Hamagin Space Science Center and Log House

It was time for another Woestman Academy field trip.  This time to the Hamagin Space Science Center in Yokohama.  

This play was pretty awesome!  There were tons of school groups there but I did see a couple other families.

This place had lots of floors and different rooms to explore, it reminded me of the Seattle Science Center.

One thing that was funny was we noticed that we would basically have the room to ourselves as we looked around and tested everything out.  Then about 30 kids would rush in and it would be crazy for ten minutes and then they would leave.  Then it would be nice and quiet again for a few minutes before the next rush.  I love how we could stay in each room as long as we wanted.  Everyone gets a turn in our school :) and more importantly we had the time to really learn and have fun.

Many of the exhibits didn't allow pictures, so you will just have to trust me on how fun it was.

After a couple hours there was walked across the park to the log house.  We've been once before but it was time for another visit.

I was a little more brave this time and hung out down below in what I call the crawl space area with the kids for a bit.

Calista even made a Japanese friend.

Random Update

I've been feeling pretty overwhelmed lately mostly with homeschool and basketball.  I spend every day rushing around like crazy and at the end of the day I still feel like I failed in getting anything done.  I really think I was busy enough with homeschool and taking care of Calista that adding in sports six days a week was just crazy.  Basketball is almost done though and I can't wait until it ends.  Meanwhile we spend two hours at the gym every Monday and Wednesday for Scarlett and Penelope's basketball practice.  Everyone else has fun running around playing.  Bob usually meets us there and I fit in a workout while he walks the kids to the food court to find dinner.  We leave the house at 4:30 on these days and don't get back until 7:15 so eating dinner at home doesn't really work.  Tucker and Leon have basketball on Tuesdays/Thrusdays but it is easier because they are at the same time.  Then games are on Saturdays.  On Fridays the kids all do the homeschool swim and gym class.  It gets hectic.  I think we only have one week left and we are not doing this again.

Anyway, here are a few random pictures from our life lately.

These next two are from science night at the library. 

I feel so bad for Calista because she rarely gets a nap that I don't have to wake her up from because we either arrived somewhere or we need to go somewhere.

This last one is kind of gross, but I went out to lunch with friends and cow tongue was on the menu.  Then I saw the very cow tongues hangin up on hooks.  I'm glad I didn't see them until after we ate lunch.  I did not eat cow tongue.

Pi Day

I woke up on March 14th like I would on any other day not realizing until I saw a friends post that it was Pi day.  I was super unprepared but we managed to do some fun things anyway.  For those who don't know March 14th is 3.14 so we say it is the mathmatical Pi day.  I've done it in the past and I knew the kids would be sad if we skipped it this year.  Luckily I was able to find some easy things to do on pinterest.

We just happend to have the book "Sir Cumference and the First Round Table" so we read it.  Tucker kind of got the jokes but most of it was over the other kids heads.

Next we watched a couple youtube videos explaining the number Pi to the kids.  There are some pretty informative and silly video's out there about it.

Then the kids used graph paper and did a little art project.

 We looked up the number for Pi and the kids filled in a squares for each number.  So their first building was three squares tall, second one square, third four squares and so on.  Leon was even able to do this and really liked it.

And lastly we made a pie.  We only had the ingredients to make a pumpkin pie but the kids were excited even though it isn't really the right season for it.
 We tried our best at a pie symbol.

 I already have ideas on how to make the pie better next year.

Swim and Gym

The kids started a swim and gym class on base and I love it.  They are split into groups based on who can and cant swim.  The kids who can't swim go and do 40 minutes of swimming lessons while the kids who can swim go the the gym and play P.E. games then they switch.  It is right in the middle of the day just for homeschoolers. 

It is so nice that my kids get to spend time with other kids and have fun while doing it. 

On this day they met in the racquetball room and played dodge ball, but they usually meet in a bigger gym.

Another great thing about it is that it is an hour and a half block that I get to spend with only Calista and Leon.  The grocery store is pretty close so it has become my shopping time.  It is sooooo nice to go grocery shopping with only two kids!  Leon will even be old enough to join the class next session so it will be just me and Calista handing out for an hour and a half each week.  I can't wait!

Yokosuka Art Museum

The kids and I went with a friend to the local art museum.  It was my first time driving off base and I was a little nervous.  Driving on the left side of the road in a foreign country can be a bit daunting.  But everything went smoothly and we didn't even get lost.

The kids did really well at the museum.  They each carried around a notebook and had two tasks to accomplish.  The first was to pick a color and every time they saw an art piece with that color they were to make a tally mark.  This was great for getting them to look at all the art.  Their second task was to find their favorite piece or pieces and draw a picture of them.  This one worked out ok.   It got them thinking about what they liked and didn't like.  The only problem was when one person wanted to stay and have everyone wait for them while they were drawing while everyone else was ready to move on.

The museum was exibiting art from the artists Tupera Tupera.  They do really cool art made by cutting out different pieces of paper and putting them together to make scenes.  They also had tons of books.  They had a whole display room set up for a book about pandas who go to the onsen, or public bath house.

All the original book pages were up on the wall.

They even had a play bath house set up, first was the washing station.

Then the bath.  In the book instead of undressing to go into the bathhouse the pandas take off their stripes.

I'll be sure to try a real bath house one of these days.

Here we are at the entrance.

They were selling this folder in the lobby and it the picture was Penelope's favorite in the whole place.  Since I wasn't allowed to take a picture of the actual artwork I took a picture of the folder.