Category Archives: TITAN APPROVED

Utah Trip | The Living Planet Aquarium

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The first Friday we were in Utah, my Dad had the afternoon off and asked us if we wanted to do something together. He told us to let Titan choose where he wanted to go for lunch and an activity. I knew if I let Titan choose the restaurant for lunch he would select Panda Express…again! 🙂 So I choose Guadalahonkey’s for lunch (I LOVE and crave their smothered bean burrito) and then Titan selected The Living Planet Aquarium for our activity. He had heard they had moved into a new location and wanted to check it out.

The last time I had visited aquarium was about 10 years ago when they were brand new to the Utah valley and located downtown in Gateway in a teeny tiny end part of the mall! At the time I thought, “They are never going to last!” Boy was I wrong! 🙂 Over the years they have definitely gotten bigger and A LOT better!

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Museum Day Live! | Our Visit to the Railroaders Memorial Museum

 

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Last year in September, we took advantage of The Museum Day Live! day that is hosted by the Smithsonian magazine in which participating museums across the country open their doors for FREE to anyone with a Museum Day Live! ticket.

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I had thought that to take advantage of this event we would probably need to drive to Pittsburgh, but after doing a quick search, I found a museum participating fairly close to us (well, at least a lot closer than Pittsburgh) called the Railroaders Memorial Museum (America’s only interactive railroaders museum).  Admission to this museum is normally $10 per adult and $8 per child, so on a normal day we would pay $28 for our little family. I debated going because I figured it would probably be really crowded since it was a free day, but I am definitely glad we still went because there were no crowds at all and free is definitely better than almost $30!

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For those of our who aren’t familiar with Pennsylvania and it’s history, the railroad industry at one time was HUGE in various parts of Pennsylvania. One area in particular, Altoona, was key to the railroad industry. Over 6,000 steam locomotives were built in Altoona and the area is also home to the Horseshoe Curve “an engineering marvel”. The railroad industry is of course still present in the area, but it is not nearly what it was 150 years ago. So it was awesome to be able to go to the museum, watch the historical videos, do the interactive exhibits, read all the historical facts and learn more about this area that we’ve been living in for the past year! An area I hadn’t ever even heard of until a few months before we moved to Pennsylvania. 🙂

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Inside the museum there were three floors of various exhibits that talked about everything from what working on the railroad was like and how the community grew in the area due to the railroad to how a train wreck once left tons of circus animal wandering the town. 

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Of course, one of my favorite parts was watching all of the short video presentations they had. We were able to watch one about the birth of the Horseshoe Curve and another about how the Era of Steam in Altoona began and grew to what is was at it’s peak. It was fascinating to me to learn how transportation changed in the state from horse drawn wagons, to boats in the canals and finally to the fastest method (at the time) the train!

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The movies weren’t Titan’s favorite, but he humored us in them and actually ended up learning quite a bit from them.

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His favorite parts of the museum were all the interactive displays and seeing how people used to live. He especially liked checking out how different kinds of candy used to be packaged years ago. 😉

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At this station you got to see what it takes to run a train yard and to move around the tracks so that each train gets to where it needs to go each time. Titan (after finishing it), “Ok, whoever has that job has to be really organized!” LOL Of course, then we talked about how today most of it is run by computers, but yes, 100-150 years ago, it would have taken a lot of organization and man power to keep things operating smoothly.

Another fact Titan found interesting was that when the Horseshoe Curve was built, the workers were only paid $0.25 per day! And they worked 12 hour days!

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Once we finished with everything inside of the museum we moved outside to where they had a few train cars that you could walk through and look at up close.

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Last but not least, a quick treat we grabbed on the way home from the outing. At the museum Titan kept asking for a treat in the Gift Shop because he was apparently “starving”. Like most gift shops though everything was way overpriced so we promised Titan we would grab some frozen custard at The Meadows. On this visit I tried the Turtle custard and it was REALLY good! Some of the best custard I’ve ever head.

And that was our afternoon. Overall, it was a really fun and interesting museum and we all learned a lot about trains, railroads, and the history of Pennsylvania.

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Don’t live in the area (or not planning a vacation to Pennsylvania anytime soon ;))? The Railroaders Museum has an awesome website where you can look at photos and do some quick virtual tours of the museum. I know it’s not as fun as doing something in person but if you’re kids are learning about trains at school or have an interest in trains, it’s a great resource filled with lots of facts and information in an easy to read and understand format! 🙂

 

Minecraft Math & Writing Units + A Freebie!

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Have a Minecraft fan who needs some motivation in the math or writing department? We were recently able to test out the Minecraft Math & Writing Units from Robbins Creative Content, LLC and they were definitely a big hit with the little man. I was even able to get him to happily practice his handwriting, something that is almost always a battle with him! 
 

Here was our experience…

A couple Friday’s ago I pulled out some of the Minecraft unit worksheets for Titan and when Titan heard I wanted him to do some learning with me, I was immediately met with outrage over more schoolwork. And on a Friday afternoon of all days! When Titan came to his desk though and saw that it was all about Minecraft, his tune quickly changed and he said, “Oh cool! This isn’t school work, what were you talking about?” 


I had him do a section that teaches about Acrostic poems and he had a lot of fun coming up with words to match the letters in Minecraft and creating his own poem. I thought it might be tricky for a 6 year old, but he was able to easily catch on, especially since it was all Minecraft related. He did so well with that part of the unit, I can’t wait to do the parts about angles and area and perimeter with him later this week! 


 

I love having extra things like this on hand to take his learning to the next level, while still keeping it fun!  And Titan LOVES Minecraft! For him, if it’s Minecraft related it isn’t work, it’s play! So I am definitely grateful for units like this that do all the work for me and make homeschooling Titan that much easier.  
 
If you think your kids would also enjoy these Minecraft Units, you can purchase them for the next two weeks on the Educents site for only $4.99! (Reg. $7.99) 

 

Now onto that freebie…




That’s right, absolutely FREE! So make sure to grab that freebie while you are on their site as well! (Please note: This freebie is a complete printable lesson plan that you can do with your 5-9 year old. It is not a computer game or program that they do individually online.)

 
I just downloaded this freebie yesterday and plan to incorporate it into our learning sometime this week. 
 
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Disclosure: I am an affiliate for Educents. that means if you purchase anything using the links above, I will make a teeny tiny commission (like enough to cover part of my next fountain DC). 🙂 Also, we received  the Minecraft Unit for free from Educents to review and give feedback on. All opinions are those of myself and Titan though, and I only ever post about products that we do actually use and love. If you prefer not to shop through an affiliate link, you can see these same products here: http://www.educents.com/
 
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