Natural Egg Dyes
We learned all about dyeing eggs with natural food dyes and took some dye home to use. Everyone guessed that the green dye came from spinach and the yellow from turmeric, but getting a blue dye from red cabbage was a surprise for most. 
Paper Making
We talked a bit about the history and process of paper-making, then rolled up our sleeves and make some of our own. It was wet and messy and the resulting paper wasn’t that impressive, but it was fun to see how paper starts and how much work is involved in making it.
GPS Adventures
This month, we learned all about the Global Positioning System. After discussing its history and how it works, we took a few minutes to learn how to set and find waypoints with our handheld GPS devices. Then it was time to team up and head in opposite directions for a game of GPS-assisted hide and seek: each team hid a flag, marked the coordinates, and set off to find the other team’s flag. The beautiful weather made for a perfect day to explore the park.
Amazing Snowflakes
Since we weren’t likely to get any actual snow in December, we made our own blizzard from paper! We learned to fold and cut paper to make six-sided snowflakes, talked about how snowflakes form, and looked at some photos of real snow crystals take by Vermont farmer William Bentley in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Exploring Cotton
Cotton is an amazing plant! We took a virtual field trip through a cotton field with photos and talked about the plant’s life cycle and all the many uses of its fibers. We also enjoyed playing with cotton balls. 
Airplane Fun
We had a great time exploring the history of flight, discussing what makes an airplane fly, and making and experimenting with our own paper airplanes.
Games of the World
We enjoyed a morning of hands-on history learning about games from several different continents and share interesting facts about the people and cultures that originated them. We learned about the history of the games and spent some time playing bocce, cricket, and hanetsuki.
Poetry Fun
We had a great time sharing our favorite books of poetry this month at book club. Shel Silverstein was a popular choice, and we even had one poem presented in song with guitar accompaniment! After reading our poems, we enjoyed playing some word association and rhyming games.
Chasing Rainbows
This month’s meeting was all about rainbows! We looked at pictures of different types of rainbows, learned what makes a rainbow and talked about different places we’ve seen rainbows. Luckily, it was a sunny day, so we were even able to make some rainbows of our own with a glass of water, a mirror and a sheet of white paper.
Hippo Fun
Another great day at the zoo with our friends! We loved watching the baby bison race around North America and the baby Siamang ape swinging and playing. The biggest thrill of the day was finally getting a good look at the elusive pygmy hippo. He was out running across the pasture and grazing with the antelope. What a treat!
