August 17th - 23rd Triangle 2017

by Pam & Michael Davison

This weekend is a transition between the summer movies and concerts and the fall festivals and harvest celebrations. There are also a whole bunch of awesome eclipse events throughout the Triangle on Monday.

Celebrate Outer Space- Solar Eclipse at Marbles Kids Museum Sunday & Monday. Get fired up for the solar eclipse at Marbles with space-themed activities and out-of-this-world 45-min space docs at Marbles IMAX.

Join them at Raven Rock State Park Monday to experience The Great American Solar Eclipse! Come by the Visitor Center between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. where they will have educational stations before and after the maximum eclipse time, which is at 2:44 p.m.

Join Historic Yates Mill County Park Monday to discover Solar Eclipse fun facts, pick up a pair of eclipse viewing glasses (while supplies last), and head out to the park's open field to view the eclipse directly.

Umstead State Park will have Eclipse-viewing glasses, provided by the Friends of State Parks, to the first 100 people who PRE-REGISTER online. They will also have a Dobsonian Telescope with a solar filter to view the sun before the Total Eclipse and activities for the children.

Join them in Sarah P. Duke Gardens Monday to observe a partial Eclipse of the Sun, and explore with FREE hands-on activities for visitors of all ages!

Morehead Planetarium and Science Center invites you to a 2017 Carolinas Solar Eclipse Party. Join them on the lawn for viewing the solar eclipse (or catch their live stream of the totality line) along with games, food trucks, and so much more.

The NC Museum of Natural Sciences presents the Great American Eclipse on Monday afternoon. Join them in the Daily Planet Theater for a view of the total eclipse from Sylva, North Carolina with astrophysicist Dr. Rachel Smith.

The Museum of Life and Science will explore the Science of the Eclipse all day Monday. They will have three ways to view the eclipse plus hands on activities and crafts all day.

The NC State University Brickyard will host an Eclipse Day Celebration Monday with free solar glasses, telescopes, pinhole cameras, citizen science activities, a weather balloon launch, physics demonstrations, a resource fair, food and entertainment.

Festivals & Family Fun 

Saturday is Honeybee Day at the NC State Farmers Market in Raleigh. Come get your fresh fruits and vegetables while you explore the wonderful flavors of our local honeys.

Do you have a rising Kindergartener? Marbles invites you to bring them to the Museum Saturday for Kick-off to Kindergarten, a free event all about exploring what starting school will be like. They will have a school bus along with lots of interactive school related activities.

The NC State Fairgrounds will liven up the weekend with the Carolina Fall Boat Show & Sale and the Original Coin & Currency Show.

Come together to laugh, play and enjoy fun and games in front of Raleigh Times Bar Sunday for the monthly Third Sunday Children's Carnival.

History

One weekend a month, Historic Yates Mill Pond County Park treats visitors to Corn Grinding Demonstrations. This is the weekend! Step back in time and take a half-hour tour with their 19th century costumed interpreters and watch the millstones at work grinding corn into meal.

On Thursday at Yates Mill, you can learn some tips for Hot Weather Hiking. Come back to the Mill Friday for the Story of the First Corn. Hear a few tales, learn some fun corn facts and make a corny craft to take home. Saturday, there will be two sessions of Country Dancing in the Mill Yard as well as an exploration of the Historic Trade of Apiarists. Come back Sunday to solve a History Mystery!

Thursday evening's Science Cafe at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences will explore From the Mud to the Sun: Military Weather Support with Lt Col T.C. Moore, USAF.

Come and learn about Occoneechee Mountain's geologic wonders as you explore the pyrophyllite quarry with a real geologist on a Geology Hike Saturday morning.

Come celebrate the NC Zoo's African Giants elephants, rhinos and giraffes and learn about their enormous creature features Saturday.

Join a Historic Preservation Society of Durham volunteer on a Durham Civil Rights Heritage Walking Tour to learn about many of the sites in downtown Durham that were important during the 1950s and 60s Civil Rights movement.

Watch spinners and weavers work their magic as part of Cotton to Cloth Saturday at the North Carolina Museum of History's Make it Take it program. Also Saturday, see cotton growing in their History of the Harvest exhibit and learn about how cotton shaped our history while you pick cotton seeds out of bolls, card fibers, and watch the magic of spinners and weavers.

Kids ages 7-14 are invited to join Rangers at Historic Yates Mill County Park Tuesday for a Field School all about Hand Mills and Millstones.

Movies & Music in the Triangle

Thursday evening is Pizza and a Movie Night at the Halle featuring the family flick, "Lego: Batman Movie." Also, a week of Free Kid's Movies at the Halle Cultural Arts Center starts on Monday. Click through for the whole line up.

Acoustic Syndicate will be playing the tunes for Thursday evening's Back Porch Music on the Lawn on the American Tobacco Campus.

Thursday's Movies Under the Stars in Downtown Chapel Hill brings the classic film, Remember the Titans to the big outdoor screen.

The Durham Central Park Concert Series brings Be Steadwell to the outdoor stage Friday night in Durham. Come back after dark Saturday to Rock the Park with the movie Trolls.

Its also Third Friday in Downtown Durham. Kick off your weekend with a gallery crawl and live music.

Friday night's outdoor movie at the North Carolina Museum of Art will be the film, Moonlight.

The Apex Nature Park Amphitheatre will be showing Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children on the big screen Saturday night.

The Lorax will be playing on the air conditioned big screen at the Holly Springs Cultural Center Monday morning.

Enjoy the Outdoors

Join them at Prairie Ridge Ecostation every Saturday to learn how you can become a Citizen Scientist.

Take a Walk Through the Seasons on the 2nd and 4th Tuesday of the month at the Prairie Ridge Ecostation or bring your little ones on Tuesdays & Saturdays for Nature Play Days and Nature Storytime on Thursdays .

The Sertoma Arts Center hosts their monthly Family Nature Night Thursday evening. This week's theme is Backyard Birds. You will learn about what makes birds special, do some bird watching and create a bird feeder to take home.

Nature's Seedlings is a monthly nature discovery program for ages 3 and up held every third Friday of the month at Raven Rock State Park. August's program is a Wildlife Water Safari.

They will be going on a Coyote Watch at dusk Friday and Calling all Coyotes Tuesday at Horseshoe Farm Nature Preserve.

Have some Summer Fun at Crowder District Park Friday after dark. Join rangers to play nature games, observe nocturnal animals, and roast s'mores around the campfire.

Have you ever wanted to introduce your toddler to the woods and not known how to make it fun? Join Ranger Jack for a Toddler and Young Kids Program Saturday morning at Occoneechee Mountain.

Durant Nature Park is looking for some Citizen Science helpers Sunday to help them collect data from their milkweed plants to send to the Monarch Larva Monitoring Project.