry for the pig because, like most pigs, he was doomed to die. This made me sad. So I started thinking of ways to save a pig's life. I had been watching a big grey spider at her work and was impressed by how clever she was at weaving. Gradually I worked the spider into the story that you know, a story of friendship and salvation on a farm. Three years after I started writing it, it was published. (I am not a fast worker, as you can see.)"

Read the rest of this letter from EB White on FamilyEducation: http://school.familyeducation.com/authors/letters-and-journals/37818.html?detoured=1#ixzz1IdEonKWi

Want to think further into the story?   Here's some questions to think about after reading the book on this link:
http://teachnet.com/lessonplans/language-arts/charlottes-web-activites/