For the 6th year in a row, Birchland Park Middle School students built Rube Goldberg machines as part of the Gifted and Talented Program. Kids met after school once a week for three months, taking on engineering challenges. The grand finale was a Rube Goldberg machine, judged by members of our faculty and staff. The goal of the machine was to "make time fly without killing time"; that is, they would make a clock travel without breaking it. All the teams accomplished the task successfully.
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Rube Goldberg was an artist and an engineer who drew cartoons of crazy contraptions. After school, students have been getting together to solve Rube Goldberg Engineering Challenges. Awards are given out for creativity, teamwork, presentation and effectiveness. The team above won last week's creativity award! The team below, won the presentation award. Their enthusiastic presentation complete with costumes was a great success! Visit the Birchland Park Scratch Studio to see some of the great computer programming projects that students have created this year in GT class. Scratch is a computer programming language developed at MIT for kids. Students get to be creative, and be problem solvers, while reinforcing math and literacy skills...and it's fun to boot!
I am so excited! Four of my 6th graders placed in the top ten for the Ralph Salvucci Online Bridge Design contest hosted by the Boston Society of Civil Engineers. They have been coming after school once a week since January to work on their bridges. The goal of the contest is for students to design a safe bridge that costs as little as possible, using the West Point Bridge Design Software. All four students will be invited to attend a dinner to accept their award.
Somehow, I didn't post my Future City information here in January. Birchland Park's 8th Grade Team Kuitesi came in second place in the New England Regional Future City Contest. I am so proud of the work that they did! One of my 8th grade students came up with the idea of having a Science Scavenger Hunt. He organized the event which ran March 4th through March 7th. I plan on making this a yearly event since it was so successful! Thanks to the 484 Phi Alpha Foundation for their grant to support science fairs at Birchland Park Middle School. Some of the money was used for purchasing prizes for the Scavenger Hunt, and some will be used to support student involvement in science fairs next year! Special thanks to ELEEF (The East Longmeadow Educational Endowment Fund) for awarding a grant to Rhonda Theroux, Judy Croce and me, Suzanne Collins to purchase LEGO Robotics equipment. I'm so excited to add the new EV3 programmable robots to our schools resources.
I am so excited to have Mary Jo Maichack perform here at Birchland Park! I asked Mary Jo to work with my students after seeing her perform at the Springfield Museum of Fine Arts this past summer.
These tales make for an entertaining, often funny show featuring classic stories such as “The “Vanishing Hitchhiker,” “The Blue Satin Dress,” (about a dreadful prom experience), an American folktale of three daughters seeking their fortune, and more. “Stories of coming-of-age abound,” says Maichack, a national award-winning teller and recording artist. “Seventh graders are at a crossroad in life, and people have left tales from thousands of years ago, as well as recently, to help them get through it. It’s wonderful that the cultural council supports this program, rich in oral history and even urban legend.” Ms. Maichack has won two national awards for her story and music recordings, performed some 3,000 shows in libraries, schools, festivals since 1989. She was featured several times on WGBY-PBS TV, the Connecticut Storytelling Festival, Three Apples and Mark Twain Festivals and from San Francisco to Paris, France and Venice, Italy. Her recordings can be found at her Web site, www.MaryJoMaichack.com, (also offering details on her many show themes as well as performance schedule) and at www.CDBaby.com. I updated my Contests and Events web page today. If your child needs some extra challenge or enrichment check it out! Some highlights are listed below:
Engineer Girl Writing Contest March 1, 2012 Deadline It is hard to imagine what the world would be like without modern medicine... Spark at MIT (Spark 2013 will be March 16. Student Reg will open on February 19: Register early. Classes fill up.) Program Vitals for Spark What: A Saturday in which you can take classes on a variety of subjects, taught by MIT students and community. When: March 16, 2013. Who: Students in grades 7-12. Where: On the MIT campus. Cost: $30 Kids Are Authors (deadline is March 15) Kids Are Authors is an annual competition open to students in Grades K–8 and is designed to encourage students to use their reading, writing, and artistic skills. Children work in teams of three or more students to write and illustrate their own book. First Amendment Cartoon Contest (deadline is March 15) If you are creative and like to draw, this is your chance to illustrate principles of freedom and perhaps win a prize! Submissions will be judged on the basis of content, artistic quality, and creativity. Six winners will each receive a $50* prize, and will be showcased on the Judges, Courts and the Law web site. West Point Online Bridge Competition begins: January 14, deadline: March 19 Doodle 4 Google (deadline is March 22, 2013) Doodle 4 Google is an annual program that invites K-12 students in the United States to use their artistic talents to think big and redesign the Google homepage logo for millions to see. Jack Kent Cook Young Scholars Program (The Phase One deadline is March 21, 2013) An amazing scholarship opportunity for 7th graders! They select exceptional students with financial need and provide them with individualized educational opportunities and advising throughout their educational career. The application deadline is in April. Rubber Band Contest Design and create a working invention that incorporates at least one rubber band. April 5, 2013 deadline Discovery Education: Young Scientist's (Video) Challenge (deadline April 23rd) In order to enter, students must be in grades 5 through 8, and must submit a video entry online. Students may only work as individuals. Students will be challenged to create a one- to two-minute video that explains their idea for a NEW invention intended to solve an everyday problem. Videos do NOT need to be "produced" or have high production value. Judges are not evaluating production skills. Please check out the Events/Contests tab at the top of the page. I just posted information about Splash at Amherst College. Students in grades 6 through 12 can take classes in a variety of subjects, taught by Amherst College students. The cost is only $10 and the trip takes about 45 minutes. It is happening this coming Saturday, so if you are interested, you should go online right away and register. Many classes are already full.
If you attend the event, please let me know. Also, think about talking to others about this: maybe you could think about carpooling. This morning, when I showed my students the Splash Fall catalog, some of the kids were really interested, and I also heard the comment, "Right! Like I want to go to school on Saturday!" Both reactions are perfectly fine. Week-ends are a nice break from school. If your child likes the idea of learning on a Saturday, take a look. There are a variety of options from learning to juggle to learning Japanese; mastering math to mastering comedy. May 25, 2012 update I registered at Alcumus so that I could try out the website. The problems there are tricky. You answer math questions one at a time. When you input your answer, the program will tell you if you are right or wrong. If your answer was incorrect, you may try again or give up. If you give up, or if you submit a second incorrect answer, the program will explain how to solve the problem. I think that this would be a good website for kids who enjoy challenging math. It also keeps track of your success and progress throughout the site. November 16, 2011 I just found out about a website called Alcumus. I haven't tried it out yet, but it comes highly recommended from a good source. The site says, "Alcumus offers students a customized learning experience, adjusting to student performance to deliver appropriate problems and lessons. Alcumus is specifically designed to provide high-performing students with a challenging curriculum appropriate to their abilities" There are other math resources for kids who enjoy math on my student math page.If you find a resource that looks promising, please let me know. Maybe I'll post it to my site. |
Ms. Suzanne Barricelli Collins
STEM Teacher at Birchland Park Middle School. Archives
June 2014
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