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We went to the Evening of Excellence at the girls school to see all the stuff they’ve been working on. This included an enrichment fair with lots of fun projects.

We got to see the geocity that Molly, Grace, and Tatum had been working on. It’s a model of Hogwarts built with geometric shapes.

Leah and I created the Sellers Scratcher - a working electric back scratcher, which was a big hit at the enrichment fair. I only had to fix it once (with the super glue I brought along just in case).

Molly’s scale project (where the kids use a grid to scale up a drawing) was of everyone’s favorite droid - R2-D2.

All the second grade bottle buddies were on display. Serena was awesome.

Our roller coaster engineering project was also on display alongside the ride from the other team at our school. Molly and Grace gave a great demonstration of it.

Each 5th grader created a book report with illustrated cover. Molly did hers on the first Magnus Chase book.

We had so much stuff to bring home, our car was full.

Molly and Leah sang with their choir at church again in May.

The girls and Jen did a great job on their teacher appreciation poster for our fantastic media specialist (library teacher). For those unfamiliar, this is a reference to the fantastic book Dragons Love Tacos, including a wonderful dragon drawn by Molly.

Molly performed as part of the Advanced Orchestra at elementary school for her final time. The concert was lovely, and now she's off to play in the middle school orchestra in the Fall (after a couple of orchestra camps this summer).

Molly was a bit more humble this time when they recognized the students who’d been selected for GT orchestra groups.

The day after Molly's orchestra concert was her chorus concert. She will not be doing chorus in middle school, so this is her last chorus concert at least for a while (though she'll still be singing at church).

Jen did a fantastic job for Crazy Hair Day at school with these cat ears.

During 5th grade spirit week, they had another day for crazy hair (or hat). Jen outdid herself with this unicorn hairstyle.

Our school system had an art exhibit at the mall, displaying artwork chosen from local schools. Both Molly and Leah had artwork chosen. Here’s Molly with her alicorn.

Leah had several pieces of artwork chosen. First, this design. It’s her name written by her in cursive mirrored.

Leah’s second piece chosen was more abstract.

For her third piece - a sunflower.

Leah got a new bike! We again went with a used bike from Race Pace. Now everyone in the family has a fancy Trek bike. It looks very big on her, but she handles it great.

For a Curriculum Extension Unit (CEU), some of the second graders created their own inventions. Leah invented the Sellers Scratcher, a back scratcher the she and I prototyped. Here she is making a commercial for it.

She got to show it off at the Evening of Excellence (more on that in a future post).

Molly and her friend Grace formed a team for the Maryland Engineering Challenges 2018 Theme Park Challenge. I served as their coach as they designed and build a roller coaster to compete against teams from across the state.

They cut their track out of cardboard using box cutters.

There was lots of planning and experimentation.

They built their cart out of cardboard, pencils, and fidget spinner bearings.

The track was held up by wooden supports. I cut wooden slats to their requested size, then helped them screw them onto the base.

We went to the Baltimore Museum of Industry to present our roller coaster to the judges. And the ride worked! (There was a time that I wasn’t sure we’d get the ride working.) Our ride was Green Eggs and Ham themed, and our team name was Green Eggs and Girls.

One of Leah’s end-of-year projects for 2nd grade was to create a bottle buddy. The kids created a buddy at home, while researching their famous person and writing a report at school.

Leah (with help from Jen) worked diligently on her buddy for weeks and did a great job. Here’s Leah’s completed bottle buddy of Serena Williams.