Thursday, March 24, 2016

EK Science Fair






Today is the EK Science Fair! Children's House and Elementary both paid visits to the Science Fair this afternoon.

We are patiently waiting for the demonstration to be set up!

Some Children's House children helped water the science project plants.

We had a lot of questions about all the new things we learned.


We learned about the effect of phototropism on plant growth rates.


Many of the projects had interactive elements and visitors were able to see firsthand how the projects worked!

We learned what lactase is and collected stamps by taking a quiz at each project station.

There were some unique project ideas - like testing the effect of pencil shavings on plant growth rates!

Xiao zhang also visited and enjoyed learning about all the different science projects.

Wow! That was an impressive launch thanks to finding the best launch angle.

Tuesday, March 15, 2016

We are Experimenting! Science Fair in the EK/HS Program

Our experiments are underway!

It's that time of year in the EK/HS. Everyone has chosen a testable question, developed a hypothesis and gathered materials. It's now time to start testing our question and observing results and gathering data. It's an exciting time to be in our environment....

Researching the project

Checking our initial materials

Careful checking of materials

Still researching the experiment


Beginning to build and getting help from a classmate

Measuring before constructing components

Checking planting material

Recording our experiments using an iPhone

Checking how it looks!

Problem-solving

Our teacher needs to help

Measuring carefully

Sawing wood to construct an experiment

Checking measurements


Yes - science is FUN!

Starting to plant seeds

Building boxes for the experiment

Recording data

Keeping our work spaces neat is part of the job

Troubleshooting an issue

Checking what has been built to see if it will work

More research, work and problem-solving

Building the experiment

Now we wait....

Hummmmmm - something's not quite right

Testing the catapult

Experimenting is underway

Weighing plant pots to collect data

Monday, March 14, 2016

A Day in the Life: San Mateo Infant Community

It's lunchtime! We love eating delicious food that we prepared while also learning how to serve ourselves!

Tuesday, March 8, 2016

Our Batik Work is Finished!

Come and see our HS batik hangings in the San Mateo building!


We have finished our African batik project and are proud of the results. Here are photos that show the second stage of our batik process to finished pieces:

A batik cloth ready to be dyed. The pattern is made with melted wax.
Stirring the cloth in the indigo dye
The cloth is ready to be rinsed and dried
Laying out a cloth to dry
Rinsing out all the excess dye
Reviewing the effect of the wax resist method
Finished batik drying!
Ironing the cloths to melt the remaining wax from the fabric