Primary Lit Fest 2015: 1st, 2nd, & 3rd Grade

Canon Mac participated in the primary Lit Fest that was held on May 7th at McGuffey School District this year. Students read the following four novels to participate: Sarah, Plain, and Tall, I Survived the Sinking of the Titanic, The Cabin Faced West, and The Mouse and the Motorcycle. 

Everyone did an awesome job at the different activities relating to all of the novels. A special shout out to our NSI 1 team of Noah, Medha, Nolan, Anna, Jorma, Corinne, and Jack who took 3rd place at this year's primary Lit Fest! Way to go! Also, another congrats to a 4th place win for NSI 2, a team of, Dawson, Alexa, Ryan, Adelina, Cole, Ishaan, Cali, and Julia. A great day for all!

3rd Place Winners!!

A special shout out for Dawson,
who won first place in the art contest held at Lit Fest
for his drawing related to the book,
I Survived the Sinking of the Titanic!
 Way to go, Dawson!

We love books!

Middle School Lit Fest 2015

Our 6th grade students participated in the middle school Lit Fest this year on May 5th at Burgettstown School District. To qualify to compete, students read and discussed four novels throughout the school year. These novels included: The Westing Game, Charles and Emma, Chasing Lincoln's Killers, and Tesla's Attic. It was a fun day all about books! Great work done by all!

Abby, Lincoln (Also known as Charlize), Suyash,
Arya, and Logan. What a team they made!

A special shout out to Charlize,
for winning first place in the art contest
prior to Lit Fest! Congrats!

Science Bowl at the Carnegie Science Center

Check out our exploration of the Carnegie Science Center! Last week, 4th & 5th grade participated in the Science Bowl, a challenge of 4 science themed competitions against other school districts in the Pittsburgh area. 

We had a blast in RoboWorld, where we explored futuristic and past robotics. We were also challenged to build a limitless skyscraper…our only material: index cards! We made a ping pong ball launcher and explored the science behind sports in the SportsWorks! It was a great day for science!

2nd & 3rd Grade Creative Convention

Brain power for brainteasers! Nice work!

Last week, we had the opportunity to participate in the Creative Convention at Trinity East Elementary School. Here, we were challenged to 5 different station activities where we had to work as a group to come up with answers. We had such a fun morning. Take a look at some of our pictures! Also, a special shout out to our yellow and orange teams who took 2nd and 3rd place! Congrats!

Snacks and challenge

Working hard on picture puzzle brainteasers.

Our Orange, 2nd Place Team of Nolan, Noah,
Ryan, Dawson, Cole, and Julia.
Nice job!

Our Yellow, 3rd Place Team, of Medha, Addi, and Cali. Way to go girls!

Ship the Chip: Pringle Challenge

Our 5th & 6th graders competed in a challenge where each group engineered a package to have the smallest mass and volume, while protecting a single chip so it is delivered to the destination (middle school) undamaged. Students used materials such as cardboard, tape, cotton balls, packing peanuts, bubble wrap, a pringle, and other similar materials. 

We made blue prints of our packages, then designed the box that would ship our single pringle to the middle school to be evaluated by the middle school gifted students.  One group will be the victors of this challenge, based on a rubric and the middle school gifted students evaluation. Let's see who can ship a chip in the mail without damaging it and having the lightest packaging! Packages will be evaluated next week!

Sarah, Suyash, and Arya

Abby, Brady, and Eric

Grace, Anna, Bri, Taylor, and Nitish

Bri, Anna, Taylor, and Grace

Alia, Nick, Dylan, and Aarik

Charlize, Logan, and Liz

Halle, Mike, and Niko

Introducing the new Center For Innovation created by California University of Pennsylvania at Southpointe. They are offering so much for education and local school districts. It's really amazing what they are starting and the various corporate sponsors they have. I will be sure to stay updated and give any information I have!

One activity they already have planned is something called Family Play Labs, offered at their location in Southpointe. Family Play Labs give parents and their children a chance to share hands-on fun with science, technology, engineering, and math. The first activity is Video Game Design, being offered on Saturday, November 22nd.  I have listed the link below if you are interested in participating or just wanting to check out more information about all they have to offer. 

Also, here is the link for more information about this wonderful resource we have close to home!

http://www.calu.edu/news/press-releases/2014/11/family-play-lab.htm

Check out the general link for Cal U's Center for Innovation: https://www.calu.edu/academics/colleges/southpointe/innovation/index.htm

5th & 6th Grade Future Engineers!

Our 6th grade students are showing off their engineering skills by designing and building bridges out of popsicle sticks, uncooked pasta, and hot glue. It was amazing to see how much weight (textbooks) we could get our bridges to hold. Great job!

Arya, Sarah, and Zach creating their design

Brady and Abby adding weight to test the strength of their bridge!

Charlize, Liz, Adam, and Logan testing their design!

Nathan and Siena also adding weight to test their bridge's strength.

We also built candy corn catapults to see who could launch their candy corn the furthest distance with their catapult design. We used popsicle sticks, rubber bands, plastic spoons, and glue. Very creative designs were built!
 

Dylan and Alia finishing their catapult. Almost ready to test.

Mike and Halle showing off their catapults.

Siena working on her design.

Ryan about to test his catapult.

Bri and Anna creating their catapult.

UPCOMING SCOPE EVENTS:

Calcu-Solve at Duquesne University 

Where: Duquesne University

Who: 5th and 6th grade students who should qualify 

When: Friday, November 21, 2014 

More information will  be sent out via letter or email by Miss Macek within the next week!

Quiz Bowl 

Where: Trinity School District

Who: 5th and 6th grade students

When: Tuesday, November 25, 2014

More information will also be sent out via letter or email by Miss Macek in the near future!

Our Lit Fest Books are in!! Students will be receiving the first two of four Lit Fest selections for the spring competitions. We will begin in depth discussions about these books within the next week!

Blast Off!!!

Last week, to continue with our Rockets Liftoff activities, 4th grade went outside to create and test some of their own rockets.  We split into teams to fill a film canister with different combinations of Alka-Seltzer, corn starch, and water. We hypothesized, then tested which combinations we thought would shoot the rocket highest into the air. After multiple experiments and tests, we concluded that using less of each ingredient would actually make the rocket shoot higher because there was more room for the gases to build up and explode! Successful and fun day!

Let's do this!

Adding our ingredients. How high will it go?!

Our 4th, 5th, and 6th graders competed in the History Bowl at the Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh on October 29th and 30th. It was a great day exploring the museum and competing against the many other school districts who also attended.  

A special congratulations to our 4th and 5th grade team of Bella, Caitlin, Dylan, and Nick  who took 3rd place in their division!!! We were all very excited!We all had a fun day learning all about Pittsburgh's rich history and culture! So proud of all!

6th Grade 

4th & 5th Grade Teams

A special shout out to Caitlin, Bella, Nick, and Dylan! Our 3rd place winners! Way to go!

Check out our 2nd & 3rd graders who designed amazning K'Nex Rubber Band Powered Cars! Look how awesome all of our cars turned out. We tested our cars in the hallway to see which group could get their car to travel the furthest distance. There are still some groups to complete their trials, so check back for a posting of our results! This should be interesting! 

Addi, Cali, & Alexa

Great racing girls!

Cole & Medha...how far will their car travel?!

Jules had an awesome first run with her car traveling 12 feet! Way to go Julia!

Dawson & Ryan getting ready to have a trial run!