Wednesday, February 08, 2006
*!#@&% Science Fair!
Our school has started an annual science fair for 3-5th grades, and a smaller one for the other grades. It has all the makings of being a competition among the parents. There are so many rules! The whole thing is to be done at home, no pre-made kits, no demonstrations at school, you can't just do an experiment, everything must be in the form of a problem or question. Ok fine, now imagine you are 8 years old. Try coming up with something that is actually possible to do (no building bombs or time machines) or where the answer isn't blatently obvious. The last 2 years this has meant David and I had to listen to potential problem/questions for approx. 2 days before steering the children toward one they can actually do. Then *I* have to go purchase materials. This year I had to buy WORMS and a soldering iron (not for the same project, haha!) among other things. Science boards have to be purchased from the school and all the info from your project glued on. Remember, you can't bring your actual project to school only photos or drawings can be glued on your board. This is where the scrapbooking moms are separated from the non-scrapbookers (me). Scrapbooking moms have fancy paper, their own paper cutter, unique stickers, borders, etc. I don't have any of these things, but luckily Ada knows a lot of good clip art sites. It is important to me that the kids do their own work. Ada finished her board last night and Ben will finish today just in time for the Friday deadline. Then we will be done, that is, until next year!
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I am such a bad mom.
I absolutely REFUSED to buy the board from the school...they were selling for $5 what you could get at Walmart for $3. And I even refused to buy that. We had our 10 year old reuse an old U-Haul box. cut it in sections, used tape to make it tri fold, and used some colored construction paper as matting for the white sheets.
What ever happened to reduse, reuse and recycle? when she was done, we carefull took the sheets off the construction paper and the kids used it for something else. The trifold board will be used again next year.
I thought the format of the science fair was just plain stupid. It basically is almost a book report on card board.
It truly is more of a contest to see which kids have been organized and more creative parents.
All my kid did was pick an "experiment" from a book she had and replicated it. We made sure she actually did the experienment...but she could have easily faked it. Of course she waited until the last minute. When I went to take pictures...ack...the printer wasn't working, so i told her she had to draw her pictures instead.
Kinda mean of me, maybe, but this was a lesson in not waiting until the last minute. I had been telling her for 2 weeks to get on the project.
I am not anti scrapbooking hahah...but, man, that just takes a special kind of organization skill I just don't have the energy for. But I admire those that do. I prefer "digital scrapbooking" hahah.
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