Science + Fair = FUN!

It's official, there's a new Math formula in Sanikiluaq, and it is Science + Fair = FUN! The Science Fair was held on Friday and was a huge success. It took literally hundreds of hours to plan and set up, but worth every minute! The kids had a fantastic time touching, discovering, playing, and learning about science.

The students in grade 7 and high school made huge banners that wrapped around the walls of the gym. My grade 7's, a grade 6 and a couple of high school students helped to hang them up.

We loaded tables and boxes of supplies into the gym during the day Thursday, which was an in-service day for the teachers. Most of them went on the land fishing, which gave Kathy, the student volunteers and me time to set up.

During the week, I had made up some display signs for the tables. I think they were lost on the students, but I cracked myself up! :-D The round bubbles and one little square guy, muttering "What the heck?" Hee hee! We DID make square bubbles, of course!

And of course, I tried to explain some basic science principles with the aid of visual presentations. The two similar magnets have angry scowls while the opposite poles are running happily toward each other to demonstrate that opposite poles attract, similar poles repel.

Yep, gotta love those signs, LOL! Poor little density blob...

I had a "Bed of Nails" that we used to demonstrate spreading pressure over a larger area results in lower pressure, and would not pop the balloon. So I had to draw a balloon sucking in his belly to avoid the nail, and of course, cracked myself up again! My sister will understand...hee hee!

While I got the science stuff ready, Kathy looked after the kitchen to feed our small army of volunteers. It was fun to sit and relax with them in the hall while we ate. And surprisingly enough, I was able to get off the floor on the first try, LOL!

Despite accidentally sleeping through my alarm on Friday morning, and getting to school with less time than I had wanted to get ready, we were set to go at 8:30 am.

I donned my lab coat, again decorated with help from my students, and we were off!

Discovering magnets, and making a colour-changing solution in our magnetic stirrer.

Demonstrating the Air Zooka, and knocking over a stack of cups with a blast of air.

Despite poor Meena hiding her ears, the balloon never popped on the bed of nails.

The surprise over a cup of instant "snow".

We had a huge bubble pool and "wrapped" kids in bubbles. Along with making square bubbles, of course!

The table where the kids made "slime" was very popular.

I was careful to warn the kids NOT to try the sound experiments at 5:00 am! LOL!

Everything on the sound table made noise. Lots of noise. And it was a wild and hairy time with all of the kids swinging the sound hoses all at the same time! But that was the whole point of the fair! Is it the fun of science or the science of fun? The jury is still out...

...but either way, it was still worth the work!

At the friction table, we had a Jello race. One set of cubes were just as they came out of the pan. The other set was slathered in oil. Which ones were easier to grab and put into the bowl? Paper towel handy for oily fingers, of course!

The wind bags were fun...the kids were shown how to hold them about 10" from their face and blow. Bernoulli's Principle in action, the lower air pressure around the opening pulled in room air. The adults all put the bags to their mouth to blow, but the kids could inflate the 8' wind bag in one breath, winning the race each time. They loved it.

And of course, we had some projects on display.

At 4:00, all was shut down and the clean up began. It was an incredible amount of work, and again without my army of student volunteers, I would have spent the entire night in the school. As it was, we ate dinner at 5:30 and sent the tired helpers home with smiles and full stomachs. I mopped the floor at 6:00 and was done by 7:00 pm. Home to a hot bath that felt like the epitome of luxury!

It was a wonderful day. We got many compliments, and I am soooooo proud of my students who helped out! They are fantastic! Yay for them!

That's all for now, I am spending Sunday trying to organize the chaos in the Science room, where all the boxes of supplies went as we cleaned. Oi vey! Only three more years of Science Fairs to go, LOL!

TTFN!

Is it really May?

I look outside and realize that while the calendar says May, the temperature still reads March. It is -7 and we still have at least half of our snow left. Sigh...can someone remind me why exactly a summer-lover is working in Nunavut? LOL!

Plans are well underway for our Science Fair. It promises to be a great one. I brought a few of the "toys" into the staff meeting to talk about what we will be doing. The teaching staff could not put them down! So if the grown-ups had that much fun, think of the great times the kids will have!

We have the Air Zooka to blast cups off of kids' heads. We have the Zero-blaster gun the blow smoke rings. We have the Zeebees popping tops to show potential energy. We have the ever-popular potato gun. We'll make glue, snot, and hovercrafts. I'll demonstrate vanishing water and the instant clear-to-black iodine clock reaction. we'll have sound hoses that whistle when you swing them and palm pipes that make music when you bounce them on your hand. We'll have floating magnets, electro-magnets, and iron in your cereal. We'll have optical illusions and demonstrations of how to fool your brain. And that isn't half yet...

The older kids are volunteering to help demonstrate things for teh younger ones. They will also help to set up and take down the displays, and we'll feed them dinner for their efforts. They have made posters and wall banners, so it will be a memorable event. Holly, if you read this, I have borrowed a tip from Fort Albany and a few reluctant students were volun-told that they would help, LOL!

I will try to get someone to take pictures of the day's proceedings and will post on my blog and on a Facebook album. It will be worth the look-see!

And BTW, heading close to -90 pounds! I took three weeks off my diet to try a maintenance period, as I was struggling to defeat my cravings. Still lost 1-1/2 pounds, so I am certain that the weight is gone for good. Now, if the weather will improve outside, I can begin serious walking/jogging. Alas, it means that the 50-60 km winds will have to go away...please? LOL!

TTFN from the land of ice, snow, and VERY long days!

Interesting....

The grade 10 class was in the kitchen this morning. We were baking a cake as their final test in Imperial to Metric capacity conversion. They all came out okay although the proof will be in the tasting, LOL! I'll have to try all three to give them their final mark...oh darn, eh?

While we waited for teh cakes, the students sat in on cleaning some seals from the recent hunt. They love to eat fresh from the catch, and offered me some as well. I got to try fresh (as in raw) seal liver and meat. A new experience for me. Not bad, but I still prefer steak, LOL!

Anyhow, it led up to a discussion about Michaelle Jeanne and her eating the seal heart in her Arctic travels, and how outraged all of the southerners were. It surprised a lot of the kids, who were baffled as to why anyone would object. It has been their norm for thousands of years, after all. So just an interesting note from the other side into that whole discussion. Yay for my kids for standing up for their beliefs!

TTFN!

Just updating...not too much is new.

I realized that I had not posted for a little bit, so here I am again.

For my Dad, the sunrise/sunset is as follows:

Today (May 1st)

Sunrise: 5:32

Sunset: 20:56

 

It means waking up VERY early in the morning, before 5:00 am as the sky gets light. It means going to bed in the daylight, and not getting to see the gorgeous Northern Lights displays because the sky is still too bright! The light show has been fantastic this spring, with the sky filled almost nightly. They were out again last night, but hard to see with twilight still on the horizon at 10:00 pm.

Stephen and I went to cribbage on Friday night. I came in second and won $40.00, he came in 3rd and won $20.00. WOOHOO! It is a lot of fun, but a tough choice between Bingo and cards for an evening of entertainment each Friday.

We're still waiting for the high school to be finished so we likely won't be in this spring. That's okay. I wasn't looking forward to slogging all of the boxes over anyhow, and my one year term is almost done. Ha ha, escaped the heavy work! :-D

Not much else is new, except that teh tax man will be nice to me this year. He will be VERY nice to me. It will help pay for our family Disney World vacation. Yay!!!!

That's all for today, TTFN!

Another week has come and gone...

It felt like a very long week, but it was a good week.

Report cards were finished on the weekend, and we had our parent-teacher conferences on Thursday. I have many more students passing this term, which makes me feel better. I have been working hard to find alternative ways of presenting the material to the students and it has really been helping. For example: the text showed them a word problem on building a bookshelf with 3/4" plywood, so high and so wide, and how far apart would the shelves be? Well, we first dissected the problem for important information, then drew a sketch on the board, and I gave the students 3/4" masking tape to mimic the "plywood" and had them "build" the bookcase right on the desktops. It worked very well. Another example: we were working on the radius, diameter, and circumference of circles. So first we just drew circles. Then we drew circles to a set radius on teh compass, and drew the radius on the circles. We labelled them and measured them. Then we did the same thing for diameter. Listed the measurements on teh board and found a pattern, namely that diameter was 2x the radius. Next, we took string and placed it around the outside of all of our circles, and measured it. We found another pattern, in that the string was always aroung 3.13-3.15 x larger than the diameter, so we "discovered" pi. The students had it down without a single struggle to memorize anything. Well done, sez meself!

Friday afternoon, the grade 7's and I went sliding. With the snow melting fast, it may have been our last time. I had a ball, and so did they. I went down a number of times until I wiped out and pulled a muscle in my back. Luckily, I was on a snow-covered hill, so I could "ice" it right away, LOL! Then we went back to teh class for hot chocolate, apples, and homemade oatmeal-banana-chocolate chip cake. Yummmmm!

Friday night I sold tickets for Bingo, then raced over to the Crib Club for my weekly card game. I lost only one game, but I was skunked, so I was not in teh money. Sigh....

Well, it has been beautiful weather, and gorgeous Northern Lights nightly, and I think that it would not be a hardship to stay another year or two. Let's see what contract I get offered in June...

TTFN!

What do YOU do with a potato?

It has been a good week back so far. On Monday, I had not a sinlge student in my early Math class. Got lots of marking done in preparation for reports, LOL! Monday afternoon, the floor in Grade 7 room was being replaced so the student s and I walked to the arena and spent the time skating. Or rather, THEY skated and I supervised carefully from the sidelines. A fool I am not, hmmm? Don't care to break a bone so far from a hospital!

Today, the students in my Grade 10 Math class were finally figuring out common denominators and equivalent fractions with some laminated fraction sticks I had made for them. I love to see the light bulb click on as they finally get it, and then they smile and say, "Well THAT was easy!" Ahhhh....a feel-good moment...

And we capped off the afternoon by getting out the potato gun with my Grade 7 boys while the girls were in the sewing room. We all sat in the hall (fewer lights to risk breaking) and they waited quietly, took turns, and cleaned up after. We got to use the idea that gases can compress, and by plugging both ends of the narrow tube with a potato core and then pushing in one end with a rod, the air pressure finally forces the other plug out with a deliciously satisfying "POP!" They all got quite a number of tries. It was a hoot! Man, I love Science! Wish my teachers had cool toys when I was in school...

So Thursday we are going sliding and then I am treating the students to hot dogs and hot chocolate afterwards. Oh, what a hard teaching life I lead! :-D

TTFN!

An Igloo in the Harbour.

Here is a list of the top five ways you can tell that you're in Sanikiluaq:

5) Snow dunes created by the ever-present wind. Just like sand dunes, only colder.

4) Icicles hanging from the side of the house tell you whether or not you got water delivery that day.

3) You get one student in your first period of Math class.

2) Your students address their younger cousins as "Grandmother". Naming after a cherished relative is a way to honour their memory, and if the relative was a granparent, you call them "Grandmother" or "Grandfather".

And the number one way to tell that you're alive and living in Sanikiluaq?

1) You go across the harbour ice to spend time in the igloo!

It was really cool, and I wish I had brought my camera. I'm glad that I have lost so much weight, as I was able to wiggle in through the tiny front opening to sit inside with my students. We then all signed our names into the outside wall, slid down the hill a few times, and then got hot dogs and hot chocolate at teh Northern to enjoy when we went back to class.

A lovely end to the week! Except that my voice has gone again, thanks to a cold passed on from my lovely granddaughter, Typhoid Mary! (Love you, Kayley, LOL!)

TTFN!