Book Project!

After several years of helping kids through book projects, I tend to believe that they are really just a harsh punishment for parents. Too bad they don't warn you about them back in child birth class, but I suppose it's too late for that by that point anyway!


Philip had his first book project of the year coming up. We knew about it, but you never really seem to remember about it until the Monday before the Thursday it is due. He had a list of things he could do to present his book - everything from posters to newspaper articles to Powerpoint slide shows. Being the kind of kid he is, he thought he could get off easily by picking a sculpture of a main character in a book. We went to Michaels and got some actual modeling clay like real sculptors use. He spent quite a bit of time trying to make *something* out of it, only ending up with quite a bit of wet newspaper. Hours of time actually. I was surprised that the clay hadn't dried out. He decided that sculpting wasn't as easy as he thought - but - it was too late to turn back - being the mean mom I am, I had already donated $5 to this project and, darn it, you're going to finish it!!! After he finally buckled down and decided to do it (read it was dinner time and he was hungry and mom said no dinner until you have *something* done), his sculpture came out quite nice. Here is Count Olaf from a Series of Unfortunate Events. He even managed to get an A+ on it!

The sad thing about this whole project? The clay we bought said if you weren't going to fire it, it was good for medium use projects. Well, by the time Philip brought it home the very next day from school, it was really just a pile of Olaf parts. Medium use my foot!