Did second tour only, starting in Pyramid/Ascending Dragon room. Students enjoyed analyzing the pyramid picture and talked about the different views – arrived at the extraterrestrial theme themselves. Cool. Talked about the polygraph experiment and art piece. In substrate room, the sketch on the wall with the long fuse and tiny person was a hit; close looking rewarded. One student thought the explosion looked like a toasted marshmallow.
Hercules was recognized from the art session upstairs. Nice to see in real size. Canvas on Moon inspired good discussion (2nd graders!). Mandala a thought-provoking hit. In the first section, our last stop, only had time to pass by the window shade piece (new substrate!), which they liked, and briefly the colored Gunpowder Study in the first section.

Would like to try the dragon story somewhere. Didn’t have time for more than one activity (substrate search); work on making more time for another. For me, second hour groups are more squirmy; thinking of doing something physical in the garden before going inside.

An amusing question: What’s the substrate of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?

Canvas to the Moon – drawing activity – Discussed meaning of extraterrestrials (they don’t know). Discussed outer space and imagination. Ss were asked to imagine they were in space and to sketch what they were looking at from a prone, backward position. Ss very engaged. 4-5 minutes sketching. Showed pix of earth from moon. Discussed moon landing, etc. 
Gunpowder Study for October Revolution – Discussed color mixing. With scarves, Ss emulated fireworks and then were asked to “experiment” with the different colored scarves to see if they could make brown. Question: did the experiment succeed? “No”. Discussed that most experiments don’t work. “What would scientist/artist do?” “Try again!”
This was a very engaged, inquisitive, and responsive group. I don’t believe I would do anything differently with a similar group.
The teacher of this group told me that coming to PAM was the most favorite field trip every year. She shared that the Docents were always attentive and good with the students, and the activities were always excellent. She enjoys the way the Docents interact with the Ss.