Astronaut Training Week #2!

 

Week 2 of Astronaut Training was a little spotty, but still successful.  Ivy had a little trouble focusing on her schoolwork (now that complacency has set in after about two months of virtual school), which limited our Astronaut Training.  But!  We made good use of the time we had by incorporating Astronaut Training into some of her schoolwork.  On Monday, she had to take pictures of things in nature for a school assignment.  Guess what?  Astronauts are typically in space for about 6 months, meaning that they are gonna miss all of the Earth's natural wonders like trees, flowers, dirt, and bushes.  Astronauts also should have a good education in biology, ecosystems, and the environment - one day we might find a planet like Earth, and we will be able to use all of the topics in earth sciences to give us a starting point of understanding foreign planets!

Our Astronaut Exercise was another Cosmic Kids Yoga video - again, like last week, we were both pretty sleepy and these yoga videos were just a tad too perky for us at 7AM.  In Week #3, we decided to go with something a little calmer to start our morning.

On Wednesday, I realized that we had fallen a bit behind on our Astronaut Training (slacking a little by piggy-backing Ivy's schoolwork for Astronaut Academics, and totally skipping it on Tuesday), so we spent the afternoon completing the experiments in Ivy's Outer Space science kit.  We created constellations using a toothpick to poke holes in paper (I think a coffee filter would work better for next time!); studied centrifugal force with marbles in a jar; and we made moon craters with flour to act as the moon's surface, and rocks, marbles, and small grapes as asteroids!

Our Astronaut Exercise for Tuesday was jumping rope, just like last week.  It's fun, easy, and it really does take a lot of energy if you aren't used to it!  Wednesday is lifting weights, which is fun when you have a motivational chant to keep you going on your last 8-count:

I.  WILL.  BE.  

THE.  VERY.  BEST.  

ASTRONAUT.  EVER!

On Thursday, Ivy stayed up a little late to take a look at Mars!  It is the closest than it will be until the year 2035, so we took advantage of the opportunity!  Not only that, but a NASA retiree "followed" Ivy on Instagram - and when we posted to show her excitement for a real NASA person to acknowledge her, he commented on her post!  That was a great day!

Friday is our SLUMBER PARTY day!  Every since Ivy's sisters were little, Fridays have been our household party day:  we watch movies, play games, dance, and generally try to have a lot of fun together!  This week, I had found a movie that I wasn't really interested in when it came out in 1999 - but since Ivy wants to be an astronaut, I thought it would be neat to watch.  It was pretty dramatic, not what I would typically show for a Slumber Party night, but Ivy did become invested in the movie as we watched the main character struggle against his nay-sayers and found support among his initially resistant friends.  After the movie, we ran outside to look at Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter - and we saw FOUR of Jupiter's moons!  Obviously, we suspect we saw the four largest moons of Jupiter: Io, Europa, Callisto, and Ganymede, although we are not educated enough to know which one is which (and especially not with our $80 telescope).  After looking at the planets, we read about Herbert Baker, the NASA retiree that followed Ivy on Instagram; he had an extensive career making sure NASA had everything it needed.  This was a great example to show that being part of NASA means more than "being an astronaut".  And even astronauts have to learn about some kind of STEM field - there is no such thing as a degree in Being an Astronaut!  (although "astronautics" is a field of study!)

Our Astronaut Exercise for Friday was... skipped!  We were tired.  And it was Friday.  So we took a little cheat day.  Instead, she did some virtual school P.E. in the afternoon, and she's been practicing on her bicycle!  She can now confidently ride up and down the street, although her braking could use some work 😅

I'm writing this on Tuesday of Week #3, and I can see that while I felt like we dropped the ball a bit last week I don't think we really did all that bad.  There will always be strong weeks and weak weeks, and something is always better than nothing, and there is nothing wrong with resting and adjusting priorities on a day-to-day basis.