Science Fair

For the second year, I was in charge of the elementary school science fair.  Last year, I just went along with the usual plan - have kids display their posters in the cafeteria on the same night as the school's spring open house.  This year, I requested that the science fair be held on its own night - and got it!  We reserved the cafeteria for posters, and the gym for hands-on activities, and it was a jam-packed night of fun!

The extra crazy part to this (other than doing it alone) was that it was postponed due to a snow day, and got moved to Katie's birthday!  And Chris was in Brazil, so I was alone-alone!  But everything went amazingly well, and I've already been asked to organize it again next year!

Katie and her BFF Sarah managed the Oobleck table (cornstarch & water)

The "tinker table" was a huge hit...I got a bunch of electronics that were going to be recycled, and let kids take them apart!  Then all of the parts went into boxes/bags to be recycled afterwards.

More tinker table

Marble run corner - use toilet paper tubes to construct marble runs on the gym wall

Jessica ran her own station - robotics!!  She was a last-minute guest, because our featured guest of the night, the local middle school robotics club, backed out the day before the science fair (due to the coordinator's uncle's death).  Jess set up her robots, Dot and Dash, and let kids take a turn driving them.  Jess is amazing!

The rubber band and straw rocket table.  I had targets on one of the gym walls so kids could test out the rocket(s) they made

Astronomy art - kids got to draw a planet or constellation, or come up with one of their own!

More tinker table fun

 There were more stations I forgot to take pictures of - the Bean-ie baby table (grow a green bean seedling), the Static Electricity game, the popcorn table, etc.

Meg's science fair project!  How many rubber bands does it take to break a watermelon in half?

Jessi's science fair project!  How many drops fit on a penny (of water, juice, milk, etc)

I forgot to take a pic of Meg's planet poster that she did with some classmates at school.  Her planet was Neptune.  But I did get a pic of this project - kids had to change the lyrics of a song to help them learn the phases of the moon.  Meg's group chose "Stitches" and made up these lyrics.  To this day, when we hear that song we start singing her alternate lyrics!

Science Fair was awesome!  I was soooooo nervous beforehand, and soooooo tired after, but it was all worth it!  And now I have even more ideas for next year!