Out of this world

MadHatter turned 9 in January.  A full 2 1/2 months ago and due to complications* of being a foreigner in a foreign land we had yet to celebrate.

She had her heart set on having her birthday party at the Planetarium and I was happy to comply.  I booked the first available date at the Volkssternwarte München mit Planetarium and told MadHatter that she would get her dream party but she would have to wait for it. Thankfully, she was OK with that.

Finally, last Friday we gathered most of the 3rd grade (and a few from the 2nd) for a bit of space exploration.

First, we explored the planets and our Galaxy before heading into the theater to watch a short movie on how stars are born. After a Q&A session, the display cases were opened and a few of the meteorites were taken out and shown us.  We even got to try our hand at picking up the largest one - it was HEAVY (and over 4.5 Billion years old).  I don't have a picture of MadHatter with it because she asked that I not take one.  But I do have a few of the others, including Stinkerbell.

Next up - the telescope.  It was a glorious sunny day in Munich which is fabulous after a long and gray winter but it makes it difficult to look at a magnified sky.  Instead, we got a quick lesson on what the sun would do to us if we attempted to look directly at it through a lens -

Can you see the smoke?  It took less than a 1/2 second for it to burn a hole where his eye is.

We learned that you can look at the sun if it is deflected onto another object.

And Stinkerbell found a way to make paying attention more fun...

The final piece was the planetarium where we got to travel from the city of Munich to the Milky way over the course of a 24 hour period (on time lapse).  We also learned how to find the Polar Star and how to identify a few of the more famous constellations.  I will say this was probably where the kids paid the most attention and were amazed by the light show in the dark. (It was too dark for any pictures except this very first one)

Tour concluded we all went back in the party room where we had a few snacks before singing to the birthday girl and then diving into the Alien cupcakes MadHatter had requested.

We had only a few minutes left and before pick up and the kids made great use of it by becoming aliens - or messy cupcake monsters.  What a fun idea MadHatter!  I hope you had a great party!

*Complications in no particular order - I do not speak German; the people booking the party do not speak English.  I could write an email in German (with Google Translate's help) but they say directly on their website that they will not reply to party requests by mail but will only book by phone.  Go back to the first sentence and realize my catch-22.  Finally send out a plea for help on Facebook and give all details to a super understanding native German speaker who is a complete stranger.  Find out that this is a popular place and the next available date they have is March 31 and you would have known that if you were from Munich.  In the end - it was resolved - as all of these things are but not without a bit of stress.