Little Valley Farm Market
We’ve freshened up! Our new market area is true to our Lancaster County roots, stocked with goodies almost good enough to eat, and ripe with opportunities for learning. Visit soon and discover all that’s in store!
Ways to Engage
- Name colors and use sorting skills as you browse buckets of beautiful flowers and and stock up on a rainbow of fruits and vegetables.
- At the sandwich counter, you can put sequencing and pattering to work -- and play!
- Practice counting, number recognition, addition at the cash register and scale.
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Little Valley Farm
There’s so much to do at our Little Valley Farm exhibit. Plant the seeds of learning and watch them grow! It’s all “farm and games” to kids, but they’re actually learning basic STEM concepts, from sorting to simple machines!
Exhibit Sponsored By:
Ways to Engage
- Collect eggs and count a dozen. Our happy hens are a great help with addition!
- Pick apples and sort them by color, then put them back on the tree in a pattern.
- Count the corn in the field, then subtract the bushel you harvest.
- Compare the size of animals on the wall. Which is smallest? Which is largest?
- Explore engineering and a simple machine as you learn how the hayloft pulley works.
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Robotic Arm & STEM Lab
The Robotic Arm is the newest addition to our STEM Lab! This robotic arm demonstrates remote handling, an important way that robots help us in medicine, in the military, finding objects underwater and even exploring in space!
Robots are a form of technology. At Hands-on House, we describe technology as a way of doing: using tools, being inventive, identifying problems and making things work.
Stop by the STEM Lab for lots more ‘bots! Try out coding – the language we use to communicate with computers – by programming Botley, the Coding Robot, or Ranger, our Coding Critter. Take our Robot Hand & Claw Challenge. Use our Snap-Bots, Tinker-Totter Robots and VelcRobots to create your own bots. *STEM Lab activities rotate every 4 to 6 weeks!
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Amazing Airways
In construction, HVAC technicians create a maze of ductwork and air systems to allow heated and cooled air to flow through a home or commercial building.
At Hands-on House, a maze of clear plastic tubing more than 18 feet tall shows kids how air flow works. Kiddos observe objects whoosh and whizz through the tubes and they can redirect airflow at will.
Exhibit Sponsored By:
Air moves through tubes the same way as heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems in your house. Amazing Airways, part of the Construction and Engineering Exhibit, is an interactive exhibit designed to help children learn about different occupations and trades in the construction field, including HVAC.
Currently, the nearest A-Mazing Airways exhibits are in western Ohio and southern Virginia, making this installation a first for our region!
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Construction Zone
Design and build with Big Green Blocks and Rigamajig, a collection of wooden planks, wheels, pulleys, nuts, bolts and rope meant to engage the inquisitive mind and creative spirit of children. This simple set of parts combines imagination with invention, and allows children – and adults – to work collaboratively to construct something life-size! Enjoy plenty of free play with more fun, unique building materials.
Learn about the jobs — and the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) — it takes to build our community. Our Construction Zone is an exhibit in progress! While we build and create, so can you. Look for further updates and additions to this area in the coming months.
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Mason’s Active Adventure Garden
Mason’s Active Adventure Garden gives active imaginations space to learn and play. Featuring a colorful play structure for climbing and sliding, plus flower bushes and paths, a dry rock riverbed, a pretend “shipwreck” and giant percussion instruments, the adventure garden is bursting with discovery opportunities!
Mason’s Active Adventure Garden is provided by the Georgelis family in loving memory of Mason Georgelis.
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