Displaced Beachbums

Last week was School Spirit week and FG enjoyed dressing crazy all week. Her favorite day was “Wear your PJs” – especially getting to wear slippers to school.

Unfortunately, the school chose this day to present the five art finalists with their certificates and take photos. FG received 5th place in the school-wide art contest. I would post the drawing but I didn’t think to scan it before she turned it in. FM and I have ZERO artistic talent so I think FG takes after my sister, Jo.

It was also parent-teacher conferences ~ all’s well on that front except the teacher showed us some take home projects which were turned in early. FG’s class each picked a different building on base to duplicate. She picked an apartment building (barracks really, but they look like apartments to me) and she’s been working BY HERSELF on the project. Well, the one turned in is the base airfield and there is no way it was done by a third grader. It’s even built to scale. So my question is: how much do you “help” your child? I want her to learn to do projects on her own and to take pride in her own work. But it’s disheartening for her to see the other works of art ~ she thinks the kids did it on their own.

She also has a power-point presentation due on the Rainforest and has to make a diorama to augment her slideshow. She’s been working on it herself but when FM checked her work, he had to have a discussion about plagiarism ~ it’s was a little too easy for her to cut and paste off the internet 🙂 Since she wants to be a travel writer, she best learn now about not ‘borrowing’ someone else’s work.