Lopez Lego Robotics Junior League

This summer I was approached by a Lopez parent who was interested in bringing a Lego Robotics League to our school.  We have been corresponding back and forth to put together the resources to create a team.  With her support and the support of the PTA, we are planning to create our first ever Lego Robotics Junior League team this fall!  The team will likely be open to Kindergarten- 3rd grade students (ages 6-9).  This year's theme is "Disaster Blaster", focusing on how to recover from natural disasters. 
Team Members get to:
  Design and build challenge solutions using LEGO elements
  Apply real-world math and science concepts
  Research challenges facing today’s scientists
  Learn team building and presentation skills
  Develop Show Me poster
 
You can read a bit about how it all works here: http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/jr.fll.  There is also a cute and short video here:  http://www.youtube.com/user/JrFLLGlobal.  Over the course of a 6-8 week after-school program, students work as a team to respond to the challenge:
http://www.juniorfirstlegoleague.org/the-challenge.html

Image from JFFL website

 Stay tuned for upcoming announcements about the program!

Contruction Update #4

Another few weeks have flown by and Mrs. Farnell and I are back to work today.  Not at Lopez...but at our temporary digs over at McLopez (a.k.a. McGraw).
We took a tour this morning of the construction work, and there is still a whole lot left to do.  However, the office area might be done enough for us to move in next week.  Keep your fingers crossed!  As a safety reminder, please keep away from the construction zone.  There have been reports of children meandering through the parking lot at Lopez and onto the playground.  Several trucks come and go through there all day, and I want to make sure you all return to school in one piece!

This is the new doorway into the office area.  Mrs. Gilmour and Mrs. Farnell will be smiling back at you!

PSD's Greg McGaffin is standing where new carpet will be laid in the entry way.  The ceiling is open above the doors to complete the wiring for new entry scanners and handicap buttons.

 

Mrs. Farnell and I look like we starred in Despicable Me with our yellow hard hats!

No desks or chairs in here...just miles of sheet metal.

New bathroom partitions are in!  They are color-coordinated with the floor tile.

All of the SmartBoards, furniture, and other surface areas remain covered in plastic to make our move-in easier!

Summer Construction Update #3

Happy July Lopez Families!

I hope you had a wonderful 4th of July and celebrated our nation's independence with great fun and frivolity.  As President John Adams declared, the 4th of July should be "solemnized with Pomp and Parade." 

I started teaching classes last week for Colorado State, so it took some schedule rearranging to get back over to Lopez for a construction update.  There is so much construction that I have to trade out my flip-flops at the front door for closed toed shoes and a hard hat.  Things have really transformed since my last post.  The front office has had some pretty dramatic changes.  The wall between the principal's office and the main office has come down.  They are preparing to create a doorway into what used to be the principal's office from the airlock.  I will be moving my office into an adjacent conference room.

What remains of the principal's office.  The brick area on the left shows where the new entrance door will be into the main office.


As part of the scheduled bond projects, all schools that do not have a secure entry way received modifications.  The previous entry layout permitted visitors to enter the school without needing to go through the office to check in.  The new layout will have a locked entryway that funnels all visitors through the office to check-in before proceeding to the rest of the building. Additionally, this plan doubled the size of the office area where Mrs. Gilmour and Mrs. Farnell sit.  There wasn't much room for very many parents, kids, staff, or visitors in that small space before.

The expanded office area.



Hmm...which way is the exit?



 

 

Additionally, all of the classrooms will have this high tech looking unit that will help to diffuse the air and create better air flow, thus improving our learning environments.  These metal cabinets did have to take the place of bulletin boards or white boards in the classrooms- you can see the outline of a bulletin board that used to be there.  To place these units, miles of new duct work had to be run through all of the ceilings.  We are looking forward to the many improvements!

This is the new unit that will be placed in each classroom to better control air circulation.

Skylights?  Not really, just temporarily while the duct work is completed.

The tin man visited Lopez and left some things behind in the blue pod.

Write Me!

I remember coming back to school after a summer vacation.  The teacher gave us a writing assignment on the first day of school.  I picked up my newly sharpened pencil and found that my hand muscles could barely wrap themselves around the pencil.  What was so easy three months ago was now a challenge!  While I'd read a lot of books and swum a lot of laps in the pool, I hadn't wrapped my hand around a pencil for weeks.  Find ways to keep your kids writing over the summer: grocery lists, stories, high frequency words, poems, vacation journals, facts about favorite topics, or letters to friends and families!  If your child writes a letter to Dr. Gile, she will write back! Email is best since US Mail isn't delivered again until July 29. Keep writing Lopez!