Monday, June 6, 2011

Project time...

School is finally out and I think everyone in our house was ready for a break. The end of the year rush also brought a few project assignments for Blake.

He had a huge social studies assignment that consisted of a series of tasks/projects to earn points. Blake LOVES social studies and was able to work through his list of assignments (classwork) quickly. He made 100+ on the assignment and thinks he was the first in his class to complete his work.

In Math, Blake had an assignment to design a house. Luckily he wasn't graded on the actual plans. Or computer generated photo of his house.

The home was 20,000+ square feet. It was a single story home with ONE bedroom and ONE bathroom (inside the bedroom only), but it did have an indoor pool. The home was also lacking a closet in the bedroom (Blake said you could use drawers) and a dining room (he'll eat in his kitchen...).

As for the photo of the home, he couldn't figure out how to do the background and it appeared that his house was floating in the clouds. No grass. No landscaping. Still, he earned 100% on his assignment because he was able to figure up the size of the house and mulitply it by cost per ft. Then he estimated how much his mortgage would be and based on a formula also listed jobs with salaries that would allow him to afford the home.

I thought Blake's science fair project just might kick his butt. He had to come up with a hypothesis and either prove or disprove it. Luckily he gave me roses for Mother's Day. He was impressed that they came with flower food. And from that, his idea was born - Does flower food keep roses fresher longer?

He had four groups to study daily until the roses died. It took 8 days. He had groups of flowers in water only; with cut stems in water; with flower food in the water; and with cut stems and flower food in the water. He thought the cut stems with flower food would live the longest. Actually the flowers in water with cut stems did.
I helped Blake use my Cricut to cut out his title letters and then helped him upload his photos to be printed, but he conducted the experiment all by himself, took excellent notes, and made his poster himself. Out of 125+ students, he earned 3rd place in the science fair and a $25 gift certificate to Barnes & Noble. Oh, and a 100% for his grade.



Although 6th grade wasn't the best year Blake ever had in school, he did finish up on a high note. His final report card was for all As. Yay!


We are so proud of this kid!

3 comments:

Addie said...

Wow! I am so impressed! He did a great job!
We're getting a new puppy this week and so far it looks like his name might be Blake! There's a picture on my blog!

Melanie said...

Congrats to Blake!!! I hope he accounted for a cleaning service for his 20,000 SF house :)

Melanie said...

Way to go, Blake! It is nice when they get to this age and can do most of it themselves