Science Fair Project

Now that the wedding is over, and our ski trip, and Christmas and family visiting and etc etc, it is finally time to focus on the 5th grade science fair. 

I actually thought this was due last week while we were skiing and I was ok with Owen just getting a zero score on it. He'd still be admitted to junior high, so I don't care. I didn't know the due date cause I haven't read anything in the parent packet book that they sent home in November with all the details, cause I resent the whole thing. But when I texted his teacher telling her we hadn't started and I had a wedding so I wasn't going to do it, she said it was actually due this week and that's fine that we didn't work on it over the break as long as he was ready on Thursday for the science faith. Ugh, ok I guess we get to do this. So that meant that today was crunch time. We worked on it right after school until now - just finished at 10:30pm. We cranked it out and it's done, and I hate the science fair. I don't feel burning hate, just annoyance. It is stupid, but I hope that the one kid in the 5th grade who might have their college trajectory altered by this stupid collective effort gets where their science passion leads them. So, as we made out plan last night, Owen said he needed a poster, so I went to buy a poster at Dollar Tree at 2:30, then went to boulder for an hour, and then picked him up from school. The plan was for me to pick him up after safety patrol and we'd go to Waterford, so the "research" and then have the data he needed. 

We each kicked the hard psi ball 5 times and we measured it with me walking and using my feet at a "foot". Then we let some air out with the inflation needle, until it felt softer, then we each did it 5 times again...

More air out until it was really flat, then we each did our last 5 kicks. Very scientific, I know. That's what this 5th grader came up with. 

I kept track of how long in "feet" each kick was, and Owen's job was to retrieve the ball. He got in his steps. So we each kicked a soccer ball 15 times, 5 times with high psi, 5 times with nice regular psi, then we let more air out of the ball and kicked it with low psi. We didn't measure the psi specifically at all, cause I don't care.

The internet helped with the hypothesis. I did all the typing up and bs-ing of words for the introduction, research, methods and procedures, materials used and conclusion. The one thing that was not bs'd was the date from our research at Waterford, where Owen and I went to kick the soccer ball. We were going to kick smaller balls (miracle balls) to gather more data, but it was cold so I said let's just do the soccer ball and call it good. Got our numbers, went home, uploaded the pics we just took, sent those to Walgreens, took Owen to activity days. After he got back from that, we gathered the stuff and that's when we saw in the packet about all of this that I have not read from until today, that he needed a trifold, not a poster, so then I went to Walmart to buy that. $2.99. Katharine came with me, and I bought her conversation hearts and a cupcake purse. If I take K with me, I usually end up buying her stuff. That's the trade off if I have to take a toddler. Got home, typed stuff up, printed it out, taped it on, done. I'm glad it is complete, and it's due Thursday, not tomorrow! Look at us being done early, woo. I feel confident that he won't be advancing like darn Lily did in 2020 and made me do even more work after it was supposed to be over. I remember learning from Hyrum's science fair in 2014 that we had to be sure to word the hypothesis correctly. Ai helped with that. Lily asked why I was helping Owen, she did hers on her own. I told her I was confident that Hailee's mom helped them a lot. Hence the advancing. Wesley's project in 2016 was more my style. He did it himself, good job. Sophi in 2023 and Natalie in 2024 - I don't remember helping any of them, so that is good. Abi's must have been very low key cause it didn't even make the blog! Ok. WELL, next item of business - Peter's birthday tomorrow. I told him I didn't want to do a party, but then he and his friend Lucy made invitations yesterday, so I guess this is happening....

I texted his friend's mom's to see if kids are available tomorrow after school, and they are, so we'll be doing something from 4-6 tomorrow. Peter's sweet. He and Natalie were trying to make a pinata too. I told them I'll go buy one. I saw them at Winco on my midnight run last week. I'm going to do another one of those right now at 12:20am. Gotta love that Winco is open 24 hours! Abi is taking the car tomorrow, so this is my chance.