Climbing the mountain.  Sliding through the tunnel.  Caring for babies in the Baby Place.  Racing Lego cars down the track.  Creating music.  Sculpting a masterpiece in floam.  Spinning the rice wheels.  Putting on a play on the main stage.  Scooping ice cream.

It’s a busy place and we love that.

But we also recognize that little hands need little breaks.  Little minds need little rest moments.

For that very reason we’ve placed books all around Hands On!

Your daughter can read a book about dentistry while sitting in the giant dental chair.

You son can pick up stacks of books about animals and nature at the bottom of the slide.

The babies in the nursery love to have a child read them a story in the rocking chair.

We love books – and we imagine you do too.

And we’re always wondering what our youngest readers think of the books we have.

Does Hands On! need more books scattered around the museum?

What types of books should we add?

And what books are your children devouring at home?

Tell us how reading shapes your family!

In our continuing effort to allow you to know use so we can know you better, we’re working our way through the Hands On! staff.

Today we are sharing our question and answer session with Beth, the Operations Manager here at Hands On!

Beth and her husband and their two daughters have lived in Hendersonville for the past sixteen years.  Prior to working at our museum, Beth has had some various and interesting careers that include working as a Wild Wings Educator for the Carolina Raptor Center and a project manager with The Nature Conservancy.

We grilled Beth, in the gentlest way of course, and asked her loads of questions – some serious and some silly – so you could get to know a little bit more about one of the folks that help our museum stay on track.

We work equally hard to be certain the museum is educational for your children as well.

(And educational in one of the best kinds of ways – the “I’m having so much fun I don’t even realize that I’m learning” way.)

Our purpose for our blog is the same.

A fellow mom is sharing with us today methods and ideas for teaching your child map skills.

Gretchen Phelps has three children.  She currently home schools her two oldest children.  She has worked as a high school science teacher and currently is an adjunct instructor at Brevard Community College.  Gretchen blogs about her family and their home school journey at Days to Remember.

Recently I had the opportunity to lead our home school group, kindergarten to third graders, in a map skills lesson.

These are some of the ideas I used in our class.  They are all ideas and methods that you could easily use with your children in your home as well.

We created a compass using a bar magnet, a small bowl, and then a larger bowl with water in it.  In creating the compass we were able to find North, South, East and West.

After finding our bearings we went outside and set up sign posts for N,S,E,W and played a game of N, S, E, W or NW, SW, SE and NE.  The kids all went to the middle of the compass rose we created on the grass and then I would call out a direction and the kids had to run to the correct bearing.   (This could also be set up in a gymnasium or even in your house if the room is large enough.)

The children also learned the names of the continents and the oceans through a song and we discussed latitude and longitude, the equator and Northern and Southern hemispheres.

We looked at different maps and learned what some of the symbols meant.

From an idea I saw on Pinterest I also pre-printed the following so they kids could put them all together into a flip chart:

The following week I had prepared a scavenger hunt, with a map of the grounds and a list of items the kids had to find located on the map, with our bearings labeled.

This map was used to see how the kids would handle finding the items using only the maps and they did a great job.

We also created topographical maps.

I really like using hands-on activities and we had shoe boxes of sand for the children to create their own mountains, valleys or volcanoes.

Prior to creating our sand box maps, we represented the different elevations using different colors on a worksheet.  Another way to represent the elevations would be to use various colors of playdoh.  For example, green 0-10 meters above sea level, red 10-20 meters, etc.

You could use all of these ideas together for a comprehensive lesson or you could simply take an idea or two and use them to create interest in your child about map and map skills.

If you have a great idea to share with us about how to engage a child on a specific subject or topic, homework helps or methods to help create an interested learner, we’d love to hear from you!

Comment today in our comments section or e-mail us at handsonhendersonville@gmail.com.

We’d love to hear your idea and share it with the world!

And that makes things a little muddy.

As parents, you may spend a lot of your time on rainy days saying phrases like this to your children:

Stay out of the rain.  

Don’t jump in that puddle.

Keep your clothes clean, please.

Those shoes aren’t meant to get muddy.

And those are perfectly acceptable instructions to offer your children on your average rainy day.

But we bet your kids would love the opportunity to hear you say, “You know what, Jonas [or your child's own name, of course]? Why don’t you just play in the mud today?  Go ahead, jump in that puddle.  Your shirt?  Nah – we don’t care about that.  Just get muddy.  As muddy as you want.  And you know what else, son?  I think I’ll jump in with you. Yep – I will.  Let’s go!”

Wouldn’t you love to be that exciting to your child,  just once?

Well, the wait is over.

We are making that opportunity happen for you and your family.

And, in typical Hands On! fashion, let us make the mess for you and clean it up for you as well!

Join us June 2 from 5 to 7 p.m. at Berkeley Park in Hendersonville to get a little muddy and have a lot of fun.

The one mile mud course is open to kids aged 2 to 11 but the activities after the race are open to everyone.

There’s no end to the muddy good times after the race.  There will be mud painting, mud pies, muddy worms and loads of other messy madness!

And, what’s more, the $15 price of your entry free gets you a free dinner from family-friendly-favorite Chick-fil-A.

All the proceeds benefit Hands On! and we’d love to see your face all muddy and beautiful to help our museum keep doing what it does best – provide educational exhibits that stimulate the imagination and motivate learning in a fun, safe, “Hands On!” environment.

We need you to register by May 30 and you can do that by coming into the museum to play and grabbing a registration form or by calling us at (828) 697-8333.

We’ve set up a Facebook page to talk about the event and we’d love for you to stop over and let us know what you think!

We provide smocks so your children’s clothes stay tidy.

All the mess stays here and not in your kitchen.

The mounds of colored rice that end up on the floor are swept up by us – not you!

Bubbles in the house?  No way!  Bubbles inside the museum?  Perfect.

A table area set aside for floam or play dough and all the stickiness that goes along with those fun items.

A floor that we don’t mind a little paint spilled on here and there.

A convenient hanging rack for drying your children’s precious art before it goes into your minivan.

You do the playing – we do the cleaning!

And because you aren’t feeling the pressure of the clean up – you can actually paint or use play dough or play with bubbles right along with your child.

Did we forget anything?

What do you love about creating art with your kids at Hands On!?

You still have a few more days left, but the challenge has us thinking.

And now we want to know what you are thinking.

1.  As an adult in a technologically advanced society, what piece of technology would you be most unwilling to give up?

2.  What type of limits do you put on your children’s use of the internet?

3.  What age is the right age for a child to have a cell phone?

Please share your responses in the comments sections and ask your friends what they think and have them share their thoughts too!

Our young book reviewer this week is Liam M.

A to Z Mysteries

Book written by Ron Roy.

Book review written by Liam M.

The main characters are Dink, Josh and Ruth Rose. I just finished reading “X”, The X’ed-Out X-Ray and I’ve already read “S,” The School Skeleton, “B,” The Bald Bandit, “H,”  The Haunted Hotel, and “V,” The Vampire’s Vacation. They are in alphabetical order.

My favorite one is The Haunted Hotel.

I like the A to Z Mysteries because the kids are like detectives and get in trouble a lot. They’re pretty freaky, weird and funny.

Josh is always very hungry (like me!).

The kids are all nine years old.

I would like to be solving mysteries when I’m nine, but not as freaky.

Well done, Liam!  

To see your child featured here, e-mail their book review and a photo of your son or daughter (or grandchild) holding the book to handsonhendersonville@gmail.com.

Because we know kids love to shape and mold and build and tear down and rip apart and re-create, over and over again.

You can buy play dough at the store – and that’s fine – but sometimes you want to make your own.

And we want to help you.

It’s easy and it’s fun.  Two crucial elements to any kid activity.

All you need is probably inside your cabinet right now.

Gather:

• 2 cups of baking soda
• 1 1/2 cup of water
• 1 cup of corn starch
• Food coloring

Create:

• Mix the ingredients together until the mixture is smooth.
• Boil on your stove top until the mixture is thick.  (It pulls away from the sides of the pan when it’s finished.)
• You can plop the mixture on a cutting board or butcher block and knead it if you have any lumps.

Store your play dough in an airtight container after the kids are done playing with it and it should last for a while.

The extra fun part about making play dough at home is that you can control the color options.

Plus, add in a few drops of essential oils and play time suddenly smells like spa time.

(And actually, kneading that warm-just-from-the-stove-top  play dough actually feels pretty therapeutic on your tired hands as well.)

Homemade play dough makes a great gift for birthdays and special occasions as well.

Store it in a cute jar, wrap a bright ribbon around the lid and you’ve got a low-cost sure to please gift.

It’d be a fantastic present for an older sibling whose family has just added a new little brother or sister.  The child feels special and mom receives a few minutes of quiet while the play dough entertains.

Have you ever tried this recipe?

And we love a challenge.

So when we heard what our friends down the street at Dancing Bear Toys were doing next week, we had to help spread the word.

Dancing Bear is hosting Turn the TV Off Week from April 30 to May 6.

And, let us tell you, this is not a contest for the weak of heart.

That’s seven days with no screens – no televisions, no computers and no video games.

You can pick up a bookmark at either Dancing Bear Toys location – Asheville or Hendersonville.  Fill out the bookmark each day that you conquer the No TV challenge.  At the end of the week bring that completed bookmark to either store as proof of your amazing accomplishment.

And, after all that work, you don’t think a toy store would leave you empty-handed, do you?

We don’t think so either.

Dancing Bear Toys will give each participant a free gift at the toy store.

They’ve also come up with a week’s worth of fun activities to help pass all that non-TV viewing time.

Visit their website for the complete list of activities, but each afternoon both store locations will be hosting fun events from 4 to 5 p.m. – all at no cost.

Parents – do you think your kids are up for the challenge?

Parents – do you think YOU are up for the challenge?

And kids should like the books they read.

But sometimes it might be difficult to remember what made you laugh at eight or what story held you in suspense in the first grade.

We want to work together to make choosing a great book for your son or daughter easier.

Today we have a book review from one of our young Hands On! fans – seven-year-old Bergen K.

Bergen loves the Magic Tree House series written by Mary Pope Osbourne.

The following review was written by Bergen.

I like to read the Magic Tree House books because they’re cool.

The books are about two kids named Jack and Annie.  They found a tree house and discovered that it was magic.  The tree house could take them anywhere they wanted and all they had to do was to point to a book and say, “I wish I could go there.”

Some places the characters go I would like to go  too – like when the cave men lived because I want to see a saber tooth cat.

Some of the books are partly true – like Queen Elizabeth ate so much sugar that her teeth turned black.

I wish they would write a book about Alaska – they’ve never been there.

I’ve read a lot of the Magic Tree House books but I never read them in order.

I think the books are good for kids ages six and seven.

Thank you very much Bergen.  

Are there any other readers out there that enjoy the Magic Tree House series?  Do you like them for the same reasons Bergen likes them?

This feature will become a regular post, with a little help from our friends.  (That’s you.)

Here’s what you do:

1.  Have your son or daughter (or niece or nephew, or cousin or neighbor) pick their favorite book.

2.  Help them type a review of the book describing what they think about the book.

3.  Snap a photo of your reviewer holding the book.

4.  E-mail both the review and the photo to handsonhendersonville@gmail.com.

We’ll print the book review right here and promote it through our Facebook and twitter pages.  You can share it with your friends and family and celebrate your little reader/author!