First Meeting with Students

The purpose of our large group meetings is to have the team members get to know each other, answer any questions they may have, check progress, and to take care of business. We will usually not do anything with any of the problems specifically. It is also a question and answer time. The bulk of the events should be worked on by each groups of two with the mentors.

What we did:

1. Hand out Rules Book.
2. Have team members introduce each other.
3. Have team members review their event rules
4. Have team members arrange times to meet to start working on the events
5. Collect checks- thanks to the few students who remembered to bring them
6. Go over some ground rules (please review these with your child):
2 unexcused absences from the team will result in removal from the team, team members can only be excused without penalty with an email or a note from his/her parent regardless of illness or appointments (this will begin with the next meeting), the student is expected to stay for the whole meeting (especially since we will not be meeting often), and the student is expected to follow the FCPS rules. Please understand that I am volunteering my time and taking time away from work to engage in this activity. I enjoy working with the kids and love to see them expand their science knowledge. It's also a lot of fun to compete and see everyone's solutions to the problems. However, to make this a fun learning environment for everyone, I expect that each student will be respectful of each other, the mentors, and of me. If there is a problem, I will speak with the student. If it continues, I will speak with his or her parents. After that, the student will be asked to leave the team. Finally, please read the emails and check the blog often. Don't rely on your child's synopsis as to what is really happening. Many thanks to many of you who are already doing this diligently. I really appreciate it!

Goals for this week and until we meet again in 3 weeks - Monday, November 17.

1. Each group should already be contacting each other and the mentor to set a time to meet.
2. Each team member should be reviewing the problem in detail.
3. For the academic problem, they should be getting the reading material - online, library, etc. For online, see the links I posted earlier in the blog. They should already be studying the material.
4. I will be ordering t-shirts soon...I need your child's size and the name that he or she would like on the back of the shirt by the next meeting.
5. Each team member should be emailing me with progress reports on a regular basis (hopefully every week but every other week is okay).
6. Please mail me the $45 check payable to "Hughes M.S." You have an email from Shashi with the address.
7. All teams with building events must have a minimum of at least a design or prototype for the next meeting.

Once again, ALWAYS CHECK THE BLOG!

Thanks!