Friday, September 5, 2008

Astronomy - Year One

This is a new class for our HH. I'm not sure why it never occurred to us before now to offer it, but there you have it. Pia heads this one, & in her research discovered that this is the one class offered at Hogwarts that is identical to how things are taught in Muggle schools. If any are looking for a class that needs little Potterfication, this is definitely for you.

The kids were excited when they received their Welcome Letters from Prof. Sinistra. Even more thrilling was the last-minute field trip to the Planetarium.  Dressed as Muggles, the children sat transfixed through the entire show. Their only sounds were whispers, oohs, & aaaahs. All three have already asked when we can go to the giant observatory on the hill.

Yesterday they each received a package from Prof. Sinistra. Inside was a folder that contained a lesson: Charting the Stars for Navigation, & a Star Chart. It's brilliant really. She (Pia) has set the chart with one country/city per month. On the 15th of each month, they are to go to this site, follow the directions to get where they need to be, & type in the city/country listed. They then will print out the sky view for that place & time, & fill the information on the chart requested. Didn't I tell you? Brilliant. She is working on getting this in PDF for you.

The web is filled with Astronomy sites, & information. If you click the black box beneath Astronomy Tower, it shall take you to the daily moon phase site that we use. Even the HH Mamas enjoy seeing where the moon is each day, & have the widget on our personal blogs. *note :: Wordpress does not like some widgets, & will mess with their code. If you want to see what it looks like normally, look here.* It's nice to be connected to the world around (or above) us.

Hopefully Astronomy will continue to delight the kids - we'll keep you posted.

~Kat

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