Rose's class transformed into the Amazon jungle. It was just spectacular. There were vines all across the ceiling, paper mache creatures and plants everywhere and a child ready to tell you four fascinating facts about everything you could see.

I love these big projects where you have to use art and research and collaboration and negotiation (that doesn't always work) and presentation. Rose really knows the rhinoceros beetle and the rafflesia now.

The most surprising moment was driving home the day before.

Debby: So, what am I going to see?
Rose: I'm in the ground floor, and then there's the understory, and the canopy.
David: What about the emergent layer?
Rose: How did you know about that?
Debby: Did you learn about the layers because you were going to visit Rose's class?
David: No, I just learned it.

The poor negotiations. I have to say I have been spared a lot of the drama that seems to come with being a girl. Rose has friends, she gets a long well with all her classmates, people seek her out because she is nice. But, drama has appeared nonetheless. The five girls in charge of the ground floor could not decide who was going to sit on the two chairs. Much misery. Much use of the banned absolutist statements: she's always bossy; she never is nice to me. As Rose pointed out, the space normally is only used by two. As I pointed out, the kids were overexcited, hot, and stressed. I'm trying to take a blessing the skinned knee approach and hope she gains skills from this round.