Our Kids: A Giraffe Can Run up to 30 MPH...

Well, we survived it...Alex's first project, that is...His assignment was this: Answer the following questions in 3-5 sentences for a presentation and then decorate your report in the provided cover (a yellow sheet of construction paper). Be Creative!

1. How fast can a giraffe run?
2. Why does a giraffe need to run?

THIS MAMA IS OLD FASHIONED! We simply could have Googled these questions, but I wasn't going to have any of that! I made Alex march right to the local library and do his research the old fashioned way! As we did a search on the computer, I told him all about the old card catalogs. He looked a me very puzzled...**I wonder why?** I showed him how to use the Dewey Decimal system and we found our way to the giraffe books.

We checked out a few books on giraffes as well as some other animal books that caught his eye that were nearby. We took them home and read them to discover the answer to his questions. We also discovered many other interesting facts about giraffes...Like that their tongues are purple! Yuck!

We planned out his 3-5 sentences as assigned. Alex did a very good job planning these out and did well not to plagiarize his sentences from his book. My only concern: He insisted on saying that wild dogs were a natural enemy of giraffes. I didn't remember reading that in any of the books, but, hey, it's not my book report!! I know you all are thinking that I actually let him do it...but, I'll be honest, it took a lot for me to stand back on that one!

Next, we had to move on to decorating the cover. You know me...I had some wonderful ideas swirling around in my head! Right off the bat, I realized that we have a ton of giraffe pictures from the visits to many local zoos and Animal Kingdom at Disney. Never mind that I forgot to check the pictures of Alex's trip to the zoo in Minneapolis-St. Paul with his Meema or remember that he has a picture with himself underneath a giant Lego giraffe at Legoland. I was a bit disappointed that these photos were not also included...Oh, well. Luckily, Alex was on board with this idea, so I pulled these photos up and ordered them! Don't you love digital media!?!

This is when Alex and I really started to butt heads on this project...It was one thing for me to let him include wild dogs in his project, but completely another when he was not completely gung ho about my plans for the cover. Yes, it took a bit of meditation on my part, but I let him plan it out. The cover is all Alex...Yes, I provided some materials and some ideas, but he nixed a lot of my ideas (um....I wanted him to trim the pictures with decorative scissors and add borders to jazz them up) and he did all the gluing and decorating himself. He took some of my suggestions to heart understanding that, frankly, I do have a few tricks up my sleeves...Tracing a map of Africa and showing where giraffes live (Savanna...aka the Grasslands) and using recently trimmed ornamental grass from the yard to create the 'grasslands' around one of his pictures. All in all, I would say that our first project was a success!

The report was preparation for Alex's class Giraffe Play. It was great to see all the kids as they presented their projects and gave an oral report on their questions and their researched answers. We enjoyed hearing their giraffe jokes, songs and poems about giraffes (especially the rap), and loved how they hosted us with giraffe cookies and giraffe juice after their play.
We had a wonderful time!