Fallingwater

It's finally done! Hallelujah!! Here is A's model:

and then a side view:

As you can see, we didn't bother with fancy bits like railings on the terraces, which D thought we ought to have. Yes, it probably should have them, but A was having trouble with cutting through the foam board and I was getting mighty tired of cutting foam board with him. A's been working on this building for a solid week (with varying amounts of help), from finding scale drawings and getting them printed out big enough to work with, to finding materials we can cut to cutting, positioning, glueing, etc. I'm almost positive we have the plunge pool elevated when it shouldn't be, but there was NO way to get teeny tiny stairs to descend that much elevation in the little space we had (plus I think the river was supposed to be a bit wider there). But its DONE! finis. complete. at least as much as its going to be.

And, of course, while all this construction was going on, A was also trying to write a paper. Someone needs to teach a class for these kids on how to write a paper. I just thought tonight that of course, what I should have done is have A make notecards. It would have been easier to manipulate the info (and make sure that it was in his words) with notecards. But I only thought of it tonight, not a couple of weeks ago. I talked with A's teacher today and we both agreed that they need to do something to teach how to research because clearly most of the kids don't know how to do it effectively - from a book or from the computer.

Last, but not least, A has to give a presentation on his paper/project - which we weren't completely clear on until this morning. The rubric the teacher sent home didn't mention any oral presentation (and my message to her over the weekend evidently ended up in her junk mail folder, until I called today), so he didn't practice any until tonight. I caved and typed up notes from the paper for him to have for the presentation. I wish we'd had time so I could make him do them, but it was almost 9:30 by the time he went to bed as it was - and that was with me typing the notes and him only practicing once. I told him he needs to practice the presentation at least twice tomorrow morning before school.

The final fun will be tomorrow morning when I get to drive the project over to his other school. I don't think that asking him to lug the project on 2 buses is a good idea.