EXPLORA 2008 REGISTRATION IS NOW OPEN!!

Spring 2008 Classes are now open, Registration goes to January 26th!
Session runs January 28th -May 6th
No Classes During Spring Break March 24 and March 25.

They are very strict about the ages and you will only be able to place your child in the class that corresponds to their age. Also, they do not want siblings in the classroom if they are not enrolled in the class! The registration form is attached and the I cut and pasted the various syllabus into this email.

These are great science classes and the kids will have a lot of fun doing the hands on experiments. Enjoy and happy experimenting...Tabbi
Class Information Fees Registration Information
K-1 class (2-6 yrs)
Monday, 11:00-12:00
Tuesday, 11:00-12:00

2-4 class (7-9 yrs)
Monday, 11:00-12:00
Monday, 1:00-2:00
Tuesday, 11:00-12:00

5-7 class(10-12 yrs)
Monday, 1:00-2:00
Tuesday, 1:00-2:00

8-12 class (13-17yrs)
Tuesday, 1:00-2:30
K-1 class = $80.50*
2-4 class = $73.50
5-7 class = $73.50
8-13 class = $120.68*

*custom programs
All registrations must be accompanied by full payment. We accept cash, checks, VISA, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express. Make checks payable to Explora.

Due to the high volume of calls, we will only accept registration forms by mail, email, fax or dropped of at front desk.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Explora Home School Explorations Series (K-1)
Spring 2008 Semester
Classes begin the week of January 28 and end the week of May 5. There will be no classes the
March 24 or 24th due to Explora Spring Break Camp.
1. “Balancing Act” Can you balance on one foot? Test your sense of balance and explore counterbalance and center
of gravity with a wide variety of interesting objects
2. “Bodies in Motion” This full-bodied program sets students in motion—both physically and mentally. What else is in
the starry sky besides the sun, the moon, and the earth? New stars may be born as students understand more
about our sun’s family and explore how other worlds move.
3. “Color Mix-Up” Experience the magic of color changing before your eyes! Students use unusual materials to
combine the primary colors and form new ones. They also learn the vocabulary of elementary math equations,
such as “red plus blue equals purple,” eliciting “oohs” and “aahs” along the way.
4. “Light and Shadow” Discover different ways to make shadows as we investigate light by bouncing and bending it,
explore shadows and shadow shapes, and experiment with colored light and colored shadows.
5. “Where Does the Food Go?” Let’s answer this question by consulting our 8-foot-tall, blue-haired doll, whose
canvas body unzips to reveal ten large digestive, circulatory and respiratory organs. We’ll learn what these body
parts do and how to stay healthy, too!
6. “Round and Round” Test different shapes to see which ones make the best wheels and investigate different surfaces
as roadways as you explore wheels moving “round and round.”
7. “Crazy about Chromatography” Inside an ordinary black marker is a rainbow of color waiting to escape! Students
investigate how paper chromatography is used to separate the components of mixtures, and test colored markers,
food coloring, and candy to see what unexpected colors each contains.
8. “Floaters and Sinkers” Roll up your sleeves and experiment with fruits, vegetables, other solids and a variety of
liquids to classify floaters and sinkers. We’ll modify materials to make them float or sink, and design a foil boat that
will carry a cargo of pennies. How many pennies will your boat hold before it sinks?
9. “Be a Mad Hatter” Many people wear hats, but have you ever thought about why? Students test fabrics to
determine which are the most water-repellant, explore how hats’ forms are related to their functions, observe hats
in works of art, and make original hats to wear home.
10. “Chemical Changes” What’s the difference between a physical change and a chemical change? How do simple
mixtures differ from chemical changes? Students explore these differences and investigate several fascinating
chemical changes.
11. “Pebbles, Sand and Silt” Get ready to sort rocks, dig in sand, explore clay, and look for living materials in garden
soil. Students discover how water runs through different earthy materials when they participate in the soil race!
12. “Mirror, Mirror on the Wall” In this exploration students investigate reflection and symmetry as they compare their
images in concave and convex mirrors, build kaleidoscopes, and make symmetrical art to take home.
13. “Switch On, Switch Off” In this exploration students turn things on and off as they explore open and closed circuits,
investigate a variety of switches, and much more.
14. “Patterns on Parade” Investigate patterns in nature, discover designs in animal footprints, experiment with rhythm
patterns, and create your own design on a big hat you can wear.

Explora Home School Explorations Series (2-4)
Spring 2008 Semester
Classes begin the week of January 28 and end the week of May 5. There will be no classes the week
of March 24 due to Explora Spring Break Camp.
1. “Acids and Bases” We use acids and bases every day. What’s the difference? Students prepare an acid-base
indicator and compare the relative strengths of some common acids and bases.
2. “Density: Liquid Layers” Density is the property of matter that determines whether objects float or sink. Students
compare the densities of salt solutions and a variety of liquids, and make a submarine that both sinks and floats.
3. “Muscle Up” What do a grasshopper’s rear legs, a ferris wheel, an overpass and a car jack have in common? You’ll
find out in this exploration by creating and using a variety of simple machines that change the size and direction of
forces to give you the mechanical advantage and make your work easier.
4. “Pigments of Your Imagination” Do artists need to understand chemistry? Understand the art/science connection by
using pigments to make your own paints. Then use your handmade paints to create an original work of art.
5. “Play Ball” By playing with flexible tracks and a variety of balls, students make discoveries about the effect of mass on
collisions and the ways to affect velocity. Students also explore bounciness and elasticity in this engaging exploration.
6. “Chance or Lucky Guess” By flipping coins, rolling dice, picking marbles from a jar and collecting data on candy,
students discover that some outcomes are somewhat predictable. Students run experiments, collect data, and
determine the probabilities of certain outcomes for independent events.
7. “Crazy Light” Why do we see ourselves in mirrors? How are shadows made? Students use light boxes to explore the
basic properties of white and colored light, including reflection and refraction, and investigate the properties of
lenses.
8. “Power Plant” How does a plant eat? In this exploration students dissect, observe and simulate plants in order to
explore the methods in which plants produce their own power. From the roots up, we’ll investigate the complete
plant system.
9. “Facts of the Matter” Atoms in motion—fast or slow—determine the states of matter we know. We’ll use liquid
nitrogen (-320 degrees Fahrenheit) and other materials to help students explore the properties of solids, liquids and
gases.
10. “Food Sleuths” What’s for dinner? Students test a variety of foods to determine the presence of proteins, fats,
carbohydrates and vitamins. We also learn the roles these things have in a healthy diet, and what they really do
inside our bodies.
11. “Gravity Rules” Do heavier objects fall faster than lighter objects? Students investigate the force of gravity by
balancing unusually shaped objects and experimenting with their own centers of gravity.
12. “Playing Around with Polymers” What is a polymer? Do the properties of polymers change when they’re made from
different substances? Students investigate the properties of this special material by making a number of different
polymers and comparing their bounciness, stretchiness, and more.
13. “Musical Strings” How many ways can you get a plain old string to make sound? Students explore vibration, discover
how string length is related to pitch, and build an original wooden stringed instrument.
14. “Good Vibrations” Catch a wave…a sound wave, that is! Students experiment with vibrations to learn how sound is
produced and how it acquires its specific qualities. Find out how sound travels through various materials and how to
tell whether it is coming or going.

Explora Home School Explorations Series (5-7)
Spring 2008 Semester
Classes begin the week of January 28 and end the week of May 5. There will be no classes March
24 and 25th due to Explora Spring Break Camp.
1. “Windy Music” Explore how sound and music are made by vibrating air. Compare sounds made by pipes and
flexible tubing of different lengths; then, use a variety of materials to change the sounds you hear. Students use what
they discover to create their own wind instrument.
2. “Plasma Scrutiny” Solids, liquids, gases…and plasma! Explore plasma, the fourth state of matter. What happens to
gas molecules in plasma, and how does the gas affect the plasma’s color? Students investigate a plasma ball and
use a spectroscope to identify the type of gas based on its color.
3. “Time to Reflect…and Refract” Use flashlights, lasers, rolling balls, prisms and more to explore reflection and
refraction. Use lasers to measure reflected angles in milky water, observe different reflections in straight, curved and
bumpy mirrors, and build a refracting telescope.
4. “Forced into Action” Get on the move with Isaac Newton and discover the laws that govern motion. Eggs may break
and balls will fly as students experiment with simple toys to learn about inertia and to determine the forces, velocity
and acceleration of objects in motion.
5. “Turn, Turn, Turn” Students feel torque as they spin on turntables, and explore the rotational momentum of spinning
objects as they manipulate variables like size, mass distribution, and shape in this exploration that will leave their
heads spinning.
6. “Pigments of Your Imagination” Do artists need to understand chemistry? Explore the art/science connection by
using pigments to make your own paints. Then use your handmade paints to create an original work of art.
7. “Go with the Flow” What is Bernoulli’s Principle? Levitate balls and make an egg jump from one container to
another to find out how airplanes fly and birds soar. The science of fluid dynamics is a great way to engage your
students’ curiosities and connect them to the world.
8. “Motion Picture Math” Explore persistence of vision with optical toys like zoetropes, flip books, thaumatropes and a
variety of computer programs. Use measurement skills and other applied math concepts to animate pictures and
make them come alive!
9. “Water on the Move” How does water move through soil? Students design, build and test aquifer models to track
contaminants, water tables and well levels. They also experiment with a variety of filtering materials to test their water
samples before and after for turbidity, hardness and pH.
10. “Very Small in the Universe” Is poking around in the dark science? It is when you are studying things you can’t see.
Scientists use their other senses all the time, and they infer from there. Students use bicycle wheels, diapers, water,
and their own senses to learn about atoms and other small particles.
11. “Delve into Drafting” Let your budding architects explore the concepts of computer-assisted drafting. Students design
their own spaces, landscape them, and print out the aerial plans to take home.
12. “Acids and Bases” We use acids and bases every day. What’s the difference? Students prepare an acid-base
indicator and compare the relative strengths of some common acids and bases.
13. “Get Your Motor Running” Students use batteries, magnets, wire and paper clips to construct simple motors. Then,
they manipulate variables to improve the performance of their motors. Can the motors be made to run faster? Can
they be turned into generators? Find out in this powerful exploration!
14. “Playing Around with Polymers” What is a polymer? Do the properties of polymers change when they’re made from
different substances? Students investigate the properties of this special material by making a number of different
polymers and comparing their bounciness, stretchiness and more.


Explora Home School Explorations Series (grades 8-12)
Spring 2008 Semester
Classes begin the week of January 28 and end the week of May 5. There will be no classes the
week of March 24 due to Explora Spring Break Camp.
Water Works (4 weeks)
How is an aquifer formed and how do we get water out of it? How clean is our tap water? How
can we make water clean enough to drink? Answer these and other questions about water as you
build a model aquifer, test the quality of tap water, and compare purification techniques such as
filtration, distillation, and ion-exchange.
Meet the Scientist (1 week)
In this Explora Theater hear from famous scientist, Marie Curie. She discovered radioactivity, won
two Nobel Prizes, and was the first female professor at the Sorbonne in Paris. Did you know she
was also a mother and a wife? After the theater program, there will be a question and answer
period.
Sound Science (4 weeks)
Explore vibrations and the sounds they produce as you make rods sing and tubes hum. Explore
pitch, frequency, and resonance by playing with tuning forks and palm pipes. Try your hand at
various methods of sound production and use computer composition software.
Meet the Scientist (1 week)
In this Explora Theater hear from famous scientist, Galileo Galilei. When did this astronomer live?
Why did he get locked in his home for over fifteen years? Learn about astronomy, pendulums and
the earliest telescopes. After the theater program, there will be a question and answer period.
Hands-On Optics (4 weeks)
Spend four weeks getting your hands on optics. Observe reflections in straight, curved, and bumpy
mirrors. Build a refracting telescope, make minerals glow under a black light, communicate with a
laser, and more.