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I solved the photo sizing problem. After a quick web search, I found a web site called www.resize2mail.com It's a very simple online photo resizer. I was able to resize quite a few of my photos... perhaps not as customized as I could have with a photo editing program, but it did what I was wanting. And you can even crop the photos. Very nice and totally free! Now that I have appropriately-sized photos, I'll tell about Nicholas' science project... Nicholas is six and in his second year of schooling ('1st grade'). We've had very limited opportunities for him to do activities with other homeschooled kids. We lived in a very rural area during his Kindergarten year, and then weren't able to make connections with the local homeschoolers where we lived last summer and fall. After we moved to our current locale, we hooked up with a great homeschool group and have been able to participate in a few events/get-togethers with them over the last few months. Back in January, at the first meeting I attended, they announced they'd be having a science fair in April and all ages from K-12 were invited to participate. When I asked Nicholas if he was interested, he said, "Sure!" Of course I knew he didn't have a clue what a science fair was. At any rate, he decided he wanted to do a rock collection (of all things! Mommy was disappointed... I thought flowers or butterflies would be nice, lol). At first we had trouble locating many types of rocks around our neighborhood. Some very nice families on the Konos message board sent us rocks from their areas, which broadened Nicholas' collection drastically and helped us learn about rocks we had never heard of. A week before the fair, we were able to go to a nearby state park with a stream running through it. We all four had fun walking barefoot along the edge of the stream to collect rocks. That water was so cold, though!! We had just had a cold spell (30 degrees just a few days before), and I doubt the water was above 55 degrees that day. You know kids, though, they barely noticed. Here is a photo of Nicholas working on his project:
Of course the science fair rules said the project had to be done by the student not by the parent. Since Nicholas' handwriting is rather illegible (though he is improving!), I was at a loss for a while about how he could do the board by himself. His cutting skills are not fabulous either, so I didn't think cutting out construction paper letters would work. We found foam sponge letters at Wal-Mart, and as you can see they worked out very well! Here is a picture of the finished project after the evaluations were over:
I was so happy with how he did during the evaluation. (They didn't do judging, just evaluated each project individually.) He had never presented anything like that to strangers before and, being shy, he struggles just to say hello to someone he hasn't met before. But all the practicing and review we did beforehand paid off. I didn't get to stay and watch him with the evaluators, but when it was over he came bounding out of the room with such a grin on his face! Here is a picture of the rocks if you're interested:
Left-Right, Back Row First: Mudstone, White Granite, Siltstone Coal, Sandstone, Rose Rock, Slate, Mica Quartz, Pink Granite, Marble, Limestone, Garnets in Rock Pumice Nicholas said his favorite was pumice, which floated when we first tried it but wouldn't float again when I wanted to take a picture of it. My favorite was the rose rock (actually a mineral) that someone sent us from Oklahoma. Very unusual and pretty! If you've never heard of it, look it up on Wikipedia. They are only found in Oklahoma and Spain. The mica is also very pretty, it's thin and delicate. I had never seen or heard of it before. Helping Nicholas with this project was fun, educational, and it actually made me wish I had paid more attention in that Appalachian Archeology class I took in college. |
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