Train Rides at the Science and Tech Museum

By Kamerine This summer at the Science and Tech museum you can ride on an actual train. It's a steam locomotive pulling two vintage rail cars on an out and back trip, run by volunteers from the Bytown Railway Society. It costs $2 and was totally worth it: the kids loved it!

The trains run between 11am and 3:45pm on Wednesdays and Sundays until September 2nd.

You buy your tickets just inside the museum and present them at the train station which is outside. We bought our tickets when we got to the museum around 10am, checked out some of the museum before heading to the station. We arrived at the station a few minutes before the first ride at 11am, but had to wait for the second trip because it was so busy.

The ten-minute trip was narrated and we were told all sorts of interesting things about the train and the rail cars. Unfortunately the trip was over in no time and we had to leave the train. I think the kids could have gone again and again.

The kids have loved trains forever and couldn't have been happier than when they were finally sitting on one. Definitely one of the highlights of the summer.

For information about the train rides and other fun things going on this summer at the Science and Tech museum visit their website: http://www.sciencetech.technomuses.ca/english/whatson/2013-summer.cfm.

Let us know if you decide to go!

Kamerine is mom to 3-year-old Little J and 2-year-old  Little K.  She documents her life with two toddlers, a husband and a cat at The Life of K.

“Go – Bon Voyage” to the Ottawa Public Library this summer (part 1)

By  Xiao Feng Xing - Youth Collections Librarian at the Ottawa Public Library  This year’s Summer Reading Club “Go – Bon Voyage” travel theme encourages children to go on their reading journey to places near and far and explore anywhere or anything.

Library branches across the city will offer exciting programs featuring travel theme too. Here are a few suggested books we hope you and your child will enjoy reading together.

Luciani, Brigitte: How Will We Get to the Beach? North-South Books, 2000

Roxanne wants to take five things (a book, a ball, a turtle, a beach umbrella and a baby) to the beach. Her car is broken; she has to use a different transportation method. But the problem is that each alternate form of transportation can only carry four items with it. Children will enjoy this interactive guessing-game.

You could pair this book with The Big Trip by Valeri Gorbachev

Zion, Gene: Harry by the Sea, Harper & Row, 1965

This is my favourite book in the Harry the Dirty Dog series. In this book, Harry the white dog with black spots went to the beach and got separated from his family. Suddenly he was completely covered with seaweed by a big wave. He didn’t look like a dog anymore. People thought he was a sea serpent, a giant sandworm, or a sea slug. People tried to catch it and take it to the aquarium.

Will little Harry find his family? Your child will be captivated by this little dog and his hilarious adventures, and will ask you to read this timeless story again and again.

Kasza, Keiko: Ready for Anything, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2009

Keiko Kasza is the author and illustrator of multiple award-winning books for children. Her book My Lucky Day has won numerous U.S. awards. All of her books feature simple and interesting story plots and humorous characters. The dialogue is lively and fun to read aloud.

In Ready for Anything! Duck and Raccoon plan a picnic together. Raccoon worries about everything, and always thinks of the worst possible scenarios. Duck on the other hand, is very positive and always thinking of fun thing for each challenge. It’s an entertaining story of friendship, sharing feelings, and overcoming fears. You could pair this with a book from Scaredy Squirrel series by Melanie Watt.

Dusen Chris Van: A Camping Spree with Mr.Magee, Chronicle Books, 2003 

Mr. Magee and his dog are off on a camping trip. But when a bear accidentally unties Mr. Magee’s camper from his car, the camper gets stuck on a rock above a fifty-foot waterfall. Will Mr. Magee and his dog be rescued?

This book has it all: charming illustrations, smooth-flowing rhymes, and an action-packed adventure plot. You’ll find it a great read for you and your family while at your camp site. You can download the e-book or watch animated and narrated e-books directly from the TumbleBooks library at Ottawa Public Library website. You could Pair this book with Down to the Sea with Mr. Magee by the same author.

That's part 1 of our summer Reading Club Book selections. You can find more TD summer reading lists on our library website.

Come on in to one of the Ottawa Public Library’s 33 branches and bookmobiles to sign up for the TD Summer Reading Club. You can pick up your “passport” and activity book as well as delightful stickers. You can also enter your sticker codes at www.tdsummerreadingclub.ca  to reveal rewards.

Farmers, Warriors, Builders: The Hidden Life of Ants - A Giveaway (Closed)

Farmers, Warriors, Builders: The Secret Life of Ants is a new exhibit at the Museum of Nature. We sent Andrea and her kids to scout out the digs and they loved it. You can read about their adventures here. The collection is on loan from the Smithsonian and features 39 incredible, large-format images from Mark W. Moffett, who the National Geographic Society describes as “the Indiana Jones of entomology.” The exhibit is jam-packed with all kinds of interesting information about how ants work, hunt, live and communicate.

Now for the giveaway part

We have a family pass for one lucky family (2 adults and 2 kids) to visit the Museum of Nature and The Hidden Life of Ants.  The pass includes admission to the Hidden Life of Ants exhibit and all the regular exhibits but some special exhibits and movies may have additional fees. In order to qualify you must answer tell us one fun fact about ants (or even just why you love ants!).  Leave your answer in the comments below and we'll pick a winner at random on August 5th. Good luck!

Farmers, Warriors, Builders: The Hidden Life of Ants

By Andrea In the summer months we aim to keep them out of our homes. At picnics we do everything to avoid them. On the front patio stones the kids catch and examine them. We consider them a pest but is there more than meets the eye? Yes!

If you've ever watched ants at work you discover their behaviour, anatomy and purpose is more complex than we generally understand. This spark of interest is satisfied at the Canadian Museum of Nature's new visiting exhibition, Farmers, Warriors, Builders: The Hidden Life of Ants on loan from the Smithsonian.

When the opportunity to preview and blog about a new feature at the CMN presented itself, I gladly accepted. Our membership allows us to foster our children's education and this exhibit is a compliment to junior elementary science curriculum where insects are studied.

When you enter the gallery you notice the large, colourful photos of magnified ants. Through the eyes of a child, this is what macro photography was meant for: seeing bugs up close and in detail. Mark W. Moffet, an award-winning photographer for National Geographic, lends 39 large-sized photos of ants which capture their behaviour, their roles in their ant-heap and their habitat.

In addition to the images there are two aquarium-like encasements at a child's eye-level allowing them to observe ant colonies at work. My children were especially interested in the honeypot ants but also intrigued by having poisonous ants carry seeds to feed their young beneath their fingertips. An effective visual was the casting of an ant colony's underground habitat. When you consider that we only see the small hill of dirt and a hole, it opens their eyes to a whole new underground world!

The exhibition opened July 26th and runs until January 5, 2014. It can be found to the left of the stairs behind the main desk at the front entrance. The cost of admission and/or membership includes access to this exhibit as well as several fun activities held throughout the summer. The following activities are for visitors of all ages and run until September 2nd.

IT'S A TRAP! INSECT TRAP MAKING WORKSHOP

• Daily at 10AM, 11AM, 2PM and 3PM

ANT SCAVENGER HUNT

• 
Daily

ANT CRAFT

• Saturdays and Sundays, 9:30AM – noon

PICNIC TIME

• 
Daily 11AM - 2PM

ARTIST IN THE GALLERY

• Irena Lyubchenko, August 19 - 23, 1PM - 4PM
• Dinorah Catzalco, August 26 - 30, 1PM - 4PM

I found this exhibit to be accessible, appealing and informative to my three children of different ages. Enjoy your visit!

Andrea is a happily married stay-at-home mother of three amazing children who loves her friends, family, art, music and takes too many photographs. She blogs here.

Flugtag on the Ottawa River

Did you know that Saturday is Flugtag Day? What’s a Flugtag, you may ask? Flugtag, literally means “flying day” in German. It's a huge competition that challenges amateur “pilots” to design, build, and fly homemade airplanes after they get pushed off a 22-foot high ramp by their team members in hopes of soaring into the clouds…or more often, plunging into the waters below.

This craziness started in Vienna, Austria, in 1992. Flugtag is an all-day event that has been hosted twice before in Canada (once in Ottawa) and can attract up to 200,000 spectators. This year, Red Bull is hosting the third annual Canadian Flugtag Challenge in Ottawa. Teams from all over the country will take off from a “flight deck” built at the Canadian Museum of Civilization with nothing but the Ottawa River between them and the possibility of soaring in the air across the river to the shores of the Parliament Buildings.

All the teams are judged on flight distance, creativity of the “air”craft, and showmanship. In the past, some of the crafts have looked like flying tacos, prehistoric pterodactyls, winnebagos with wings and even giant Poutine bowls. Take a look at the 2010 world record flight at Red Bull Flugtag Minneapolis St Paul. It's pretty cool.

I’ve never been to Flugtag but it seems like such an awesomely fun way to spend the day that I’ll be there this Saturday to watch. The Flight Deck will be located directly in front of The Canadian Museum of Civilization on the banks of The Ottawa River on the Quebec side.  You can get there very easily from downtown Ottawa by foot, bicycle, public transport, and car but the Alexandra Bridge will be closed to pedestrian access from 9:30am - 3:00pm so it’s better to use the Portage Bridge as an alternate route. It's free for all so just show up and have a great day!