Money, dolls and dragons

  It's the time of year we do our homeschool student project expo, putting together a report about whatever the kids want. About 35 kids took part this year, with projects such as poodles, bamboo, engines, origami, chickens (live chickens included) and a seven-foot-tall trebuchet.
  A lot of Gameboy's project came from a lesson plan at the Smithsonian Institute website about the requirements of good currency, and an example of barter from Africa. It was fun for me to watch him put his project together this year. It was his fifth year doing the event, and he didn't want any help. He did a great job making his display board, and guess what! He did it just the way I taught him all those other years.

  He thought of different objects that could be used as currency, and people were invited to evaluate how good they'd be. The best was pennies (nonperishable, portable, difficult to replicate). Not as good were objects such as plastic beads and Legos. The worst was cream-of-mushroom soup, which would be quite an inconvenient form of currency.

  Princess managed to do her report on dresses again. Even when it seems like her report might be about something else, for example, the underground railroad a couple years ago, she sneaks in some information about fashion. This year, she's learning to sew and we made a pink dress together for her American Girl doll.

  Cookie firmly chose dragons as the subject of her report. We listed movies with dragons, animals named after dragons, and went to the zoo looking for animals that are like dragons. The day of the event, I decided I could whip up a dragon costume for her to wear, and I'll be bragging about this for awhile. The costume might need its own post some day. It had red spikes and a tail hanging down her back and wings. I explained that she can't really fly in the thing, so don't go jumping off any cliffs.