<p>Our “mission project” in KS is probably the “native american dwelling project.”
Do you know the difference between a Hogan, a Wickiup, and a Wigwam??
Fortunately this project is done with younger kids at school, so parents aren’t involved.
We do get to keep these treasured objects (hogan made of twigs, mud, and leaves or a tepee made out of a taco shell painted with native symbols, etc. …btw, parents protested the taco shell model–wasting food, you know) proudly displayed in our homes as long as our kids want.</p>
<p>I recall once the class pet (frog) went missing and was found inside someone’s model Tepee. (I think the Tepee owner confessed to putting him in there.)</p>
<p>RE: keeping track of the kids–I admit we’ve had a few “home alone” or “left behind” moments. Another mom (of 4) forgot her kid at my house the other day. Embarrassed, she apologized profusely. No prob for me–I didn’t even notice. ;)</p>
<p>I am from NYS and in my Tiger Mother days (meaning when my first child was in elementary school) we had several options to choose from for the Native American project (in 4th grade). My DD and I had the brilliant idea of fashioning her a pair of mocassins from scratch. They got done (I probably have scars to prove it) but ended up the size of an infants feet lol. </p>
<p>Another project in my DD’s elementary school that struck fear into the hearts of Moms all over the county. The dreaded Jello project. The kids were sent home with Jello molds the shape of the continental US and told to “be as creative” with their Jello creations as they could. People sent in molds that had the prime crop of every state embedded in the Jello, with oceans of blue jello swimming with fish surrounding, or State Flags on toothpicks in every state, or mountain ranges made of frosting. </p>
<p>I covered mine (which came out of the mold looking like the day after the “Day After Tomorrow”) with Cool Whip and animal crackers and called it an effort.</p>
<p>DS had to do an “ecosystem” project one year. Good grief. I bought lots of stuff at Michael’s and helped my son a lot. I was annoyed when he didn’t get a great grade for it! I felt like asking, “Do you know how much MONEY we spent on that thing??”</p>
<p>CTTC-those would be the ones!! I also found solar system kits that day and my friends and I had a good laugh over the fact that Pluto was not included.</p>
<p>I hated projects because I hated having to ask my mother for money to go out and buy things. In elementary school, no, I don’t have posterboard, different colored permanent markers, modeling clay, wood glue, or ten different colors of construction paper and cardstock. And you can’t buy just one sheet of red construction paper, so our home has a stock of brown, beige, and orange paper a foot high (and god forbid I need a sheet of blue for water).</p>
<p>In ninth grade, we had to create an ‘informational’ magazine about germs and diseases. I used a black pen, crayons, and colored pencils to decorate. One of my best friends spent $100 getting it professionally printed and bound. The glossy magazine received the highest grade in the class, and ‘oh, look what they did! It’s amazing!’ And then the projects got worse, and I swear, each project cost us a good $50 each, between the brand new board and the necessary paint and glue and markers and wood and whatever else was needed. And if you didn’t go ‘all out’ like that, you couldn’t score well-- and these projects were a test grade apiece. There was typically one per six weeks grading period (in history, English, science, and the science class each). It had nothing to do with the educational information in the project, and everything to do with how fancy it was.</p>
<p>I posted a status about this conversation on Facebook and brought up specifically the Mission and Power Plant projects. My dad’s reaction a few minutes ago:</p>
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<p>Apparently we were all a little traumatized by it. ;)</p>
This is the truth and since girls are often fancier, they get better grades. One year my son did a science fair project that he was proud of. Worked hard, did serious research for his age. But it wasn’t pretty. His older sister warned him that he would lose points if he didn’t “prettify” it. He refused, she snuck down in the night before it was due and put glitter on it. He did well despite an epic meltdown. Next year, she didn’t prettify the project and he didn’t even place. All the projects were pretty, some were stupid and pretty but still won. I can’t tell you how many variations on the Vitamin C project I’ve seen over the years. Some including flashing lights and sparklers. (not the flaming kind, the foil kind) But it’s still the same Vitamin C project. </p>
<p>I severely despised projects. One, I’m not creative. At all. I drew stick people without a torso until about middle school. The arms and legs came straight out of the head. Two, at my Catholic school, they always assumed you had siblings and they were incorporated into the project. I was an only child and the only one in my grade. They said you could use friends instead but i didn’t have many. Further, my parents worked multiple jobs and getting rides was virtually impossible. My parents would go at midnight to Meijers to get poster board. I was one of the only kids without a stay at home mom and it was apparent. I’d write great reports but have a crappy poster so my grade would go down.</p>
<p>When I took AP US History (easily the worst class I ever took), they often expected us to do group projects with other kids in the class. Our school had Small Learning Communities, and I was the only kid from a different SLC, so I was always left out of the groups. The teacher always said “Well, you can do it with a kid from a different period.” Yeah, I’m not friends with any of them, either. I wound up doing a lot of projects by myself. I prefer it that way, but it was still kind of a mortifying experience to always be the one left out.</p>
<p>It’s seriously like teachers don’t understand that some kids are introverts/loaners. Then again, I’d be surprised if a lot of introverts going in to teaching given the outgoing nature of the profession. </p>
<p>I was lucky that most of the group projects stopped by high school. I lived in a very large school district and it could take 45+ minutes to drive from one side to the other (and most of the population lived at the ends with the schools in the middle… not sure how it sprang up that way but whatever lol). Teachers gave us time in class for group projects if we had them or we just stayed after school to get them done if necessary (teens with cars are very common where I live due to the lack of public transportation and things being outside of walking/biking distance). </p>
<p>MOST of my teachers by high school offered the art part as an option (for which I was very grateful). I think projects are GREAT for those who learn by doing them. I have arty friends who learn best by doing. Me? I’d rather read 20 dense journals than put up a simple poster. </p>
<p>And my fiance is colorblind so our kids are going to be royally SOL in the parents-helping-with-art department lol</p>
<p>When can I stop collecting shoe boxes? Just last week, D1, a hs junior, had to do a diorama as some sort of book report. The glue gun was mia, so she had to use tape.</p>
<p>Also there’s the ever-popular cooking project. Cook something from the country you’re studying. Cook something mentioned in the book. Eventually my kids accepted that I would have nothing to do with acquiring ingredients without 24 hours notice. It helps that there’s a grocery store a very walkable 3/4 mile away. They learned much earlier that it was best not to have mom involved in the actual cooking…</p>
<p>I had one very artistic child…any project with an artistic element would take her way longer than justified by the rubric. I had to remind her to work her “obsessive art time” into any project timeline.</p>
<p>I will say I’m in favor of poster/presentation boards. As opposed to dioramas, they are used frequently. Mine not only did these for typical projects, but for MS and HS science fair and into college. D1’s college has a Science, Society and Arts event where students present papers and research and artistic work. While some are power point/lecture style, the vast majority are presented science fair style in a big hall. Other D had to do presentation board for a group she works with at her college…she called to tell me that she can’t do one now without making sure edges are straight and information is presented neatly…my work is done! (I was all about neatness and readability, which should be focus of any project grade IMO)</p>
<p>Not so much fan of egg drop project or invention project that had to use 3 mechanical elements - inclined planes, etc. These definitely required too much outside expense and help.</p>
<p>This is reminding me that my daughter and I have a saying; whenever something (often related to cooking) is taking too long, we say “It’s NOT an art project!”</p>
<p>The cooking projects! In 2nd grade my son was assigned Germany for his holidays from around the world presentation. I felt like we scored on that since we built a gingerbread house from a kit. The morning he was to bring it in we discovered a big bite mark out of the top, middle of the roof - his little sister tried eating it! lol And it was obviously her crooked teeth marks in the roof. He ended up devoting much of his presentation time discussing his sister.</p>
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