Our Fantastic Family Of Four Forever Believes

"Other things may change us, but we start and end with family" Anthony Brandt

Sunday, September 21, 2008

CAIDEN'S ROCK PROJECT

Caiden's 5th grade Science class had a project to do. Each student had to find a rock of his or her choice. The students were then told to transform these rocks into "Pet Rocks" Their rock must be an animal. These Students were asked to use their imagination in creating this pet rock and to find a name for it.
This was a very fun project! What was even more special was that Caiden was out sick the whole week and I got to really spend one-on-one time with him and we worked on it a little bit each day. Being that he was sick, we did what ONLY he felt like doing. We didn't push it, we took our time.
We took a simple BIG rock, and 1st of all spray painted it white. Then, we took a glue gun and glued several pieces of fabric to it. We added some eyes, a nose, a tail. I used tops of of hairspray bottles for the legs. We spray painted them white as well. Then we glued brown fur on these tops.
We used a little dog tail to complete the project! Then, we glued little ears on him. THEN, to top it off, we used a Harley Davision cap from his Build-A-Bear on our little animal! It turned out to be soo cute! Caiden was so happy at his little puppy rock ! He named him "Sparky" He was graded on it Friday. Being he was sick, I dropped it off Friday morning for all his classmates to see. His classmates all did a wonderful job creating them!


TAKING ON SOME RESPONSIBILITY

I love doing things for my children. It gives me great joy to do just about anything for them.That's what mothers do. But also, as their mother, part of my job is to teach them to be self-sufficient. I must teach them about being responsible and taking on responsibility. I want my children to be self-sufficient adults. So, I decided to get 2 charts, and they themselves wrote on their chart their chores. Normally, I would write all this down, neatly and organized, but then again, this not for me, this is their project and they are old enough to write it themselves. Plus, this is part of being responsible, they took on the responsibility of writing it down. I decided to start of their allowance at 5 dollars a week. If all their chores get done Monday to Friday, then they get the whole 5 dollars. If, chores are not done, they get money taken away from them. How much gets deducted is up to my discretion, and I am always fair. They have done so great with this, AND I am happy to say that they each got 5 dollars this Friday!!! There is nothing like seeing them bring me those charts with checks by every chore, and them saying "Mommy, I did all my chores, aren't you proud of me?!"