Sam has to do a dinosaur report for school. It was assigned Monday and is due this Thursday. They have to fill out a page of questions about a chosen dinosaur, and then "create" a dinosaur to go with it. I assumed getting Sam to do this assignment would be a nightmare - he hates homework and even breaking this up over several evenings would still mean homework every night, which he is not used to. But I was wrong.
I got him a couple of general dinosaur books at the library Tuesday evening. He looked at the books and picked out a dinosaur that was featured in the Dinosaur Alive! movie we saw last month at the Children's museum (the Saichania). After he picked out the dinosaur he wanted to get started on the report right away and we worked until we had to quit to pick up Maria at gymnastics. Then he agreed to make a clay dinosaur to go with the report, and there were helpful ideas in the book we were using, such as using pine cones for the spikes on his back. Ben and Sam made the clay dinosaur Thursday night, and he can't wait to paint it tonight. The clay was fun for Maria as well, and she has had a blast making different clay figures. And Sam and I have about half of the written report to finish this week.
This project hasn't changed him completely, though. Today at lunch we were talking about the dinosaur and I mentioned that since he'll need to carry it to school in a box for protection, we could make the inside of a shoe box look like it's habitat, kind of like a diorama. Maria agreed with me that it was a good idea. Sam paused, then said, "But the paper didn't say we had to do that, did it?"
I'll post a picture of Sam and his dinosaur later in the week when we finish everything.
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