Orange County Regional History Center

A few weeks ago we went out to the Orange County Regional History Center with our homeschool group. It was a really fun day. Here is another quick post about some of the things we did/ saw there. Enjoy!

Pioneer/ Cracker life in Florida. In the picture below he is showing the kids a washboard. They also discussed and  passed around the types of games children would have played, as well as cattle branding tools.

Gotta make your own butter if you are a pioneer. 

Ah, this was fun. "Zora Neale Hurston" came to speak with us and tell us about her life. This was part of the "African Americans in Central Florida " exhibit. 

 She even taught the kids how to dance the Charleston

Imagine my surprise walking through an exhibit and seeing a friend of mines picture.  

There was a small section about the citrus industry in Florida 

The Looney Toons Exhibit .... Not sure what this has to do with Florida, but it was fun!

Follow the bunny tracks

Looking at early animation

This was neat, the kids got to take a laminated strip and animate it

Sitting in the original 1927 courtroom where it was rumored that Ted Bundy was arraigned. 

They held a mock trial for us " Looney Tunes" style

The kids were part of the jury ( oh, and Jason and I  too) 

Presenting evidence

Defendant on trial and the "Judge" her dad

This was a section on native wildlife

Native American Life

Looking at furs and tools that natives would have used

Can you see the sheer joy! Look MOM! 

Wrangling some "native wildlife" on our way out.........

Lunch at a fun Mexican place down the road

No more pictures MOM! 

Someone still cooperates for pictures though 

If you are a homeschooler and plan on going I recommend going as a group where you can have a docent lead your group. You get so much more out of the trip that way.  For more information you can visit their site at:  http://www.thehistorycenter.org/exhibits/permanent

DNA

It has been forever since I have had time to sit down and write anything! Since it is 1:30 in the morning and I am wide awake, I thought I would use this opportunity to get at least one quick post in of what we have been up to lately.

One of the things that we have recently completed and thoroughly enjoyed is our DNA kit. In case you did not know, you can get kits like this one for your children at stores like Target and Hobby Lobby, but they are also widely available online. We have done other kits by Penny Norman on topics like electricity, states of matter, and light. I had read that this kit in particular was very good, so I picked it up.Here are some of the fun things this kit included.    

  

Supplies included

Explaining the basics ( not sure why this keeps turning sideways) 

The kids making and labeling their own cells 

Extracting DNA from a banana

Warm bath for the banana goo

Ice bath for the banana goo

Adding isopropyl alcohol to the banana goo in order to create clumps of banana DNA

Pieces for building a DNA ladder

Each of the kids got a half of the DNA ladder and replicated the other side. ATCG  combinations. This was after a discussion on RNA

This was hard. Look at the black and white sides of the chromosomes and match alleles to make chromosome pairs

Good thing we are not in charge of that function! Look how many we got wrong! The chromosome pairs should match in color and size when you flip them over. FYI my little guy was the best at this game.

Swabbing his cheeks for a DNA sample

The DNA swab got put into this protease container 

Cook the DNA

Cool the DNA

Put DNA in an inkwell

Add food coloring and write using your own DNA and  a feather quill.

All in all a very cool kit and I highly recommend it for kids 8 and up. Just as a note, we did not complete this kit in one day,  it was spread over a one week period. Well, that's it for tonight. Hopefully I will get a chance to blog again soon. I still have a few blog posts before I am caught up. See you soon!