Yesterday was the 100th Day of School. This occasion wasn't a blip on the radar when I was a kid, but these days clever teachers use it to teach math. The night before, Eli carefully counted out 10 stacks of 10 colored toothpicks to take to school with him and in the morning there were 100 footprint-shaped pieces of paper down the sidewalk towards his classroom for him to step on and count.
When I picked Eli up at the end of the school day, he was wearing a paper shield decorated with a handwritten "100." With a sigh, I noticed the whole thing was filled with quick squiggles. Yeah. The woman with a bachelor's and master's in Art Education has a kid who tends to draw only under duress.
When we got in the car, I asked Eli why he scribbled out one of the zeros. (See my yellow highlights on the drawing below.)
"I didn't scribble it out, Mama. I filled it. It's winter time and bears hibernate. So I filled one of the zeros with dark in case a bear comes by and needs a dark, sleepy hole."
Huh. It certainly never occurred to me those black marks could be a bear habitat! Upon second look, I also realized his colored pencil work was a little more careful and deliberate than I gave him credit for.
"Buddy, tell me more about your shield." Eli leaned over and gave me a tour of his artwork. "I'm not a very good star maker, but this is a star. They shine in the night and make you feel brave even if there are bears."
True. And it does look like a twinkling star.
"This is a space ship. Because I drew it on my shield, I can fly all the way to Jupiter in it. It has windows so I can see the stars to be brave in the spaceship."
"And those red lines are red dust on the planet whooshing around in the wind. WHOOSH! It is very windy there!"
I'll be darned.
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