Science

Wednesday night we celebrated the arts in the girls' school and today we got to celebrate the sciences.  The girls put together a project for our district's STEMfest (a.k.a. science fair) with one of Millie's friends and today was the actual 'fest'.  The girls all worked very hard on their project -- particularly putting it all together (four hours typing up the material for their poster and completing their lab book last Sunday; kindergarten and first graders do not write very fast ... typing is even slower :), but they hung in there and did it) in addition to setting the project up (which was a little more fun).  This was our first time doing a science project so we didn't really know what to expect -- we just followed the directions as best we could and tried to make it fun for the girls as well as a learning experience.  I think they enjoyed it.  They were very proud to show off their project to my parents this afternoon and even more proud to see that they earned blue ribbons for their hard work and that their project was chosen to go on to the St. Louis Science Fair in April.  We were very proud of them too and hope that they continue to enjoy all kinds of learning.

 The high school robotics team had a display right inside the door -- we had to drag Teddy away he loved it so much (though it wasn't long before we were back again).

 The girls did their project on growing rock crystals -- they manipulated the starter seeds to see if it mattered what kind of sugar they used

We also got to watch lots of cool chemistry experiments -- Teddy was too tired to be very impressed (that's what we get for letting him play outside instead of napping before going).

making bubbles with dry ice

Can't forget physics!  The kids also made rockets they launched with straws

I didn't let the girls eat the rock crystals we made, but promised them we could head to the Sugar Shack after the STEMfest and see if we could find some there.  They held me to that promise :). Luckily it was a beautiful day to walk around downtown and spend some time playing in the park.

We got to do some train watching too!