Jen LaRussa
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Stage Crew Working Overtime, Portraits Finishing Up, and 4th Graders Making Those Gumball Machines Work!

30/1/2016

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I want to thank all of the children that gave their lunches and free blocks to help get the costumes and props done for Ms. Swanson's 2nd grade Music classes' Polar Animal Production on Monday, February 1st at Steward School.  It was definitely a team effort cutting and piecing the many felt pieces that go into the masks.
 
The crazy thing is we have a total of 8 productions this year between Steward and Proctor School.  We will be back at creating for the next show on Monday! Please consider donating to CLIC to keep theatrical performances going strong.  These shows drain the CLIC budget but it is completely worth it seeing the children so excited to perform.  When Ms. Swanson and I rolled the yellow submarine onto the cafeteria stage yesterday the 2nd graders started singing the Yellow submarine song while they were eating.  It was so fun! Kids just love to sing and perform so I am happy to see our schools becoming known for our awesome performances.   

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Busy Week in CLIC

24/1/2016

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5th Grade Science- Color and Light Experiments 
​4th Grade Science- Simple Machines

SIMPLE MACHINES-4th grade science- 
4th graders are coming to CLIC to engineer and build gumball machines that must include 5 types of simple machines.  The children work on teams and must build, test, redesign, and the end result is an awesomely action- packed ball drop machine! 

5th grade Color and Light -
Mrs. Ellis/Nicholson classes came to CLIC to do experiments around the technology of fiber optic cables.  We used lasers with gelatin and water to see first hand how light internally reflects in these substances much like it does in the glass tubes in fiber optic cables. 


5th Grade Car Engineering- 
Mrs. Boucher/Lantz classes came to CLIC to do a car engineering class.  The challenge was to get a Barbie doll 15 feet onto the target.  Students could use wind, catapults, motors.  It was pretty challenging!


5th Grade Performance-
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Mrs. Soloman's class has written plays based on Johnny Appleseed and Paul Bunyan.  We are rehearsing on stage and will soon be creating props and costumes in CLIC for this production.

 
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A Whole Lot of STEAM Going On!

18/1/2016

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6th Grade Science- Building Catapults and Trebuchets

For three days last week, 6th grade science classes came to CLIC to put their physics and engineering knowledge to use engineering and building catapults and then trebuchets.  Building the trebuchets proved to be extremely challenging since there are many factors that go into making the ball catapult forward.  We learned about how trebuchets are first class levers and the fulcrum and exchange of energy and weight is critical in getting the ball to launch forward. The pouch that holds the ball and the angle of of the pin that the sling sits on also became a major challenge.  It is amazing that the children managed to get most of the trebuchets to work since this is really a college project.  The children loved storming the castle in the hall hurling marshmallows, licorice, gumballs over the cardboard castle.  Ms. Strobl and I loved it as much as the children since it was really super challenging but the kids gave it their all! 

Thank you TESPTO for funding this project through the recent THINK BIG! Grant for STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math) learning in CLIC.

STEAM Club- Engineering Bristle Bots with Eccentric Motors

In STEAM Club last week we began a unit on different types of motors. We built awesomely crazy acting vibrating robots from toothbrushes and eccentric motors.  This is a great lesson to teach about how you can make an ordinary motor eccentric so that it vibrates.  These motors can be found in phones, Fit bits, pagers, electric toothbrushes for example.  They turn the toothbrush heads into robots that twirl and and fly across surfaces in a pogo stick fashion. The children were delighted with their brush bots! 
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6th Grade Frog Dissection and 5th Grade Car Engineering

4/1/2016

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6th Grade Science-Frog Dissection to learn about anatomy

I had the pleasure to work with Ms. Strobl and the 6th grade science classes for the hands on frog anatomy lab.  Very rarely do children get an opportunity to do animal dissection and learn about the external and internal anatomy.  It is a natural progression to first do skeleton investigation in owl pellets in 4th grade.  Students then go onto dissecting squid in 6th grade and then do the frog dissection.  Children are such curious and adventurous learners that it makes sense to introduce hands on biology at this age.  Students learn about themselves as well since we talk about the various organs as the students identify the parts of the frogs.  Such a great lab!

5th Grade Car Engineering Lab

Mrs. Boucher's class piloted a 2 day engineering class before the holidays.  Mrs. Boucher wanted her class to design vehicles that could transport the client (Barbie) 15 feet to land on a target with her shoes intact.  She could not be attached to the vehicle so students had to encapsulate her so that she could be easily removed. It sound easy but it was really challenging to get the vehicles to land on the target.  Students were presented with an array of materials including motors, balloons, etc.  By the end of the lab, it was clear to see that keeping it simple and utilizing the different forces worked best.  Some students utilized wind from a fan or made rubber band catapults.  Many ideas changed during the test and redesign phase.
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    Jen LaRussa, CLIC Program Creator and Coordinator at Proctor School in Topsfield, MA.

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