“Walking Through Steel” Magic Trick
Oh man, I am definitely NOT the "coolest" Michael Barron on this beautiful planet. Ladies and gentlemen, I present a jaw-dropping rehearsal video of Michael Barron (the magician) doing his thing:
Blind Spots and Seeing Your Own Eye’s Vascular Network
I actually did the activity near the end of this video (looking through a pin hole of light to see the vascular network inside my own eye). It was incredible and, pun intended, eye opening. Try it - you will be amazed:
Fan Fort!
One of my favorite indoor activity with Libby is building forts. We have made pillow forts, blanket forts, and laundry basket forts. But I think we really outdid ourselves when we made this "fan fort":

To construct this fort we cut open 5 large trash bags and taped them into an approximate teepee shape (original plan was a large tube, but we ran out of tape so we improvised). After attaching a small fan and checking for leaks we inserted a table lamp (and loads of toys) to brighten the space up.
This fort is a perfect little hideaway. Despite being a small dark plastic cave, the fan fort is very soothing. The constant whir of the fan drowns the world outside, and it's the perfect place to read books or pretend with a friend.
Perspective (With Respect to Time)
It's good to keep a proper perspective about how big the universe is. It is also instructive to remember just how old the universe is as well.
Carl Sagan popularized the idea of compressing the entire history of the universe since the beginning of time into a single calendar year as a way for us humans to better relate to the vast numbers involved. Here is a nice version of that calendar (each month is equivalent to a little more than 1 billion years):
You can see a more detailed example, with all of the various eras and more human-scale events, here.
Perspective (With Respect to Space)
Perspective is important, so you get a two-fer today.
First, the relative sizes of our planets and various stars. The largest celestial body in the previous pane is the smallest in the next pane:

Second, our place in the universe (click to make gigantic). The previous panel will always be in red in the next panel:

Now go out and have a great day, you teeny tiny speck of carbon on a minuscule rock floating midway down one spiral arm of a typical galaxy among billions.
