Sea Star Project

C turned in his first "research project" today.  His class has been studying the ocean this month.  Each student was assigned an ocean creature to "research" and prepare a presentation of sorts for the class.  C was assigned the sea star (aka the star fish...which I now know is not an appropriate name for the creature because it is in fact NOT a fish :)

C really enjoyed this whole "research project" process.  He loves going to the library and checking out books, "researching" (which basically consists of me reading the books we checked out to him:), and all the "crafty" (cutting, gluing, painting, etc.) stuff involved in preparing his poster was just icing on the cake :)  

I was really impressed with how much C learned through this whole experience.  In addition to learning a TON about the sea star, he has come home every day since these projects started spouting off facts about all of the other sea creatures his friends studied.  The boy knows WAY more than  I do about various and sundry sea creatures now :) 

Mommy learned a few (non-sea star related) things too:

#1 - From now on we are going to use something smaller than a full piece of poster board...it took FOREVER for him to paint with those little craft brushes we have...waaaaaaay too much surface to cover!  Pretty sure that was a Rookie mistake.

#2 - After all these years, I STILL can't free-hand draw a decent star...the template star he cut out to trace onto the poster board took me no less than 1 hour of drawing and redrawing.

#3 - Being crafty/creative gives me a headache...I'll take spreadsheets and pie charts over temepra paint and Elmer's glue any day of the week! :) [Don't worry - I didn't reveal my feelings on this matter to C - as far as he knows I'm queen of the glue stick :]

I'm really proud of him for how well his project turned out.  This was definitely all him...other than that one pitiful star Mommy wasn't much help :)