Once again, life has been busy and I have not had the time to update my poor neglected blog.
I am glad life is busy as it keeps me from adding too much more to my plate, but I sure look forward to a few lazy days up in the mountains and far away from the city!
As I promised, here are some of the photos from our Homeschool Project Fair back in May.
I was very pleased with how well it turned out. We had 20 projects entered, which consisted of simple projects from kids as young as five to quite involved projects done by a whole family.
We had art work, photographs, Lego creations, models, yummy projects that were shared with all, sweet scented candles, and more. Here are a few samples:
We had a young lady enter a history of Lego's project. It was a fantastic project. She had a great deal of information as well as a few samples of Lego creations and a video she made on an iPad.
Another young lady entered a project showing the geography of South America. She included a game in which visitors were asked to locate the different locations within South America. Sadly, I tried the game and was only able to locate three of her twenty-five listed places to find. Guess what I'm working on this summer? Yep, some geography!
We had a wonderful young lady enter homemade candles, which she made herself. They were very pretty to look at, and they smelled wonderful.
Lady Bug entered a drawing of a mermaid she had done earlier in the year. She loves to drawing.
The history of Popcorn was a hit! Everyone was happy to have a tasty treat while visiting the fair.
Our youngest fair participant was only five years old. She made a lovely painting of flowers in spring.
One of the Lego creations entered, was a Dog Park. He put a great deal of thought and work into his project.
Another little boy entered his project of the human body. He was shy, yet he did a great job telling everyone about what he learned while doing this project.
After spending a few months working on some Colorado history and then focusing our attention to the history of mining, we (the kids, myself, and my mom) worked to create this mining town model and display board with detailed information about mining back in the 1800's and pit mining now days. Having family involved in these projects has been a wonderful experience for us all.
The clock was made by the kids' grandpa for his dad many years ago. We were excited to use it in with our model for the fair.
The kids did most of the work on our model. They, with some help from grandma or myself, built cardboard buildings, a water tower, farm fencing, trees, and even a boardwalk along the old town stores.
We had a great time working on this project and learning a great deal about mining history. With the success of this project fair, we have decided to make this an annual event for our homeschool group and other interested local homeschool families.
Little Man had fun creating a Lego jail/castle, a car, and a motorcycle to go along with the dragon. Wild Thing found a model of the Spirit of St. Louis, and after reading a little about it, he painted the model then went on to make a Lego model of it as well. He also entered a drawing he had done earlier in the year, which he won a ribbon for at the homeschool art show this winter.
And last, our post card collection. A few months ago, we decided to start collecting post cards. We hope to have all fifty states by Christmas this year. We have already been sent cards from twenty states and nine or ten different countries. We were sent some post cards that belonged to my grandma who passed just a few months ago. One of the post cards we were sent is over a hundred years old! We are having a lot of fun collecting these cards.
The word of our project fair reached so much more than I imagined. Though we did not have a huge turn out of those visiting the fair, I found quite a few groups and organizations had heard about the fair we were putting on. In fact, we even met a local council woman that stopped by to support fellow homeschool families. She had heard about our fair in the local paper and as a previous homeschooler came by show her support and say, "hi." She was happy to see these children have an outlet to show their creativity and be recognized for their hard work.
A week after the fair, we held a reception of sorts for the fair participants. We enjoyed some snacks and handed out awards, ribbons, and a copy of all the comments left by our visitors. Before the fair I worked up a comment form for everyone who visited to write encouraging words to those who entered projects. Each project had nearly 20 comments from visitors, all of which were very kind and supportive. There we very simple comments such as, "Great Job", to more detailed comments telling the kids how creative and informative their projects were. The comments may have been my favorite part of the fair. Every kid/teen that entered a project was given a great deal of positive feedback on their project and hard work. I believe this will have a hand in encouraging these kiddos to join in our fair again next year.
There is so much more that went into this fair and even just in our own projects though I don't have the time to write another book to tell you everything. Overall the fair was a great success and wonderful experience for us all. I look forward to our Homeschool Project Fair again next year!
