Summer Newsletter
In this issue >>>
A Weekly Insight into MMS Summer Enrichment Camp 2013
SPACE IS THE PLACE
Students enjoy hanging
out in their space ship.
Beginner’s Play Ball!
Little Scientists
Space is the Place
Woodworking
Summer Olympics
Week Two: 17 June - 21 June 2013
Issue
TWO 2013
Science at “the hop”!
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Beginner’s Play Ball!
Play Ball! Camp in the Little
House was lots of fun this week.
The students explored different
sports through work in the
classroom, had a dress-up day,
made football rice krispy treats,
and completed a baseball art
project. The week concluded
with splash day and the students
learned about water sports.
There were many sports books
in the classroom to read, and
the students learned the song,
"Take Me Out to the Ball Game."
The students tried throwing a
football, kicking a soccer ball,
and shooting a basket with a
basketball.
Ms. Crystal Sorrow and Ms. Christina Wegner Ms. Summer Pitt and Ms. Ursula Hagood
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Little Scientists
This week our campers became “Little Sci-
entists”!
On Monday, we learned that the word science
comes from the Latin word “scientia” and
means acquiring knowledge. The children
were cute when they asked, “What does
knowledge mean”? A perfect lead into ex-
plaining the many different fields of science
and that science does not just mean performing
experiments. We talked about some of the
many different areas of science: Natural
Sciences (i.e., Anatomy, Botany, Zoology
and Marine Biology) as well as Chemistry,
Physics (i.e., Astronomy) and Earth Science
(i.e., Geology and Oceanography).
The children learned their “Cosmic Address”,
starting from an atom, child, Millhopper Mon-
tessori, Gainesville, Florida, United States,
North America, Earth, Solar System and the
Milky Way. We also talked about what As-
tronomy is and what types of instruments and
equipment an Astronomer might use in this
occupation.
We also were able to learn about Electricity
and magnets while talking about the Thun-
der and Lightning we have all too frequent-
ly here in Florida! The children were fasci-
nated to see how the positive and negative
aspects of magnets work. The children now
have a little better idea of what causes that all
that thunder and lightning!
Here are some additional activities we did
this week that you can also do at home:
Jet Propulsion Experiment: Balloon Jet: you
will need some twine, a balloon, a straw, tape
and we used the back of two chairs. Thread
the twine through the straw; tie the twine on
the back of two chairs to create a path for the
balloon to travel; blow up the balloon and
while holding the neck of the balloon tape the
balloon to the straw. Let go of the neck of the
balloon. A stream of air jets backward and
produces thrust. This propels the balloon for-
ward along the string at high speed. This
demonstrates that a jet engine produces thrust
from a roaring jet of super-hot gas. The gas
moving in one direction produces thrust in the
other direction.
A Rubbery Egg: “A box without hinges, key
or lid, yet golden treasure inside is hid”, a
favorite riddle from “The Hobbit”. The an-
swer is, an egg; the largest cell in the world
(held by the ostrich)! So what can we do with
an egg that is science-like and fun? Dissolve
the shell with a mild acid (vinegar) and turn
the insides to a rubbery substance. We put a
raw egg into a tall drinking glass (or jar) and
covered the egg with vinegar. We let it soak
overnight and then the next morning we made
some observations – a lot of foam and bubbles.
We then rinsed the egg and then poured more
vinegar into the jar, covering the egg. You
optimally want to wait about 6 days; then rinse
the egg and rinse it off. You should notice
that it feels different, that it is missing the shell
and has a strange rubbery feel to it. Your egg
will even bounce from a few inches!
Why does this happen? The shell is made of
calcium carbonate. When you mix acetic acid
(vinegar) with the same “carbonate” as baking
soda you create a reaction. The little bubbles
we see are made of carbon dioxide gas. The
shell dissolves and the vinegar penetrates the
semi-permeable membrane (called “osmosis”)
and slightly inflates the egg and “pickles” the
egg, by hardening it up. This process allows
you to bounce the egg on the counter, roll it
along the floor, etc.
During this experiment we were also able to
talk about the concept of why some object
float and others sink.
We saved our favorite two experiments for the
end of the week: the Eruption of a Volcano
and Ice Sculptures with Salt and Liquid
Watercolors. For our Volcano eruption, I
have a papier-mâché volcano that I made many
years ago. We first talked about volcanos and
why they erupt. I then used baking soda, red
food coloring and added vinegar to create an
erupting volcano! The children are always
excited and fascinated to see what a miniature
volcano looks like! Ice Sculptures with Salt
and Liquid Watercolors: to create this ex-
periment you need to first make a block of ice
(I froze water in a milk carton). Place the ice
in a baking dish and let your child sprinkle salt
(I used coarse sea salt first then table salt).
Then we added dropperfuls of liquid watercol-
ors on top of the salt covered ice. As the salt
melts crevasses and tunnels through the ice the
paint makes the tunnels more visible. The
children learn that salt melts ice at a lower
temperature while creating a very colorful
(while temporary!) piece of artwork!
The children seemed to really enjoy all the
simple experiments. I invite you to do some
of these at home as well as to the many web-
sites that have safe and fun science experi-
ments and activities to do with young chil-
dren! There are so many experiments and
science-related activities you can do with
your children; they are fun and inexpen-
sive! I hope that this week has continued
to excite the children to explore this won-
derful world in which we live!
Tuesday, the children met Mr. Tim McCarthy
from Nature Art in High Springs. He showed
the children how creative they can be and in-
spired the children to create a masterpiece of
their own. Many of the children wanted to do
artwork to be transferred onto a t-shirt. Our
class decided to use watercolors because of
their vibrant color for their pieces of artwork.
The children are now excitedly waiting to see
their work on a t-shirt!
The children looked forward all week to
Splash Day! We had a wonderful time and
we are looking forward to “Back to Bed-
rock” next week (theme will include dino-
saurs).
Have a nice weekend!
Ms. Elizabeth and Ms. Jessica
Ms. Elizabeth Falls and Ms. Jessica Pytko
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It’s been a
great week
in wood-
working
camp.
Each stu-
dent has
taken mate-
rials and
built a step
stool, a bird
house and
a small hat/
tool rack. During the week
we also spent a lot of time
working with tools. Differ-
ent stations were set up for
the students to practice
using many hand tools and
improving their carpentry
skills. Once finished, the
carpenters then became
painters and carefully
painted each project with
the guidance of Ms. Rasha.
We were very fortunate to
have Dr. Mark Clark come
to school with his portable
saw mill and give us a
presentation on how a log
gets cut down into usable
lumber. He used a beauti-
ful cherry tree to cut for
our camp. We thank him
very much for taking time
out of his schedule to
come show us how this
process is done. We hope
the students learned a lot
and enjoyed the camp.
Keep building!!
Woodworking Mr. Richard Aslanian, Ms. Susan Salvatore, Ms. Rasha Choudar
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Woodworking
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Olympics/Wild World of Sports
Coach Cam Parker and Ms. Samantha Mink
(You must hum the Olympic theme while reading this.) Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present to you the 2013 MMS
Olympic contestants. Representing South Korea are Anthony, Charlotte, Kaitlyn and Venu. Hailing from Zimbabwe
we have Andrew, Aqua, Madumati and Sarah. Finally, traveling all the way from Somalia are Alyssa, DJ, Eduardo
and Ms. Sam.
These three teams have competed in a cornucopia of athletic, artistic and flat out fun events in an attempt to
win medals as an individual and as a team. Campers were asked to learn about their countries and participated in a
trivia contest for team medals. See what interesting facts your child knows about their ‘home’, or if they can tell you
of the Olympic rings. A newfound understanding of appreciation for the real Olympics was created and fun was had
by all!
Coach Cam
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Five, Four, Three, Two, One...BLAST
OFF!!! This week campers in the Space
Is THE Place camp have traveled the
universe exploring fun facts about outer
space. We have created alien masks,
water blotted our Earth, and push
pinned and painted the galaxy while
exploring outer space.
On Monday we had a special guest
speaker, Mr. James Albury, from the
Santa Fe College Planetarium come to
visit bringing in an actual meteor for the
children to touch and explore. We set
up cones and lined up out on the field
representing the distance between our
planets and then watched an episode of
his PBS series Star Gazers. Our camp-
ers were completely blown away by his
“movie star” status.
On Tuesday, special guest Tim
McCarthy of Nature Art came in to
work with the children on creating
their custom Space Camp T's. We can't
wait to see how they all turn out!
This Friday will be the first Splash Day
for our group! Campers are already SO
excited about the giant water slide!
Thank you so much for sharing your
children with this week. We have really
enjoyed seeing their sweet faces each
morning!
See you at camp!
Ms. Kyra, Ms. Rebecca & Ms. Widline
Space is the Place
Ms. Rebecca McCuller and Ms. Widline Senecharles
Ms. Kyra Akay and Ms. Kayleigh Bush
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8505 NW 39th Avenue
Imagine That!
Back to Bedrock!
Little Chefs
Mad Scientist
Aquatics
camp... Discover
Contact us at 352-375-6773 www.millhopper.com
In the next issue >>>
Tiffany and Ben work on editing their
summer camp news show.
“In Yo Face Productions.”
For past summer camp news show
visit:
www.millhoppertech.com
Click:
“In Yo Face Productions.”
at Millhopper Montessori School
Caryss works on this newsletter .
Thank you to our Junior Counselors for editing and designing the newsletter.
Lydia Black
Cristina de la Puerta
Caryss Baldwin
Tiffany Milian
Laura Clark