Skip to main content

Chol HaMoed, Day 2: Science Centre

photo 1

We’ve received a Toronto Zoo membership as a gift for the last few years – usually around Gavriel Zev’s birthday.  Family membership at the Zoo is $145 – at the Science Centre, $120. 

We used our Science Centre membership for the first time today, and there are some really nice differences.  At the Science Centre, your membership gives you 50% off parking, 50% off the Imax movies, plus a discount in the gift shop (I think 10%).  At the Zoo, you get 10% in the gift shop and nada elsewhere, though they do mail you a $2 parking coupon in their newsletter a few times a year (parking has gone up by $2 every year; it’s now $10 or 12). 

At the Science Centre, somehow, they made us feel like VIPs – offering us free tickets to the new Da Vinci exhibit, for example, or giving back half the price YM paid for his Imax ticket because he arrived late (changed his mind and came on his bike) and didn’t have the membership card with him. 

Of course, at the Science Centre, you can’t see animals, and at the Zoo, you can’t see various science-related exhibits n’ stuff… but after a few years of free access to the zoo, I think we’re ready for a change.  Plus, today was a chilly day – it was kind of nice to be paying for the tickets while standing indoors in warmth and artificial lighting.  :-)

imageThe newest Imax movie is “Rocky Mountain Express,” which was somewhat exciting, despite repetitious shots of the front of the train and perhaps too many “train-in-motion” scenes.  It also kind of glossed over the death of hundreds of Chinese (and Japanese, which I hadn’t known) railway workers – truly one of the ugliest blights on Canada’s reputation for niceness. 

Gavriel Zev spent the whole movie curled in my lap with my hands over his ears, peeking at the screen out of the side of his eyes.  Not one for sitting still OR being quiet, he still hasn’t been to many movies in his four years.  Still – the rest of us liked it.  A fascinating and dramatic Imax movie about Canadian history; how many of those can you find out there???

I like to think the movie was especially meaningful for the big kids, whose grandfather worked on the trains as a youth, almost 50 years ago.  To celebrate a big birthday last year, he brought them home from Calgary by train, a thrilling 3-day journey.  My parents also did a romantic Rocky Mountain train trip a few years ago.  The movie kind of makes you feel guilty for taking trains, though… so many people died – so I could take a vacation?  Better you should hop on a plane!

Anyway, a few other highlights:

The ballies / sculpture that go round and round… (mostly kid-powered)

photo 1

“Trying on” spacesuits – me and Elisheva

 photo 2

Elisheva got roped into “cashiering” at the little kiddie supermarket.  What this has to do with science, I have no idea, even though they do have free brochures you can take home about Canada’s Food Guide.

  photo 5

I seriously doubt that we did much there that had anything to do with science.  Do they take home valuable lessons and insights about physics from rolling balls around or playing with sound waves, anatomy from putting together a skeleton, immunology from the super-weird “sneeze machine”, or biology from spinning around various animals’ heads and bodies to create fascinating chimeral creatures?  Um, I doubt it.

To the kids, as it was to me at their age and even into adulthood, it’s basically a playground.  But a good time was had by all 6 of us, young and old, and that in itself is a rare enough thing these days.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

לימודי קודש/Limudei Kodesh Copywork & Activity Printables

Welcome to my Limudei Kodesh / Jewish Studies copywork and activity printables page.  As of June 2013, I am slowly but surely moving all my printables over to 4shared because Google Docs / Drive is just too flaky for me. What you’ll find here: Weekly Parsha Copywork More Parsha Activities More Chumash / Tanach Activities Yom Tov Copywork & Activities Tefillah Copywork Pirkei Avos / Pirkei Avot Jewish Preschool Resources Other printables! For General Studies printables and activities, including Hebrew-English science resources and more, click here . For Miscellaneous homeschool helps and printables, click here . If you use any of my worksheets, activities or printables, please leave a comment or email me at Jay3fer “at” gmail “dot” com, to link to your blog, to tell me what you’re doing with it, or just to say hi!  If you want to use them in a school, camp or co-op setting, please email me (remove the X’s) for rates. If you just want to say Thank You,...

Hebrew/ עברית & English General Studies Printables

For Jewish Studies, including weekly parsha resources and copywork, click here . If you use any of my worksheets, activities or printables, please leave a comment or email me at Jay3fer “at” gmail “dot” com, to link to your blog, to tell me what you’re doing with it, or just to say hi!  If you want to use them in a school, camp or co-op setting, please email me (remove the X’s) for rates. If you enjoy these resources, please consider buying my weekly parsha book, The Family Torah :  the story of the Torah, written to be read aloud – or any of my other wonderful Jewish books for kids and families . English Worksheets & Printables: (For Hebrew, click here ) Science :  Plants, Animals, Human Body Math   Ambleside :  Composers, Artists History Geography Language & Literature     Science General Poems for Elemental Science .  Original Poems written by ME, because the ones that came with Elemental Science were so awful....

What do we tell our kids about Chabad and “Yechi”?

If I start by saying I really like Chabad, and adore the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, z"l, well... maybe you already know where I'm headed. Naomi Rivka has been asking lately what I think about Chabad.  She asks, in part, because she already knows how I feel.  She already knows I’m bothered, though to her, it’s mostly about “liking” and “not liking.”  I wish things were that simple. Our little neighbourhood in Israel has a significant Chabad presence, and Chabad conducts fairly significant outreach within the community.  Which sounds nice until you realize that this is a religious neighbourhood, closed on Shabbos, where some huge percentage of people are shomer mitzvos.  Sure, it’s mostly religious Zionist, and there are a range of observances, for sure, but we’re pretty much all religious here in some way or another. So at that point, this isn’t outreach but inreach .  Convincing people who are religious to be… what? A lot of Chabad’s efforts here are focused o...