Alyssa entered the science fair again this year. We were really proud of her for effort ... she started this one ALL on her own. Came down and showed us her water cycle diarama. We had to kind of work backwards with the rest of the project and give her some ideas and direction on a new diarama. I didn't think her "two days" with 5-10 minutes of work, quite counted as her best effort. So, here is the "before" picture diarama and the after!
Not bad considering I was out of town and she just used supplies she could find in her room or the art cupboard in the kitchen. The clouds weren't staying up very well with toothpicks and the mountain was entirely covered with snow because she couldn't find brown paper. It was also caving in because she didn't know what to stick behind it. I like that she added flowers and bushes. She said it looked to plain and needed more color so she used markers to dot the grass. I felt like it needed a little more effort though so I gave her more options for supplies and she did this instead. 
Yes, if you look closely, there is real dirt glued to the mountain and glitter paint on the water to make it shine like real water. And the grass and bushes on the green ... parsley, crushed mint and rosemary for the trees on the mountain. It was her idea ... I actually had a bag of rosemary that I had dried in my craft room. When I opened it to see what it was, she got excited and said "trees" ... so that's what we did. They wouldn't stand up on the flat part so we went with the other spices instead. And if you look closely, she also drew in wavy lines for the water evaporating under the sun and then rain drops falling from the clouds onto the mountain . To learn more about the water cycle (beside building the diarama) we had her melt snow, boil water with a lid on and with a lid off to watch it evaporate and condense. The science end was a little lacking, but she really learned the water cycle so I was proud of her.
She was one of just a few in 4th grade that entered and she got 3rd place in her grade. I'm proud of her desire to learn, to do projects, to create! She really loves science so this is really a good opportunity for her ... plus starting in 5th grade its required by most teachers. She also got a lot of comments about her diarama from peers about how cool it looked, so that's good for her too. Its so fun to see her happy and feeling successful. ... oh, and forgot to mention it also doubled for a required project for class the week after the science fair. She had to do a presentation on how the water cycle works and have a visual aid of some kind (poster, diarama etc). Smart kid ... plan ahead and kill 2 birds with one stone!
I really love this kid ... even if she challenges me!! She is smart and independent and creative.
Another Lyssa "thing" is having a club. She loves to start clubs and has started TONS of different ones (earth club, book club, etc) but I think she's finally got one that's going to stick for a bit. She has 3 members who usually come on Wed for "princess club". She has a craft book that has different princess crafts so they make tiaras and all kinds of things. This week she even let Jessica and her friend Aly (whose big sister Mady is also in the club) join them and they made tiaras for the little girls. Its fun to watch her so happy with friends over.
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