Tuesday, May 22, 2012

National History Day

What is two girls, hours of research, two bottles of rubber cement, an new ink cartridge, white paper, colored paper, 2 tri-fold boards, 2 trips to the craft store, 500 words or less not including quotes, 3 Totinos pizzas, 1 Cricut machine, 1 home visit by a teacher, felt, puffy paint, a small mountain of snacks, a very late night, 1 trip to Central College, 1 trip to Des Moines, a missed track meet, and more?

A National History Day Project!!!

If you’ve ever participated in NHD or have had a kid do so, you know what my list means!!! It sort of becomes this all-consuming project that takes over an entire basement and threatens the lives of the two brothers that live there if they dare mess up any one particle. Well, that’s our experience anyway.

Audrey and her friend, Nicole, put together an exhibit board. They did all the research themselves and 99% of the exhibit board themselves. I give Nicole’s mom and I a good 1% since she edited their paper and I pulled the late nights with the girls and did come down and revive them before they fell asleep over their board.

There are a three levels of competition: districts, state and national. The districts were held in Pella at Central College. A bunch of Ballard kids went and out of the 8th grade Audrey and Nicole’s exhibit and Miranda’s documentary made it to the state level. I seriously thought Audrey was joking when she called to tell me the great news! So they re-did their tri-fold (2nd time around is much faster) and took it to Des Moines in the Historical Building. The girls got to see what competition they were up against and though we waited all the way through the awards ceremony, they didn’t win anything. It was a great experience for them!

Their final exhibit.

My Plate Girls

The girls along with Miranda and Mrs. Peterson, their math and NHD teacher.

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Maybe they’re doing research for next year already?

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2 comments:

  1. I remember doing History Day when I was little. My topic was Japanese Internment. Your girls did such a good job! So fun!

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