Our New Arrival!

Congratulations to our Aquarist, Glen Decker!  He is now the proud parent of our two new baby Big Skates. Glen arrived last week to find a little one trying out his wing-like pectoral fins.  After a few days, the second skate was gently encouraged and pushed out of the egg casing. We have all enjoyed watching the skates grow inside their egg and hope they settle into their new home. Come see the baby skates in Wave Workshop and ask a Discovery Guide to touch a real skate egg. 

To learn more about Big Skates, and how to protect them and other ocean creatures, check out some of the following sites: 

Florida Museum of Naturla History - Big Skate (Raja Binoculata)

Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch

Ocean Conservancy
 
Farallones Marine Sanctuary Association

Playdate 2008: An Evening by the Cove resulted in raising $570,000 for the Museum!  We give a big thanks to everyone who helped bring this all together.  The Council, Board, volunteers and the Museum Staff.  

Everyone looked beautiful and had a fun time.  See some photos of the event on our Flickr page here.

The importance of outside play has been a topic of interest recently by education and child development leaders. Where schools are focusing more and more on testing and academia, the importance of play falls on the wayside.  For the younger children outdoor play seems to be even more crucial for developing social and personal life skills. Self-regulation, sharing, team building and interactions with different people are all skills that children learn while playing in a playground. I wrote about news articles that highlight this topic in an earlier blog post, The Decline of Serious Play.

A report in the New York Times speaks about day cares not going outside to play with the children, in an article called The Flip-Flop Factor. Citing reasons such as children wearing flip-flops, no coat or playgrounds having mulch which can be thrown by kids and some caregivers just thinking it is too much trouble.

Where academia is very important and parents do urge their children's caregivers to teach them as much as they can, it is also important for children to play. We hope that developmental play becomes a focus of parents as well as educational learning. The Museum works to provide such play with our varied exhibitions and community programs which not only has strengths in early child development but fosters a stronger family unit as well.

Mother's Day is Sunday, May 11.

My mother loves champagne brunches. We have gone to nearly every restaurant in the Bay Area that offers them. Grand Cafe in SF, Claremont Hotel in Oakland & many others that I found on Open Table.  You can't have a Mother's Day without flowers! I have been going to Moe's Flowers in Berkeley since college and his arrangements are the only ones who grace the tables of my mother and aunts for the past 12 years.

I still remember making those arts and craft gifts for my mom in school. Glitter picture frames with a photo of me in the middle. The hand print paper weight that I broke while taking it home to her. I didn't, however, make a macaroni necklace for her. Even as a kid I knew that food is not a cute fashion accessory.

Try a few of these Mom's Day art projects with your kids!

• Paper Flower Bouquet - take 3 or 4 small tissue paper squares and fold them like a fan, take a pipe cleaner and twist it to hold the folded paper at one end. Unfold, twist and bunch the tissue paper to make a flower! Repeat until you get a beautiful paper flower bouquet.
• Artist's Rendition - Take a photo of mom with the kids and have your child draw, color and/or paint a replica image on a piece of construction paper. You can frame the art and the photo and place them together on the mantel.
• French Toast M-O-M: Make french toast for breakfast and have the child cut out the letters with a butter knife for a special breakfast in bed.

If you're scrambling for gift ideas you can't go wrong with stores like