abe won second place for his "bouncing balls" science fair project. he noticed every time he went to phoenix for soccer tournaments, his ball was flatter and wouldn't bounce...so, we let him skip school one day to drive to "the valley." he started in flagstaff (7000 ft), and as predicted, the soccer ball bounced the highest. we stopped at the sedona (4500 ft) and the black canyon (2000 ft) exits and the ball bounced progressively less. unfortunately, when we bounced the ball in scottsdale (1000 ft), after leaving the ball in the car as we ate at maggiano's, the ball bounced slightly higher than it had in black canyon. it was snowy in flagstaff, but 74 degrees in scottsdale, and probably 85+ degrees in the car.this led to a second experiment. he burried the ball in the snow and bounced it, then put the ball in the oven at 170 degrees and bounced it. the hot ball bounced about twice as high.
it was a fun project gave us a chance to get away from winter for a few hours. as abe was putting his poster together on the night before it was due, he was falling asleep around 10:30 pm and we decided to leave the final touches for the morning. but then abe got his "second wind." he worked hard up until 1:30 am, and when it was all done and i finally tucked him in, i sat by myndie next to the fire. suddenly abe jumped around the corner and started laughing. he was still giddy and couldn't sleep. i thought for sure he would sleep through school the next day, but he woke up early and rode the bus, proudly carrying the fruits of his first all-nigher (almost). a good skill to be teaching at such a young age.
sadie also did a project but she was at dance when we took pictures. i will post hers later.
