Drop-in Days Week 3: FETCH! and Move It! AKA Ruff Ruffman and the Case of the Free Ice Cream!

Week 3 of Summer Drop-in Days was filled with TV characters, animals, cake and ice cream, and cool dance moves. An interesting mix of entertainment, right? Well that's how we like our Drop-in Days- full of variety! This week is no different. Today pirates will be walking the plank, and tomorrow we will be taking the Gentle Giant Staircase Challenge! Come on over and experience it firsthand! If you couldn't make it to our Drop-in Days last week, then here is what you missed!

On Thursday our favorite furry pal, Ruff from FETCH! with Ruff Ruffman, came to visit us! Throughout the day, Ruff bopped down in The Wild Place to take pictures and hand out awesome stickers, bookmarks, and tattoos! He loved meeting his biggest fans, like Hillary and Ashley Browne (left)- some of them even made him cool crafts at our Crazy Concoction Station (right), where we made some coffee ground fossils and puff paint creations!

After you finished up your crafts, you could've headed over to the gazebo for some tasty Ruff Ruffman cake. I have to admit that I had a big piece my self...it was delicious! And what goes better with cake than ice cream? The Mix 104.1 Street Team (below) was nice enough to help us out. They handed out delicious Turkey Hill ice cream to everyone. It was the perfect way to cool off in the summer heat! If you missed out on the ice cream, then you can come next Friday, August 6th for another scoop from Mix 104.1!

It was a great day at the Museum: our favorite PBS friend, Ruff Ruffman, came over, we got to make some kooky crafts, and we were able to satisfy our sweet tooth with cake and ice cream! What more can you ask for?! You are probably thinking "another awesome Drop-in Day like this one!" Well, we've got you covered. Don't miss Ruff on our last Drop-in Day of the summer. On August 27th he will be back to wrap up another great summer at the Museum!

So after indulging in (maybe a little too much!) cake and ice cream, we definitely needed to work it off at our next Drop-in Day! On Friday we busted some funky moves with Nicole, a dancer who trained at the Boston Ballet School! She showed us fun games that got all of our body parts to bend and move. She also taught us some awesome party dances, like the Macarena and the Funky Chicken. I will definitely be breaking those moves out at the next dance party that I go to!

If you braved the rain, then you got to see Matt from Animal World Experience (right) show us how animals move during Locomotion Commotion. He brought along a snake, possum, rabbit, and other wiggly creatures to teach us why these animals move the way they do. Matt's different spin on an animal show made it a huge hit with our visitors. If you love animals, then you are in luck! We still have a few more Drop-in Days in August that will be a hit for animal lovers. Make sure to check out Dog Days of Summer II and Miss Candy's Petting Zoo for more animal fun!

We had another exciting week at the Museum. One day we met our favorite TV character and the next we learned some new dance moves! There's always something fun happening at our Drop-in Days. Be sure to check out our August Drop-in Day schedule to see what we have planned for next month!

-Ashley Balerna

Public Relations Intern, The Children's Museum in Easton

Summer Drop-In-Days

Looking for something educational yet fun and totally awesome to do this summer? Drop in to the Children’s Museum in Easton for some summer fun every Thursday and Friday July 8- August 27! Each day features a different theme with a combination of special guest performances and hands-on, interactive activities. Some of our favorite themes you will see most often are animals, fitness, movement and music. That’s not to say there isn’t more, so you will have to come on down to check out all of our Summer Drop-In-Days throughout the summer.

If you like animals then you should check out one of our many animal themed days! You can see lots of awesome animal shows and even meet your favorite furry (or even slimey or scaly) friends! Whether you like farm animals or something a bit more exotic there is a day for just about any kind of animal. We start the summer off with a day for dog lovers with Dog Days of Summer I, on Friday July 8th with guest appearances by some of your favorite friends including Apache from the Beagle Brigade, Catie Copley of the Fairmont Copley Plaza and much, much more! Hmm…But, maybe you like something a little more exotic? Join us the following week for two days of wild animal fun! On Thursday, July 15th Go Wild! With Robb’s wild puppet friends and learn all about birds of prey from Marla Isaac of the New England Reptile and Raptor Exhibits. Or, come Friday, July 16th and get to pet a snake, a baby alligator and even more reptiles in our Creature Feature Program. If you were lucky enough to see him in here the spring at our Spring Fling, then come back for more of Matt from Animal World Experience as he shows us how to slither, crawl, hop swim, and climb like some of our favorite animals on Friday, July 23 as part of our Move it! Program. Matt will be joining us again on Friday, August 13 giving you the chance to BEE a POOP detective and meet some “super-poopers” for yourself. These are just a handful of the programs featuring animals so you better check out our schedule just to make sure your don’t miss your favorite animals and the chance to meet some of them right here at The Children’s Museum in Easton!

Not interested in meeting a real live animal? Well kids, we have your favorite Ruff Ruffman from the PBS show FETCH with Ruff Ruffman here not one, but two days this summer! Come on Thursday, July 22 for some crazy concoctions and eat as much cake and ice cream as you want! Or, come end your summer on Friday, August 27 with a special guest cast member from the show. If you love FETCH! and can’t get enough of him, we’d love to have you both days.

Not an animal lover at all? That’s ok we’ve got plenty of other fun activities you can enjoy. So maybe you like sports. Which is your favorite, soccer? Come meet a player from the Boston Breakers women’s soccer team during our Sports, Health & Fitness program on Friday, July 30th. If you like lacrosse, or maybe you’ve never even played, well this too is your day. The Boston Blazers will have a goal set up all day for you to shoot on and will also be giving away lots of free stuff. The Gentle Giant will be there all day too, so try your luck on the Staircase Challenge!

What kid hasn’t wanted to join the circus? There are clowns, acrobats, animals and lots of magic, everything you love! Well you don’t have to travel to the Big Apple to join this circus. Just come to The Museum on Friday, August 20 for Under the Big top and see Awesome Robb perform Magic and try your hand at juggling, hoola-hooping and more of your favorite circus tricks, who knows? You might find your future here.

After you come to our first Drop- In- Day on Thursday, July 8 (which happens to be tie-dye) we know you’ll never want to miss another! If one day of tie-dye isn’t enough, because we know how much everyone loves it, then come back on Friday, August 6 for more! This time Mix 104.1 will be there handing out ice cream! What more could you want on a hot summer day? For a complete schedule of the Summer Drop in Days check out our website, www.childrensmuseumineaston.org/summerdropindays.asp.

- Alex Langway
Communications/PR Intern

Birds and Bees and Ice Cream .. oh my!!

Wow! What a busy day we've had at the museum! As some of you might know, every Thursday and Friday of the summer we have a different themed Drop-in-Day. Today was called The Birds and the Bees!

Right from the start Joe Joyce, meteorologist from NECN gave a really informative talk about the weather and all the things that go along with it.

As New England weather would have it, as soon as he started talking about thunder and rain it started to pour!! We had to put our events on hold for about a half hour and then it passed. Gotta love New England!

Thankfully the rain passed and soon we were all back outside with Jeani Warish from the Bristol County Beekeepers Association learning all about honeybees! She had a sample of bees from her own personal hive in a observation glass, busy at work. Jeani was super informative! We learned all about the differences in bees, how they work and what they do!

Here's some quick fun facts:

- Sugar water is the closest thing we have to nectar, that's what beekeepers feed their honeybees!

- Honey stays good forever!

- If you take one teaspoon of LOCAL (it's important that it's locally produced/colonized honey) everyday starting in February you will notice a decline in your pollen allergies. Wow! A spoonful of honey is also good for coughs and sore throats ... and it tastes good!

- A honey bee takes 21 days to hatch.

- Male honey bees are called drones and their main purpose in life is to mate.

- Every fall the female honey bees kick all the drones out of the hive!

- In the wild, bees make their hives into what is called Burr comb and it usually takes only 24 hours!

There was a taste test too for anyone that wanted to try it. Which do you prefer: acacia honey or blossom honey? I liked the acacia honey the best, and so did mostly everyone else! It was not as strong as the blossom honey, but if you really want some kick to your honey I would definitely recommend blossom! It's super sweet!

Some of the museum volunteers and interns were helping the kids make their own bees and pinwheels to take home out of everyday, household materials. There were some pretty creative bees flying out of there!

The best part of the day was when we got to see four honey bees being hatched!! It was so cool and takes about 20 minutes for the whole process. The queen bee puts the eggs into the little caves of the honey comb and the other bees (called nurse bees) cover them up and keep them safe until it's time for them to hatch. When their 21 days are up they eat their way out of the cave and then out they come! It was amazing! Thanks Jeani for bringing them to us :) Thanks also to Haagen-Dazs for donating free seed packets for everyone to take home and plant their own bee-friendly flowers!

That's not all though (I told you we were busy today!)! at 1:00 Marla Isaac from the New England Reptile and Raptor Exhibits came and gave an en"rapture"ing presentation about Birds of Prey!

We learned all about the different kinds of birds of prey there are (owls, falcons and hawks were at this presentation!). And we got to meet some pretty cool birds, like Rufus the red-shouldered hawk and Mo the red-tailed hawk.

Here are some more fun facts:

-Raptors are a type of bird of prey that has talons.

-All birds of prey are protected by law ... which means you, CANNOT hunt them, hurt them, or capture them.

-A short-winged hawk only eats birds that are diseased or dying.

-Once a bird of prey learns something (like in falconry) they don't forget it.

-Vultures can smell up to 12 miles away!

-Turkey vultures only started showing up in Massachusetts 10-12 years ago! Now they stick out the winters on Martha's Vineyard!

After all that the Museum gave out some free, delicious ice cream and Italian ice! Yum!!

It's been such a great day at the museum! Tomorrow is A Pirate's Life for Me!, which promises to be just as exciting! Thanks for dropping by and until then, don't forget to check out our website for more information on all the Drop-in-Days!