Staying hands-off with your child's homework
The assignment: Make a useful object out of discarded items around your home. Search Pinterest for "recycling projects for school" if your child needs help. And parents, please keep in mind that this is your child's project.
My daughter knew right away what she wanted to make: A robot army out of tin cans that serves as a desk organizer.
My husband and I both talked her into modifying her plan to just a simple pencil holder. Having a whole army, we said, would be too big to carry and difficult to hold together.
We had her sketch out her idea for how she wanted her robot pencil holder to look, and my husband helped her put it all together.
She drew the robot's face on a piece of cardboard and glued it to the top. Two bays from an egg carton served as robot feet, and other strips of cardboard took on the role of robot arms. In the end, it looked like what it was: A project dreamed up by a seven-year-old.
Before this school year, we've seen what previous second-graders had turned in for their recycling projects when we'd go to parent-teacher conferences or other events at the school. As I looked at my little girl's robot pencil holder this past weekend, I knew it didn't look as polished as the majority of the projects we've seen. And I sooooo wanted to step in and persuade her to make it a little fancier.
But the teacher's note about the project had said to let it be the student's project, so I told her she did well, and off she went to school with her tin can decorated with cardboard.
Her dad dropped her off that day and told me about the other projects he had seen on the way in. One was a fancy unicorn made from a milk jug and wood. Another kid had turned a box into a playhouse. Both projects looked very elaborate.
"I'm sure they had a lot more help with their projects than our kid did," my husband said.
And I'm sure my daughter will not be marked down just because hers looks rougher than the other kids, but the hardest part of that assignment, for sure, was letting my daughter make her own decisions.
My daughter knew right away what she wanted to make: A robot army out of tin cans that serves as a desk organizer.
My husband and I both talked her into modifying her plan to just a simple pencil holder. Having a whole army, we said, would be too big to carry and difficult to hold together.
We had her sketch out her idea for how she wanted her robot pencil holder to look, and my husband helped her put it all together.
She drew the robot's face on a piece of cardboard and glued it to the top. Two bays from an egg carton served as robot feet, and other strips of cardboard took on the role of robot arms. In the end, it looked like what it was: A project dreamed up by a seven-year-old.
Before this school year, we've seen what previous second-graders had turned in for their recycling projects when we'd go to parent-teacher conferences or other events at the school. As I looked at my little girl's robot pencil holder this past weekend, I knew it didn't look as polished as the majority of the projects we've seen. And I sooooo wanted to step in and persuade her to make it a little fancier.
But the teacher's note about the project had said to let it be the student's project, so I told her she did well, and off she went to school with her tin can decorated with cardboard.
Her dad dropped her off that day and told me about the other projects he had seen on the way in. One was a fancy unicorn made from a milk jug and wood. Another kid had turned a box into a playhouse. Both projects looked very elaborate.
"I'm sure they had a lot more help with their projects than our kid did," my husband said.
And I'm sure my daughter will not be marked down just because hers looks rougher than the other kids, but the hardest part of that assignment, for sure, was letting my daughter make her own decisions.
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