Academy of Fine Learners: Balboa Park's Free Museum Admission Tuesday

Yesterday was another extraordinary day for us homeschoolers! I had made a mistake thinking workshops started yesterday at GSDA but they begin next week so we were all dressed and ready for a day away from the house. We decided to take advantage of opportunity and go down to SD for the free admission to select museums at Balboa Park. On the first Tuesday of the month, both The Natural History and R.H Fleet Science Museum's are free so we targeted those. We headed down at about 10 am, I taught 'factoring' lesson in the car, got pretty hungry and decided to go out for Dim Sum and hot Jasmin Tea at the Jasmin Restaurant in Mira Mesa. I, of course, took opportunity to make this an educational experience all around by opening up conversation about China. For timesake I will consolidate what unfolded with a few lists.
First, China:
- China has about 5,000 years of history compared that with our US which is 229 years old
-The Great Wall: looked up facts on Wikipedia while sipping tea
-great Wall is about 5K mi. linear, 13K mi. counting the branches, several areas are natural ie rivers, mountains etc.
-Jasmine Tea is really green tea with jasmine flowers
-Talked with very friendly waitress about her life in China, having to learn so much history-she says it helps to travel to historical locations to learn.
-Learned how to say 'thank you' and 'good-bye' in Chinese and practiced with waitress.

At the Nat, we were delighted that the 'Flying Monsters' 3-D movie was delayed and we arrived in perfect timing to see it- we rushed to get tickets and went right in. Wow, it was spectacular. It is a National Geographic endeavor partnered with a 3-D tech film co. producing such a high quality film, we were so excited! Then we:
- Wandered the floors of museum looking at pre-historic fossils
- Skulls, saw college students sketching on drawing tabs, some were so, so good.
- Toured the California water resource exhibit and learned how valuable the resource is. Kids learned that Mexico gets very little of the water that comes from the Colorado River.
-THE HORSE exhibit was fabulous, wish we had focused on this entirely- we will return with a unit study outline soon as a visiting AP 5/6th class was doing one and one of the teachers just happened to have an extra packet for me when I inquired about what the group was doing!!!!!AMAZING!!!
-viewed VAVRA's photographic exhibit, his subjects are horse and horse with man.

Now, off to the Science museum:
-hurricanes and tornadoes
-high/low pressure
-sound as vibration
-human body, cellular, embryo, skin, stem cell
-built a marble roller coaster with misc materials
-Foukault Pendulum
-Mental Math- how much is admission for our family, estimating, rounding, calculated how much we saved! over $70!!!! -less the $5 per person for 3-D.

To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.
-Thomas Edison

THIS WAS A SUCCESSFUL DAY!