

Lots of Daylight
Daylight savings time (DST) is here, as of this weekend, so what are you doing to celebrate? If you don’t feel much like celebrating, turns out you are not alone. There are lots of negative health effects that come along with time changes like this, including more heart attacks on the Monday after DST starts, lower rates of in vitro fertilization (IVF) success, and higher rates of stroke, depression, and fatigue. For those people who are also parents of young children (who ma


STEM, STEM, and even more STEM!
This is quite the weekend for STEM-focused activities in the greater Boston area. Brief run-down of the things to do below: 1. OK, if you are a parent or a scientist or both, you should check out the new STEAM making space, the Tech Kitchen, at the Boston Children’s Museum. Local inventors and entrepeneurs can share their information and inventions with visitors, and the space is open every Saturday. I can’t believe I didn’t know about this until now! The Party Elements is lo


Bomb Cyclone Riley
What the *#$@# was that storm? Hi readers! I hope most of you have weathered the recent winter storm Riley reasonably well, and that for most people, power is now back on to your homes and businesses. If you are like most of us, you could be wondering, what WAS that? How did it create so much damage? And if you are a scientist living in an affected area, you may also be wondering, What does science say about this? This was a bomb cyclone, the second for our region this season


Another January Weekend
Another weekend coming up, scientists! Still January, still cold (albeit a little less frigid). What are you doing? How about some ice skating or snow tubing? Confessions: I have not yet taken my children ice skating, mostly because I am so bad at ice skating and the skates always seem to hurt my feet, plus, it’s always annoying to get the skates on and tie the laces tight and can’t we just stay home and be lazy?? NO. No we cannot. So this weekend, we are going to try ice ska


Why is it Still So Cold?
WHY. IS. IT. STILL. SO. COLD. For real, New England readers, what is up with all of this cold? Well if you are like some famous people, you may be using the cold to decide that global warming is all a hoax (check out reports of that infamous tweet: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/29/climate-scientists-around-the-world-respond-to-trumps-global-warming-tweet.html and http://www.foxnews.com/science/2017/12/29/trump-says-east-could-use-some-global-warming-this-weekend.html). Note, i


The Party Elements' Year in Review
This is the last post of 2017, and so in honor of that, I would like to take a moment to talk about what The Party Elements has been through this year: 1. We started running parties in May 2017, and became an official LLC in September. 2. We have run 23 events, including a family reunion, an event at a Senior Activity Center, girl scout events, library events, and lots and lots of birthday parties! Our youngest audience was for a 3-year old birthday party, and our oldest audi


Let's Talk About New Year's Resolutions
How’re people doing this day after Christmas? Because we don’t celebrate Christmas, and it wasn’t until my adulthood that I became close with people who do, I am still never quite sure how the post-Christmas day looks. Share what you are doing today in the comments below! Since we are almost at New Year’s Day, though, let’s take a minute to talk about New Year’s Resolutions. Chances are, you’ve made them before, and chances are good that you are planning to make some New Year


Another Winter Weekend
First of all, Merry Christmas to readers who celebrate Christmas, happy holidays to everyone else. Second of all, if you are like me and my family, you are going to need activities to do this weekend, and likely, all of next week as well. While The Party Elements offers camps at a variety of other times, we are not offering any programming this Christmas vacation week. What should you do? 1. Indoor water parks. This is my favorite option, although likely to be one of the more


Fun Winter Weekend Ideas
What are you doing this weekend, readers? Still lots of fun Boston-area activities for the holidays. Some ones that you will not want to miss include: 1. Last weekend to see the performance of The Velveteen Rabbit (website and more information here: https://mommypoppins.com/boston-kids/event/indoor/the-velveteen-rabbit). I am going to confess, I have never seen this show, but all reviews and things I have read about it look spectacular. We will be checking this out, to be sur