And as usual we have a lot of procrastination, some intentional and some seasonal. This year the assignment was to read about a person in history and do a story board, poster board, and 3-5 minute speech in costume! John chose John Deere. Mark chose Abraham Lincoln, and Aliza chose a famous red head Elizabeth the first.
John's board after working all day typing and gathering information into one spot. After he had been instructed what to do and had put his touches on the design.
The little girls helping. Coloring his board. Painting the table and each other and books with poster paint. Using half the glue on some project yet to be found limiting Mark's amount to use.
Aliza working to get her information from her sources onto the computer into usable poster additions. How thankful I was for her capability, vision, and preparedness!! She had pictures ready and printed for her poster, her speech mostly composed, and she had key costume elements. Phew for one I didn't have to drag to completion.
Harold also tackling piles of math homework. As state testing is upon us as well the teachers have been cramming information for the past 6 weeks. Of course homework is never a concern for Harold who opts to do it as he pleases, but after some parent teacher conferences we are again recommitted to doing our work for a few weeks at least. One teacher commented he was the most stubborn student she had ever had. I laughed and said "Don't worry there's more of them. We breed them well...."
At this point late Friday and Saturday I was ready to pull my hair out and so worried about the speeches that had not been started. Speaking is a big deal to me. I want my kids to be confident, to be memorized, to be interesting and most of all to feel successful. Sunday is a hands off homework day so I tried to be peaceful while listening to conference but was stewing and fretting. Monday I picked the kids up slightly early so we begin composing speeches for Mark and John. (Projects were due to present the next night!)
They both knew their information, but had nothing written down. John had put together some notes early in the morning and I had composed a speech for him based on the notes and conversations we had had. I set him to work typing the speech and Mark and I began orally composing and rehearsing his speech.
After 10x running through I started transcribing his speech and let him go do chores. John wearily drug himself in to begin his recitation practice. Dinner was being put together by Aliza, Anna was working through her Monday mountain of homework and the little kids were somewhere playing. John got through his speech 5 grudging times. We ate, did family home evening and I listened to speeches ones more time before bed. I was panicked that they hadn't rehearsed enough to be prepared.
We worked more this morning and I turned them loose to school and scouts later. The agony of cramming!
I'm happy to report I did not send a who thought of this idea to any teacher involved nor did we revolt and just abstain from participating. But man I was tired and frazzled.
TO BE CONTINUED...
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