Another school year in full swing

Tomorrow is the last day of October.  We have been in school for 2 full months now.  It's the end of the first quarter and, in three weeks, the end of the first specials block.  I have to say, the beginning of the school year has been a blur! So much has happened here that I may have to do two posts to catch you up.

We started off the year with our usual Friday Challenges. This is a great way for our new and returning students to get to know each other. The whole school gets split into teams and they rotate through team challenges.  That was followed by the All School Building Challenge. This year's challenge was to build a structure out of pasta and mini marshmallows. It proved to be very challenging as the kids had to work with a budget.  They found out very quickly how hard it is to stick to a budget...and that things can happen to make you blow your budget!  The kids moaned and groaned a lot and I found myself repeating "welcome to the real world!" :-)

Once we got settled into the school year, the individual classrooms began their own projects. Sboogle learned about Native American culture and created archaeological digs. They used the artifacts they dug up to identify the specific Native American culture those artifacts belonged to.

Team A/A learned about plants, pollinators, and PA history.  The field trip below was to a butterfly garden in Tudek park.  I got to go along on this one!

Team M/K began working on their weather project. They watched Storm Chasers and I even saw them doing some activities outside that had them simulating tornadoes.  At least that's what it looked like from my view! Their students are in training to become weather experts and, eventually, storm chasers.

Team M/R continued with the "building with pasta" theme.  Their class built skyscraper models out of pasta and glue sticks.  These buildings had to have a structure on top to place an egg in. In addition, they had to be built strong enough to withstand the earthquake shake table!  The tallest tower came in at just under 9 ft tall...and almost all of the towers stayed intact during the "earthquake".  We have quite a classroom of architects!

Building a tower

The almost-9ft building

Placing the egg on top ever so gently!

To be continued....

And another year flies by....

It's hard to believe that the school year has almost come to an end.  We've been busy doing EYOP's (end of the year projects) and taking field trips. Part of today was spent cleaning out lockers.  Oy! You should have seen the stuff coming out of these lockers!  Anyway, I thought I'd catch you up to speed on some of the fun things we've done here at CLC to finish out the year.

Team M/R: No-weld recumbent bike building.  They basically take apart bikes and piece them back together as recumbent bikes. Pretty cool!

 CLC Circus: We had a lot of circus-type things happening during ESP for a few months so it was only natural that the kids wanted to have a circus to show off their new talents!  There was juggling, hula hooping (and not just ordinary hula hooping either...swing-your-leg-through-the-hoop-then-over-your-neck kinda stuff!), unicyclists, and acrobatics! It was quite a show, these kids are SO talented!

Entering the "ring"!

Student Representative Voting: The students had to vote for a teacher to represent them on the CLC Board.  Siobhan and Deb were the candidates and they each put on a great campaign! In then end, Siobhan took home the title of Student Representative by only a few votes.

Deb and her campaign manager

Private voting booths

Showing off their "I Voted" stickers

In addition to all these fun things we took an all school field trip to the Duquesne Incline and Pittsburgh Zoo, finished up our Specials classes with a rockin' assembly (all our rock bands performed!), and watched the 8th graders graduate.

It's been a great year at CLC! Next year we have some BIG changes coming.  The school is going to go under some big renovations, we can't wait to get it started! Be on the look out for blogs documenting the renovation process!

Have a wonderful summer everyone!

Tumblewood Challenge

This week we started the writing PSSA's. Yes, it's already that time of year again.  While the 5th and 8th graders were hard at work writing their little hearts out, the 6th and 7th graders got to work on a project together.  This year, Morgan organized a challenge...the Tumblewood Challenge to be exact.

The challenge: Build a structure using only balsa wood and wood glue (and a few other tools to cut/trace). This structure will then be sent rolling down a ramp to see how far it will roll. Then, the ultimate challenge! Weights will be added to the structure, little by little, to see how much weight it will hold.  

Do you know how much weight a small, round balsa wood structure will hold?  I bet you Hershey's Special Dark chocolate bar that your guess would be less than what our Tumblewood Champions structure held.  Keep reading to find out the winning weight....

The balsa structure is under all those weights!

Rolling a structure down the ramp

Too nervous to watch! Notice the structure bowing under the pressure

It's very nerve wrecking!

Brian getting the best angle
 

Anticipating the next weight

And finally....the structure that held the most weight.....

330 POUNDS!!! What??! Did you guess anything close to that? You should have heard the cheering in the room, surprised us all that it would hold that much! 

All School Science Museum

Our 2nd annual All-School Museum was held right before Spring Break.  This year our theme was SCIENCE and each classroom chose a different topic to highlight.  With infinite topics to choose from, I knew each classroom would be totally different....and they didn't disappoint! 

Team M/R: The Science of the Circus.  It was here you could learn about what muscles are used to do trapeze work, how escape artists prepared for the acts both mentally and physically, how to ride a unicycle, and how hypnosis is performed.  There were also some clowns running around, I didn't stay in that room long! 

You can't go to a circus and not have popcorn!

The muscles used by a trapeze artist

Demonstrating an escape artist trick

Team Sboogle: Cave Science.  All students in this class were trained to be tour guides through the cave.  The three parts of the cave were depicted in the room starting with the lightest part going to complete darkness.  Tour guides talked to "tourists" about cave animals and formations that can be found throughout.  I tried to take pictures, but it was really difficult to depict the coolness of this cave, you just had to be there!

Tour guides 

This part was totally dark and looked super cool, definitely felt like a cave

Team M/K: Great Inventions.  Students created their own great invention and demonstrated it for onlookers. Have you ever realized you forgot to turn the light off after getting all warm and snuggly in your bed?  Do you wish there were an easier way to clean up dust mites? Do you want an easy, yet stylish, way to carry your cell phone?  Well, these kids had the answers to all those questions and more!

Sunscreen Invention

Easy way to open a bag of chips 

Remote control duster

The Light Turneroner Invention

Team A/A: The Green House.  Educating us on the "green" way of living! The room was sectioned off demonstrating how to live greener in the living room, bathroom, garage, kitchen and so on. It was fascinating to see what homemade items can be substituted for things that we buy pre-made and full of chemicals in the store.  Did you know that you can use a mixture of cooking oil (1 part) and water (6 parts) in a spray bottle to act as your own chemical free version of PAM cooking spray?  Did you know homemade laundry detergent gets stains out better than store bought detergent? There is proof, the student showed it! I also got a cinnamon skin treatment that left my hand feeling quite soft.  Who doesn't like home remedies?!  Students also talked about things such as hydropower, solar energy, electric cars and more. 

It's pretty amazing how this school is transformed on the day of the museum. The students and staff (and, occasionally, parent volunteers) work so hard to create and demonstrate the topics chosen, they literally rebuild their rooms to create the perfect atmosphere.  It really is worth stopping by to check out the next time we have one, you won't see anything like it anywhere else!

A Brand New School Year

Where have these last 7 weeks gone?? Seriously, I feel like it was just yesterday we were watching the kids walk through the door, back from summer break. Since the last blog post (back in April... I feel like such a slacker!) CLC has been quite busy and I have lots of stuff to share.  For today, I will just share with you two all-school team building activities we started the year with.   

Our annual Friday Challenge takes place on the first Friday of the school year.  All the kids are divided up into teams that will then rotate through several activities, all led by our trusty group of teachers.  This is a great way for the kids to get acquainted with each other and to start learning how to work as a team. We are big on team building here.  Here are some fun pictures from the day!

Launching a rocket

Egg obstacle course

Playing hand ball

Trying to get the ping pong ball across the cups

The second all-school activity was the Bridge Building Competition. Each 5th/6th grade classroom teamed up with a 7th/8th grade classroom.  Teams of two (or three) were then formed within these groupings.  Each team was given 1 box of spaghetti, 1 hot glue gun, and 5 glue sticks with which to create the world's strongest pasta bridge!

Their task: build a bridge that will support the most weight as compared to its mass.

The day of the competition was a whirlwind of excitement and anticipation.  The big room was set up to project images of the teams on the walls as they completed their bridge weighing task.  Two weighing stations were set up on either side of the stage with one big screen in the middle projecting the team names and their statistics.  As bridges collapsed you'd hear a collective gasp from the audience.  If the bridge held the bucket of rice without collapsing the audience would burst out in cheers.

Pasta Bridges

More pasta bridges

Preparing the bridge

A diagram of what happened on the stage

A good shot of the image projected behind the team

Now all of the teams are well into their first projects as individual classes. We've had CSI teams combing the school for evidence in a string of thefts; hot air balloon building; a class trying to convince people to change their behaviors for the good of the Earth; and another doing a marketing project.  

During all of this we've started our Fall block of specials, coffee houses, fundraisers, and super cool after school clubs.  But, I'll save those stories for another time....

Gettysburg

The 5th and 6th grade classes studied the Civil War for a couple of months this year.  So, what better way to wrap up the lesson than with a trip to the most famous and important battleground of the Civil War... Gettysburg!

We started off by taking a bus tour through the town and battlefield areas.  Our guide pointed out some really neat things such as a house that had painted white over each bullet hole so that you could see them; the house that Abraham Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address in; and the house where the only civilian to die during the battle succumbed to a gun shot wound. (The civilian's name was Jennie Wade. She was kneading dough to make bread for the Union soldiers when a Confederate bullet came through the door of her sister's house and struck her).

Our guide stopped the bus a few times so that we could get off and get a closer look at some monuments and canons.

Then we practiced marching like a unit of soldiers...

 My favorite part of the day was climbing to the top of Little Round Top, which is one of the most significant locations on the battlefield.  This was where the Union soldiers, led by Colonel Joshua Chamberlain, charged downhill toward Confederate soldiers with only their bayonets.

The view from the top of Little Round Top

Our tour guide talking to the kids about the battle on Little Round Top

After our bus tour it was time for a Ranger program activity.  During this activity the kids learned how to march together, take commands from their leader, and prepare their weapons for battle.

Here are the soldiers preparing for battle

We all had a lot of fun, but there was a bus fully of sleepy kids coming home.  Guess all that marching wore them out!