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.
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.
As a 5th grader, Molly was able to participate in Battle of the Books. Her team, The Little Librarians, read 13 books over 5 months. During the “battle” teams were asked detailed questions about the books, including quotes, plot details, and illustrations.
The competition was held at a county high school, where teams from lots of elementary schools answered incredibly detailed questions on the books they'd read. They began by parading into the gym.
Here are all the teams. They each had an adult coach, and each coach served as a monitor for a team (not their own team, in the interest of fairness).
Half-time. This competition was many hours long in a hot gym. Molly was exhausted.
Our principal was even a guest runner (carrying answers to the judges table).
Times up, hold up your answer sheet. Molly was the official scribe for the team.
Nice job to all the teams!
The elementary school again held a fun Bingo night back in March. Jen got Bingo on the first card. Unfortunately, so did Leah’s friend and birthday buddy Grace. Sadly, Grace won the call off.
Jen didn’t win the call off for the outdoor prize package, but she did get a $25 Target gift card as a consolation prize.
These fifth graders enjoyed their last Bingo of elementary school.
Jen won again! This time, she won a raffle for 2 tickets to Luray Caverns.
I got to speak at STEAM Day (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math) to all the fifth graders about software and my job. I spoke last year to both of the girls’ grades (though it was just STEM last year), so I had to do something even better this year.
We did some live coding to give them a feel of coding.
We also programmed a scene in QLab (both audio and lights) live.
The kids seemed to really enjoy it. It can be tough to get kids excited about programming in a talk, but it helps when you’ve got a fun application (sound, video, and light effects).
Molly played her viola for the school talent show again. She decided to embrace her love of Star Wars this time around, which the crowd loved. Thanks to Margaret (her private instructor and also our Children's Minister at church) for accompanying her and having fun with it.
The girls had a Time Travel Day at school, and decided to go with 80s looks again (they seem to love 80s looks).
