LEGO Competition Offers Free Legos to Creative Education Contestants (including Homeschoolers)

The LEGO Corporation is running its 2011 LEGO Smart Creativity Contest for K-12 educators living in the United States.  It is open to teachers in public, private, or home-based schools.  

To enter the competition, teachers must create a video that is no longer than 150 seconds (2 and 1/2 minutes) that demonstrates how they have used LEGO products in an educational way.  However, the focus is on creativity, so the company isn't looking for a dry, academic explanation of a LEGO-based lesson plan.  Instead, they encourage skits, songs, rapping, stop-motion animation, or other fun ways to excite fellow educators about using LEGO in the classroom (even if the classroom is your kitchen table)!

Winners in five categories:  Public/Private Schools K-2, 3-5, 5-8, 9-12, and Homeschools, will each receive LEGO Education gift certificates worth $2,500, with one grant prize winner receiving a $5,000 gift certificate.  All winners will also get an expense-paid trip to the LEGO Education Summit on November 16, 2011.

However, if you are an early applicant, you may get a prize just for participating!  The first 8,000 public and private school entries, and the first 2,000 homeschool ones, will receive a FREE LEGO Smart Kit.  So it is best to get your contest video in as soon as possible.  The deadline for the competition is October 14, 2011.

For more information, or to access the complete rules and registration materials, visit the 2011 LEGO Smart Creativity Contest homepage.

Good luck to all competitors.  Let us know if you win!

Curriculum Resource: Who Wants to Win (REAL) $1,000,000--Math Edition

Yesterday we talked about a science game based on the TV show, Who Wants to Win $1,000,000?  Today, we are talking about a site that is offering $1,000,000 (to be split with their most inspirational math teacher) for people who solve 13 great math questions, one for each K-12 grade level.

Just one caveat--the sponsors of these competition, Math Pickle and the Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences, haven't yet gotten the funding for the puzzle winners.  But I guess they don't have many people claiming to be winners yet, either, so perhaps they've got a while to raise the money.

Here is a video that presents the unsolved problem for the 8th grade, which is based on the ancient Greek myth of the Minotaur in the labyrinth:






Even if you don't expect to win $1,000,000, you should definitely check outMath Pickle.  It has a bunch of different videos, all geared to specific grade level, about ways to spice up your math teaching.  In particular, it features puzzles, exploratory questions, and hands-on activities that draw students into problem-solving and applying the math they are learning, rather than doing rote exercises.   The problems and ideas are quite interesting, and I've tried a few of them with my own son.

It is this kind of approach to math (also a hallmark of the work we have done with Maria Droujkova of Natural Math) that has turned around my son's attitude towards math, which he used to hate but now thinks is neat.  And that is worth more than $1,000,000 to me.  So it is worth your while to visit Math Pickle and pick up a few ideas for getting your students engaged in math problem solving.

Science Olympiad Openings for Wake and Johnston County NC High Schoolers

It's not too late to become involved with Science Olympiad!  We have room for 10 more homeschooled students from Wake and Johnston counties in grades 9 - 12.  The Raleigh Tournament will be held on Saturday, February 5th at Green Hope High School.  The Science Olympiad is a nationwide competition in science. Students can earn medals competing in many different individual events, and their placement contributes to their team's score. Teams who do well at the Regional Competition continue on to the State Competition (held at NCSU April 29 - 30), and then to the National Competition.

The following events are still open:  Astronomy; Bottle Rocket; Disease Detectives; Dynamic Planet; Ecology; Experimental Design; Microbe Mission; Mission Possible; Mousetrap Vehicle; Mystery Architecture; Optics; Remote Sensing; Sounds of Music; and Write It, Do It.  Please click on this link to find out more about these events (scroll to Division C events): http://www.sciencenc.com/events.php#c  Students can compete in up to 4 events.

If you would like more information, please contact Teresa LaFond: ojmom_2000@yahoo.com or 919-460-7365.