Eric had a project. So over the weekend we did some creating. He wrote a haiku on Snowboarding:

And then he put his brain to work on what he could do for the project. He came home and told me that his idea was to get a piece of styrofoam and do some work to it.

Off to Hobby Lobby (oh how I love that store) we go. I was looking at my addiction, yarn, and he took off and came back with a cube. Well, I can't get a knife through the cube, so I had to go back there and find exactly the right thing that would do the trick. Leave it to me, I will find what I need.

He finally decided on the rectangular piece. Thank God! I knew that I could work the magic with that. Now onto something else. He found a surfboard, nope, that won't work. So, since they have everything in scrapbooking stickers, he decided that maybe we could find something over there. They only have about 4 aisles of stickers, so this was like looking for a needle in a haystack. But we looked down each one and found the perfect snowboarding stickers. Amazing how they have everything that you can possibly imagine in stickers! Now, one more thing, the paper to write on. Oh my goodness, he is so picky, but it is his project, so he has evrey right to be picky.


We get all of this home and I helped him draw the picture on the styrofoam, I have come to dispise that stuff. He liked what we came up with, so out come the knives. Now, generally, I don't do anything on their projects, except pay for the supplies. But considering that this involved knives and lots of cutting and a mess beyond all messes, I decided that I would cut everything. I really didn't want to clean up his finger after he cut it off or go back out for another piece of styrofoam if he cut that the wrong way. So, I took those matters into my own hands. Two different knives, lots of scraping and loose styrofoam later, I was done.

Ok, so let's get the project on the road. He comes up with the idea of putting the sticker of a snowboard on the styrofoam, but how. Ok, well, cardboard works well, and so stick and cut and then pin it. That way it will spin like a snowboard. Cool! And then having to deal with the whitespace, and there is a lot of white space on this thing. I am sure he can figure out something. And he did. He orginally had the poem written with the snowflakes holding it down. Looked nice, until he went next door to ask the teacher how it looked.

He asked me first, and since I am the mom, I am a little bias. I loved his Egyption dictionary. I thought it deserved better than a C. But, I am momI think everything that I see him work very hard in deserves a grade better than a C. His planet book was nice, I really thought he would get better than a C, but he didn't. He got a C. I think that they look at the 6th graders and they expect them to be more like 9th graders.

Eric heads out the door and comes back in. "She said.'I would take 10 points off for the printing, you need to put that on the computer and print it that way.'" Well, Eric and I look at things this way, do projects on your own merit. Do your own work, except for the knife work, and do it in your own handwriting, no matter what. I don't like going to school seeing kids use the computer to put everything on. Yes, I know times have changed, but who is to say that the parent didn't do that for them?

Oh Eric was so hurt, "she hurt my feelings again. She always does. She wants me to go over tomorrow and have him print it on the computer for me. I don't want to. I want my teacher to see that I did the work, that no one helped me. So, let's do something about this white space and I will worry about her later." Good for him. He got the wheels turning and he did what he needed to do.


I came up with the finish line thing. I needed the material anyways, I had the interfacing, so I made a little flag for him.



Only with his approval first though. I did what I needed to do, and he got done. He was very happy with the outcome of this project. I know it is a simple one, but he did a nice job. I am happy to see the creativity there. He thinks about the poems that he has to do, he thinks the best way to descibe them in project form, and then he works very hard to make a project worthwhile.

As for the neighbor, she came over, and he told her that this is his project and that he needed to do the work himself. Good for him. He is very proud of his own work, so let him do it.