Maybe I just need some creative outlet, but I always enjoy helping my kids with their projects. I make sure they’re doing the lion’s share of the work, and learning something. Today I’m worn out, but I did have fun last night.
My daughter had to give a book presentation for English class, and she chose Stephen King’s Dolores Claiborne. The project called for her to put several objects which were relevant to the story into a paper bag, and then do some artwork on the outside of the bag as well. (There was a written component to the project too). Anyway, we had a great time talking about the book and making the objects. We made an eclipse viewer, (complete with partially spray-painted ping-pong ball to represent the sun), a tape recorder out of an empty cigarette box, and a “dust bunny” out of cat fur. We also included an empty olive oil bottle disguised as a bottle of booze, a thorn branch clinging to a scrap of cloth, and a phony savings passbook.
The last time she had to do a project, it was to make a model of a cell. We made an excellent one that was almost entirely edible, albeit nasty. It was made from different things we had in the kitchen, suspended in a dish of pink Jell-o. We were going to bring it to Thanksgiving and try to pass it off as an actual dessert, but frankly it gave us all the creeps so we put it down the sink.
In third grade, she had a teacher who actually assigned things to the parents. She would send home some materials, and we would have to make something using them. My Columbus Day boat kicked all the other parents’ boats asses, I must say.
Anyone else out there digging their kids’ school assignments? I’d like to hear about any you’re especially proud of.
Man, I (and my kids) used to HATE that kind of arts n crafts assignment! Fortunately, w/ my youngest a Jr. in HS, that’s pretty much behind us.
I often read books at the same time as them and discussed them, and proofed/edited their papers when asked.
The “assignment” I remember most fondly was a science project when my oldest was in 1st grade. Over the course of 3 weeks we put different kinds of bird seed in the backyard feeder, measured how much was eaten, and spent maybe 10 minutes daily watching and counting the number and identifying species of birds. Was really simply, fun, and worked great as a science experiment (hypothesis, variables, measureable results, etc.)
It was strangely fascinating. Alex said most people’s reaction was, “Oh cool! Eww…”
Dinsdale, you reminded me of the project we did about what squirrels like to eat. Despite what we’d read, the ones in our yard wouldn’t touch fruit or candy. We had to jigger the results of that one a little bit because we couldn’t expand “Squirrels like to eat nuts” into a three page report.
We did an experiment once on the “staleage rate” (actually, water loss) of Twinkies in different environments. There were Twinkies all over the apartment - some in light, some in dark, some in boxes, some in plastic bags, some in the fridge, some in front of fans.
We found it’s not so hard as you might think to make a Twinkie stale, once it’s out of its wrapper.
Oh lord, I am with Dinsdale, I hate those things! Probably because you’re supposed to make sure your kid does the work. If I could just do them myself I’d get a lot of pleasure out of being able to come up with better ideas and do a better job than I did as a grade schooler.
I do have a favorite, because this was not really something my kid had to do. His kindergarten teacher sent home a request that the children all come to school dressed as George Washington. My first thought was “???” Then I got to work.
The real trick is having a brother who used to be an archaeologist in Colonial Williamsburg. He lives nearby. I called him and asked did he happen to have any tricorn hats lying around? He said as a matter of fact he’d bought my son a child sized one for Christmas and had forgotten to give it to him.
So I taped some rolls of gauze together and hung a string of gauze rolls from each side of the inside of the hat (the wig curly cues see?) and braided some more gauze and tied that with a ribbon and hung that from the back.
I dressed him in a white button down shirt and blue pants with white knee socks pulled up over the pant legs to his knees. Then I took coffee filters, strung them on a string and attached this at the neck of the shirt to form a ruffle.
It looked remarkably good and everyone could see exactly who he was supposed to be. He was the only kid who came dressed up, probably because most of the parents got stuck at the “???” phase, not having a handy tricorn hat supply at the ready.
We did the Jello cell in kindergarten, with grapes for mitochondria and a small plum for the nucleus. I can’t remember what else was in there, but it was pretty gross. The best part to my mind was doing the whole thing in a Ziploc sandwich bag for the cell wall.
I think you mean cell membrane - a cell wall would be rigid, like a take ‘n’ toss clear storage container. I’m stealing that, too. I can see cooked spaghetti noodles for endoplasmic reticulli (reticulums?), diced green peppers for chloroplasts (if it’s got a cell wall, it’s obviously a plant cell), some wrinkly Chinese cabbage for the golgi apparatus (those were always my favorite)…hmmm, we need something amoeba-like for the transport vesicles…maybe globs of another color jell-o.
Hmmm…my kid doesn’t have biology until next year. I smell a Home Enrichment project coming on!
That’s what we used for our cell wall! I don’t remember all the food we used, but the cell was green jello. I remember lining up shredded carrots for something. It was fun!
I spent Sunday helping my fifth grader concoct six batches of Gak (recipe: 16 oz. glue + 1-1/2 c. water [colored if desired]. Mix with 3 tsp. of Borax dissolved in 1 c. water in a ziplock bag. Mix with hands and lay on counter to set.)
It makes this silly-putty like goopy stuff that’s excellent play material. He is selling it today’s at the fifth grade Entrepreneur Fair for two bucks a baggie. His company name is Gak Inc. Motto: Don’t Do Smack, Do Gak! *
totally fabricated. My husband and I have spent days making up inappropriate slogans!
*