Week in Review

Another busy week at our house, but it pretty much boils down to 2 main events. Science Fair & Pinewood Derby.

Nate & Dan had been working on Nate's derby car over several Saturdays & it was pretty much done all they had left was to graphite the wheels, so we spent the early days of the week on science fair stuff. Neither Nate or Abbie was required to do a project & since they both wanted to do one & I wanted to keep my sanity we did a team project. The Reader's Digest version: After talking about how food "powers" our bodies we decided to see how much energy was in the food we eat. We tested 10 foods to see what gave us the highest reading on a multimeter. We tested an orange, banana, lemon, lime, cantaloupe, sweet potato, russet potato, broccoli, grapefruit and an apple. We found the orange gave us the lowest reading & the broccoli gave us the highest. Dan had picked up and "electricity" kit from Radio Shack so we took our experiments one step further to see what we could power with broccoli. We had an LED light bulb, a small regular light bulb, a small motor that turned a pinwheel and a small buzzer. We could power the small buzzer with 2 bunches of broccoli. We went up to 6 bunches and still only could power the buzzer - but the buzzer did get louder. The kids learned to make a simple loop circuit - we had a great time. Dan called home Monday night to check to see if I needed him to pick anything up on the way home - our answer "MORE BROCCOLI". The kids were clamoring over themselves testing everything out in both experiments. There was much cheering, giggling and out right excitement. It was soooooo much fun! We had a terrific time & we impressed everyone with our Broccoli Buzzer. We learned that there's not much power in your food, some has more than others, but nothing we tested had as much as a battery. That said the veggies we tested had way more power than the fruits so the moral of our project - Eat your Veggies!

 My 2 favorite scientists! (Plus a camera sneak)

The project display & board.

 It was also book fair night & Clifford the Big Red Dog made an appearance. Kassie was super excited until she got close then she was shy. But she didn't cry which impressed me since she FREAKS OUT at Santa & the Easter Bunny.

Wednesday was our pack Pinewood Derby. We had some really cool cars & great races. All the boys were very good sports and it seems like most had a good time. There's always a little sadness when you aren't the "winner", but the ice cream refreshments helped! Nate won for his den (Bears) and then won the Pack Champ too. The winners advanced to the District Derby on Saturday. Districts are crazy fast, super busy and OH SO MUCH FUN! I was trembling (literally) the first time Nate raced. I was so nervous for him - he won 1st in his heat on his first race and after that we were golden - I felt like he had some success and we could go on that, not matter what the rest of the day brought. His car was extremely consistent with only .4 seconds between his slowest and fastest times. He didn't win any awards - but his times beat winners in other divisions so we are very suspicious that he was in the top 5 or 10 in his group. His group had the most boys and the highest racing times of any of the other levels. I tried my hand a a video montage of it all - my first ever. Not bad if I say so myself. Nate loves it so that's all that really matters to me. Hope you enjoy it to (notice it's bit raucous/loud).

 

I love my children! I love doing fun things with them! In the midst of a very sad week for me - we managed to smile, laugh & even have a little fun.