Does anyone else feel like that month just flew by really quickly? What are you planning for this weekend? Today’s blog post will focus on Rhode Island activities, and particularly on those that you should try to get in this weekend: 1. Food Truck Friday at Roger Williams Park (http://rwpzoo.org/carousel-village/plan-carousel-village-visit/food-truck-Friday) : This is at Carousel Village in the park, and this Friday is the last chance of the season to go food truck taste test

Three weeks into September, and we are now smack in the middle of the Jewish High Holiday season, which includes the Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashanah; Wikipedia primer on the day is located HERE), the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur; see link HERE), and in October time, Sukkot and Simchat Torah (Wikipedia links HERE and HERE). One of my favorite Jewish New Year traditions is the eating of honey (yum!), which is meant to signify having a sweet new year, and is eaten with challah br

What are you planning for this weekend, scientists? It looks like it is just about time for one of my favorite fall activities, pumpkin picking (and pumpkin eating!). For those people who celebrate Halloween, pumpkins also have another purpose, which is for use as jack-o-lanterns later in the season. Important note though: the pumpkins that are best for carving are not the same pumpkins that are best for eating. The best eating pumpkins are usually sugar pumpkins. They can be

One thing I have been thinking about a lot since we ran Party Elements science mini-camp at the end of August, and since my children went back to school earlier this month, is how well children seem to learn using hands-on activities, and how little of a standard school curriculum actually includes hands-on learning activities to help kids learn. As one mother said to me after science camp, “If only my son had a program like yours all year long, I am sure he would really enjo

My favorite part of Fall in New England is the leaves. Those colors are awe-inspiring and amazing, and having grown up someplace where the leaves went from green to brown to dead (shout-out to New York readers!), I am still amazed by these colors even after 9 years of living in New England. But….we are still too early for good leaf-peeping season, so what else is there to do on the weekend? Apple picking, of course! We reviewed some fruit picking options back in August, and e

Today we’re talking all about composting. First, a brief review for those who may not be familiar with the concept. Basically, composting is the idea that instead of throwing out all of your trash, you can separate out the trash that is biodegradable and let that biodegradable trash degrade in a controlled fashion. Once you do so, the degraded trash is called “compost,” and is basically a very nutrient-rich soil-type material that you can use to fertilize a garden or generall

It’s Thursday, readers, and you know what that means? The weekend is coming sooner than you might think! For our family, at least, this was the first week back to school, and that means the first week back to daily lunches, homework, waking up early, and all the fun stuff that goes along with that. This weekend we are hoping to spend some time recovering from this week, but also go to what looks to be a very exciting event for the whole family: HASCON (https://hascon.hasbro.c

So we took a little break from blogging in honor of the first Party Elements science camp, which was at the community center in Sharon, MA last week, and featured exciting experiments such as slime making, square bubbles, testing pH, and much more that we have already featured here on our website. I want to introduce two new experiments that we tried last week for the first time, both of which worked out great! Experiment 1: Color patterns in whole milk. You can read about th