6-11-2020 Learn How to Make a Paper Balloon

Practice the art of Origami and learn how to make a paper balloon.  

Find out more about this activity and learn more about how different shapes are used in architecture at this link.  

• How could you decorate your balloons? 
• Try different sizes. 
• What other shapes can you create with Origami? 

Martha Thornburgh: Mount Vernon Schools Teaching and Learning

5-27-2020 Code a Dance Party

Jump into Code.org and Code a Dance Party.   Code.org will take you through all the steps to help you create the code that gets your characters dancing.  When you finish the Dance Party challenge choose another activity and learn even more about coding.  There are coding activities for preschoolers to senior citizens.  Give it a try.  It is a great way to practice problem solving, sequencing, logic, algebraic thinking and creativity.  

Martha Thornburgh: Mount Vernon Schools Teaching and Learning

5-26-2020 Build a Straw Rocket

Learn how to make a Straw Rocket.  Experiment to see how you can improve your design by making a new rocket and changing one thing each time until you find the very best way to make your rocket so that it will fly the farthest.  

• Record and graph each change that you make.  
• Share your best attempt in a video.  
• Find out more here.  

5-14-2020 Family STEM Challenges: Make a Rube Goldberg Machine

STEM Challenges are fun and a great way to learn new things.  There are many challenges that can be done at your home with things around the house.  Need some ideas.  Here is a list of 77 ideas for Family STEM Activities.      One of my favorite ideas is to make a Rube Goldberg Machine.   I love this activity because you can use ANYTHING to make it.  And you can keep on adding on to make for even more fun and changing.  

Check out this TED Talk by OKGo.  This band is incredibly creative and makes some amazing Rube Goldberg Machines in their music videos.  In the Ted Talk they share how to come up with good ideas.  

If you are interested,  here is a playlist of more of their music videos.  

Rube Goldberg Machines can be created by all ages.  If you and your family create a Rube Goldberg Machine, share it with us in the comments.  

5-7-20 Bulldogs Make Great Nurses

Yesterday, we shared that it was National Teacher Appreciation Week. I hope that you took some time to connect with your teacher and let them know that you appreciate the hard work and creativity that they put in to helping you learn.

But there is even more to celebrate. This week is also National Nurse Appreciation Week. Nurses work hard to keep you well, and to comfort and care for you when you are sick or hurt. At this time of a world wide health crisis, nurses are on the front line, risking their own health and safety to help others. Throughout history, nurses have been brave warriors who risk a lot to help others.

Miriam Witt is a Mount Vernon High School Graduate who is currently working on her Master's Degree in Nursing and has used her skills and compassion to serve people in need all over the world. Read about her work in her own words.

Miriam Witt

I am a nurse.

I am a disaster response nurse.

I have traveled to areas on this planet where earthquakes hit, caring for patients sitting outside of their crumbled homes. I have traveled to war zones, changing bloody dressings of wounds caused by bombs. I have worked in refugee camps, providing nursing care to malnourished and anxiety ridden patients. The type of anxiety where you see their bones shaking through their skin. That kind. I have lived through a major fire in Southern California, driving through flames to get to work the next day. And I have walked with refugees crossing the Venezuelan border, entering into Colombia for basic human rights.

And here I am. Working as a hospice nurse in the time of Covid. People thought I was crazy when I put my backpack on my shoulders and bought a last minute ticket to Nepal after a major earthquake hit. I was called ignorant when I let my friends know I was headed to the border of Syria to care for victims of the Syrian war. Some people didn’t quite understand why I would travel to Colombia to provide medical care to refugees fleeing Venezuela.

I listened to my heart when it called me to these places. And you know what all of that prepared me for? Right now. I learned through these lived experiences that courage emerges when I stare fear in the face and take one step toward it.

Lately, I have been taking huge leaps forward, lunging into fear. I put the same scrubs on I wore in Nepal and the same danskos on I wore throughout nursing school and I step into homes with a mask covering my smile and a gown covering my body and I hold a Wife’s hands as her Husband passes away in front of our eyes and I just know that through the mysteries of life, every step has led me here. I used to think that sometimes, kismet happens. I now know kismet is continually happening, it just takes us a little longer to see it.

I’m not only proud to be a nurse. I’m empowered to be on the front lines providing care in the midst of this horrible virus. Covid is swirling all around me like a hurricane and I won’t let it stop me from caring. I won’t.

Miriam Witt: Mount Vernon Bulldog

Watch this video that shows some of the accomplishments nurses have made throughout history.

  

How can you say thank you to a nurse you know who has helped you or helps others?  

Here are some ideas:

• Write a letter or make a card to say Thank You.  
• Create Hearts to put in your windows to show nurses you care and you are thinking of them.
• Bake cookies and share with nurses working in a hospital or clinic.  
• Would you like to be a nurse?  Find out what you need to do to become a nurse.  

Martha Thornburgh: Mount Vernon Teaching and Learning

4-24-2020 Cardboard Challenge

Check out this great video about a boy named Caine who created his own arcade out of cardboard!  What games would you create for your arcade?  What other materials do you have around your home that you could use to construct a game? 

Challenge:  Create a game that you can play out of cardboard and other recycled items around your home.

Materials Required

• Cardboard boxes of different sizes and shapes
• Scissors
• Masking tape or painter’s tape which can be removed easily
• Household recycling items (cardboard tubes, egg cartons, plastic containers, etc.)
• Craft supplies for decorating (markers, pipe cleaners, buttons, pom poms, glitter, bells, paper, aluminum foil, etc.)

Instructions

1. Come up with a creation using cardboard boxes of different sizes and shapes that can be played with. To help spark ideas, consider these questions: What might the creation look like? What part of the creation do you want to start with?
2. Using household recycling items and crafts supplies decorate the cardboard creation.
3. Create a narrative to go along with the creation.
4. Share the creation with others.  Post a picture or video of your creation.  

Martha Thornburgh: Mount Vernon Schools Teaching and Learning

4-17-2020 Make a Jigsaw Puzzle

Puzzles are always fun to put together.  But they are also fun to create.  You can make your own puzzles at home and then share with others in your family to put together.  Here is a simple idea using a cereal box.

Martha Thornburgh: Mount Vernon Schools Teaching and Learning

4-16-2020 Tower Building Challenge

You can build with all kinds of different things that you find around your house.  One suggestion is to build a tower using index cards.  If you don't have index cards, you could use playing cards.  

1. How tall can you build your tower?

2. What strategies did you use to make your tower strong?

3. What is the highest tower you can make with 20 cards? 

4. What shape is stronger?  A triangle, a rectangle or a cylinder?

5. Is your tower strong enough to hold something on top?  What can it hold? 

6. What other materials could you use to build a tower? 

Martha Thornburgh: Mount Vernon Schools Teaching and Learning