Eleanor's ELECTRIFIED third-grade-bridge-project

Eleanor's bridge, inspired by Portland's St. Johns Bridge

The third graders around here spend their school year studying Portland history and as Portland has a lot of bridges, they also learn a thing-or-twelve about bridges.  Vertical lift, double-decker vertical-lift, double leaf bascule, truss-beam, cantilever truss-beam, cable suspension, and double-decker steel cantilever truss-beam are just a few of the new terms at our house (those are all bridge design styles, and we have all of them in Portland).  And at the end of the year, at the very end, right when things are getting so harried you simply can't take anything else, the third graders launch into their bridge building project. Which, by the way, is all done at home.  (?@#$!)

Eleanor's drawings of arches for her bridge.

The instructions to the parents went something like this: help your kids but don't help your kids.  Uhhh, ok.  I expected that to mean I should really just throw her in and let her sink or swim.  But the kids were told that their bridge had to be structurally sound enough to hold up a hot-wheels car.  Ok, soooo... that seemed to rule out leaving her to build it out of scrap paper.  Additionally, Eleanor had big dreams for what her finished bridge would include, so I knew I'd have to play some sort of role in this gig.

I love the whole thing (it is the centerpiece on my dinning room table now) but the COOLEST thing on this bridge is the real, working lights.  This was Eleanor's idea and she knew just how to wire-up little LEDs thanks to a series of fantastic after school electronics/robot-building classes from the super-nice folks at Interest-Ed LLC (seriously, try their classes, grades 3-5, best science-y experience we've found thus far).  Eleanor was so confident she could wire this bridge for power she even wrote the supplies list for me.

A famous view from the St. Johns Bridge recreated.

What the parents did:
I listened carefully to Eleanor's grand vision.  Then, I talked her through the discrete work packages involved (sketching and picking a scale = 1 hour; finding supplies = 2 hours; cutting parts, building up land, glueing together = 5 hours...yadda, yadda, yadda).  Then I showed her how this mapped out on our calendar, given her other commitments.  She adjusted her vision some, but still, her goal was ambitious.  And while she regretted the commitment to come home from school and work (instead of play) a few times, it was only a few times.

I worked the utility knife to cut her designs out of thick matt board. I cut the wood base, size strictly set by school. I helped brainstorm supplies, and then helped find them.  I tried to keep her spirits up... this is really the biggest job in any school project: help keep her buoyant when the doubts and difficulties start weighing her down.

Mike showed Eleanor a more complicated circuit, for flashing lights, but in the end Eleanor wanted to go with a circuit she could confidently construct herself (and thus more confidently troubleshoot, should something go wrong with the circuit once at school).

here is that famous view

Art with Gail

Many Sunday afternoons, Eleanor goes over to Gail's house to do art.  And listen to stories.  And eat cookies.  We love Gail.  Here is a piece Eleanor just finished.

Eruption Concoction

Had our kid-posse over today (which is 4 third graders + 1 first grader + 1 kindergartner) and among other things (many other things) we painted and adorned the paper-mache volcano Eleanor and I started LAST summer (and had not finished yet).  Then we tried a variety of concoctions the internet promised would simulate a volcanic eruption.  We've tried the mentos + soda mix (lack luster at best, maybe the type of soda really does matter?) and several baking soda + vinegar mixes (meh). We even dumped baking soda into the regular soda, for a pretty good reaction.  Nothing was that impressive, and I'd like one of you to explain the chemistry going on here so I can design a more dramatic eruption.  Speak up!  Short clip of our eruption here.

a plan (summer 2012)

paper form (summer 2012)

School's Cool

It's the last day of school today, and I'm looking back on some of the cool projects assigned to the second graders this year.  Here is a recap...

Greece Poster: During the neighborhood storyline at school, a Greek family moved into the class's fictional neighborhood, and all the kids were sent home to research four facts about Greece.  They made posters to show what they learned.  This was Eleanor's design, I helped when asked by printing images from the computer and providing straight lines where requested.  There was a 5 euro note taped to it before, but I've taken it off so I can spend it... in GREECE!

Family Poster: The kids did a classroom unit in which they considered what it means to be a family.  The kids were asked to make up an emblem to represent their own family, and then they designed posters incorporating symbols that might be meaningful in their own family (notice the Stewart plaid in the background).  The kids also interviewed "elders" in their families, asking for advice about life.  I love this poster.

Israel Project:  In class, the kids each picked a country to research and Eleanor chose Israel.  At home, they complimented the class research with a creative project somehow related to the country.  Eleanor created a copy of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which we hope to see this summer!

Art:  Our school in Portland doesn't have as much art instruction as our school in Texas had, but the kids do get Art Infusion (taught by parents)  once a month, and Art Cart (taught by a real teacher) once a week most of the Spring term.  They produced many lovelies, here is one of my favs; it's from an Art Infusion lesson...

Animal report:  Right here at the end of school the class was immersed in an Animal Sanctuary storyline, and alongside that the kids were researching an animal of choice.  There is always a creative project to be done at home, to compliment the research and writing they are doing in the classroom.  A lot of this last project had to come home (including the research and writing) because they just had too much to get through the last few weeks at school.  It was a homework heavy last month!  And here is the elephant diorama Eleanor made, with paper mached elephants.

 

Such a cool class!

Eleanor and the Fantastic Ms. Hanes

Stinkin' Cute Santa Craft

My friend Leslie dropped off the supplies and instructions for us to make these napkin rings for our holiday party (we served dinner for 24 people on Christmas day, but we reserved these rings just for the kid-sized guests).  After I did the measuring/cutting, Eleanor did the rest.  Stinkin' cute!

Making Christmas

December is busy with homemade goodies.  Gingerbread houses (even doll sized ones), cookies and gifts...

Monster Class

My friend James DeRosso offers clay monster making workshops for all ages.  A small group of friends had a monster bash and here are the results!

Eleanor's Laundry Delivery Machine

Eleanor and I talk about machines and this summer she started creating makeshift, pretend machines out of the recycle bin.  Here and there, all very pretendy, nothing attempting functional parts.  But recently she busily went to work making a laundry-in-the-basket machine in her room, so self driven I didn’t know anything about it until I stumbled into one night.  She crafted what were essentially pulleys, but as they were made from corks and cardboard they didn’t really work.  However, the concept was solid and really exciting to see come out of her brain.  Anyway she hooked this elaborate thing up across her room from the top bunk to the laundry bin in the closet (this is the second rigging system in her room, so it’s a bit like a spider’s den in there).  She couldn’t make it work exactly, as you might imagine with just tape and yarn and crappy supplies.  So one afternoon I bought a couple of small pulleys and some strong twine and left them in her room.  Just to see what would happen.  We came back from a date that night and Mikey + Joseph (Laura's boys, they were babysitting) had helped her reconstruct the whole apparatus into a semi-functioning "machine" that delivers laundry from the bed to the hamper.  You'll note from the video that she hasn’t figured out how to get the clothes to reliably fall off the line on cue, so if you have ideas speak up. 

Night of the Shark and Our Timeline

One weekend in early September (while Mike was at the Badger game in Corvallis), Eleanor, Sabina and I headed across the bridge to historical Fort Vancouver for "Night of the Shark."  Fort Vancouver was the British fur-trapper trading hub for this area way back in the day before American settlers started coming in, then it was one form of settler and military outpost.  Night of the Shark is a night-time reinactment of life in 1846 = an electricity free zone with kitchens that use giant wood fires, blacksmiths that use cool, firey blacksmith stuff and all of it is done by candle light and torches.  It was so great!  The night was cool and clear, and the kitchens were actually cooking so they were warm and smelled fantastic.  The blacksmiths were actually at work so the shop was warm and smelling of hot steel.  The volunteers were all in period dress and in character, as they were preparing to take in the refuges from the shipwrecked Shark downed near Astoria.  I couldn't get good photos of the coolest of these night-happenings, but before the sun went down the girls and I milled about the Oregon Trail settlement camps outside the fort, where they got to do laundry and play with period toys.



This whole evening was well worth the time and the throwing off of our nighttime schedule.  And, it was the final straw that launched our timeline project.  Eleanor likes historical auto/biographies, fictional and non-fictional alike.  From Oregon Trail diaries to Laura Ingalls to Johanna Reiss to Kit Kittredge.  I keep trying to tie other events we learn about to the timeline that runs right through the people she knows through these autobiographies, so we finally put marker to butcher paper and laid it all out on the wall.  We'll add as we go...