Finger on the Shutter

By: Jill Finger

Mar 19 2015

Category: Uncategorized

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On Tuesday, Wes and I went to Morse school to see the fourth graders’ display of their leprechaun traps.  It was a science project.  The kids had to use four of these six simple machines in their traps: inclined plane, pulley, wedge, screw, wheel and axle and lever. Natasha, with her mom and dad’s help, worked hard on hers, building, painting and figuring out how to use the simple machines to catch the leprechaun.  Wes and I were very impressed with the creativity of the fourth graders.  We walked around, looked at each trap and asked the child to explain how it worked.  The kids were very willing to explain and show their traps.  We were very impressed with the creativity.  There were all kinds of children’s toys used in the traps, from Legos to Thomas track to doll house furniture.  There was also many common household items recycled and reused.  I saw a cardboard one pound butter box, plastic food containers of various sizes (you can see one in Natasha’s trap), fruit baskets, a sewing machine bobbin used as a pulley and lots of others. There was decorations too: St. Patrick’s Day fabrics, jewelry, gold coins and glitter were all put to good use in the traps.  We spent an enjoyable half hour looking at the traps and talking to the children.  Creativity is alive and well in Grant D. Morse school.

I am hesitant to take pictures of other people’s children to use in this blog without their permission, so Natasha’s trap is the only one pictured.  It was crowded and would have been hard to get a trap picture without the child being snapped also.