Well, this has been a pleasant surprise. Unlike some daughters I know, when faced with a big research project, David has not lost it. No screaming fits. No huge negotiations about when to get started and how much to do. He is, in general, pleasantly plugging away and will have it done by Monday.

David came home Friday with a letter from his teacher explaining that they had been working on a big research project in class, and it needed to be finished up at home. Finished up was a bit of an understatement since it turned out David changed his topic from coral reefs to shrimp and had one note that he got from the Weird but True book. (Did you know shrimp can change from male to female? Me neither.)

He had done step one of the big project: he had ten sheets of paper each with a different sub-topic at the top--predators, parts of shrimp, etc. This is a step--figuring out what you want to know, giving yourself a way to sift through the research--that Rose and my college students still struggle with. I think his teacher told him the sub-topic options. Excellent, the kid is only in third grade, the more we narrow down this project, the better.

Thank you Seattle Public library for having children's encyclopedias online. Thank you internet for giving me access to random drawings of shrimp. I found the research and guided David through: oh look a predator, let's do that sheet. Oh, look that's a weird fact, add that in.

David laboriously wrote out all the bullet points.

It was actually when he finished the research that he lost it. I think he was worried it wasn't good enough, but he came very close to crumpling those ten pieces of paper up. Luckily Bear Bear decided he wanted to brag about everything he knew about shrimp, and this calmed David down and made him realize how much we had all learned. That was Friday.

Saturday afternoon and evening, he carefully copies all the notes in his best handwriting. (Rose complimented his handwriting which warmed my heart.) And I had to be on hand to help with all the spelling. He did not complain once about what hard work this was and this morning he finished that step.

Next step is presentation. He has to cut out all the notes and glue them to construction paper. I think he's feeling more and more confident.