Fabulous Rocketry!

The Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum had a homeschool rocketry workshop last Thursday. Mi'ita had a truly fabulous time.

There were over a hundred homeschoolers with their families there and the potato shaped man coordinating the show was overwhelmed. He pulled it together, though, and got the ball rolling. They broke into two groups--Kindergarten through 4th and 5th graders on up. Mi'ita found a friend right away, another 4th grade girl.

The teacher for the K-4 crowd was a dynamic speaker who really engaged the kids, periodically getting them to HOOO-RAH in unison. They learned about lift, drag, thrust and gravity in a short lecture. The rest of the time was spent with hands on activities. They built a tower with tape and straws, I think to team build. Then they spent a good amount of time building a rocket out of a plastic liter bottle, duct tape, a three inch solid foam block, a plastic bag, and a soft foam square. They had an egg, the "eggstronaut", that they had to protect when they launched the rocket.

Parents had to stay with their kids. It wasn't a drop-off-and-pick-up-later event. In Mi'ita's group, there were three students and three adults. There would have been four, but I sat in the corner and read my book instead. How many adults do you need, really? And if the kids are going to learn anything, the adults need to take a back seat, I thought. Plus my book was getting good.

The part I liked best about this workshop and about homeschool groups in general is the many ages of the participants. There were babies crawling around, and 2 year olds, and high schoolers. Wow! A place where babies are welcome to be a part of life! Why can't the rest of our society do that?