SOUTHPARK SCIENCE FAIR WINNER

Just like the Reading Fair, we wanted James to enter the Science Fair this year as practice (at SouthPark, it isn't required until 4th Grade). We bought him a book about science experiments, and after looking through it, he decided he wanted to throw stuff off the balcony and study gravity. To switch it up from the book, we had him toss 3 things at a time instead of 2, use a board to insure everything left his hands at the same moment (give or take), and compare similarly shaped items to control for that difference. He understood the idea and also understood why we asked him to run 3 trials (for repeatability - we didn't get into statistics with him at age 7). And he enjoyed choosing his objects, writing out his hypotheses and making his predictions, and especially tipping everything off the balcony (where Cora and daddy waited to determine which item hit the ground first for him).

 We recorded his outcomes, then he came inside with me to type everything up (I did the typing, he did the narration - though I did assist as needed to remind him of things and clarify what he meant). I showed him how to make tables in Excel (we didn't bother with graphs). We didn't get things printed out until late the evening before the project was due, so we taped it onto his board for him after bedtime (though he helped decide on the placement of everything, and was insistent that we use blue and green backgrounds because they're his favorite colors - and the neon green matched his shirt). We knew that parents helped little ones with their projects, and we also knew that he could explain his project if called out of class to do so, so we were fine with the way things went this year. However, when we do this next year, we'll do the project over Christmas break and not wait for the "proposal" form to come back home with permission (apparently they don't send those home, and we'd been waiting for the go-ahead for weeks...)

 I judged the SouthPark Science Fair again this year, but stuck to the 4th-6th Graders Physics and Astronomy category, and stayed far away from the Category I 1st-3rd Graders. When Jay picked the kids up from school, James was very proud to show off his 1st Place Overall ribbon (and he'll move on to Districts at the end of February). Year one has been a success!