INDEPENDENTS' DAY

Every year, each student at Arbor from K through 8 is in charge of picking an independent project.  This year topics in Nicholas' class ranged from omelets, finches, skiing, and rock candy.

This year, Nicholas and I began to closely follow the English Premier League.  Many consider this to be the world's best club soccer league, and this year is considered the greatest season of that greatest keague. Nicholas and I could not agree more.

I asked Nicholas why he picked the Premier League for his project.  He said he loved the team names, the crests, and the players. Enough said.

One and a half weeks before the project was due, we went to the art store and picked up a posterboard, ruler, fancy markers, a Pentel mechanical pencil, and Staedtler erasers.  The last two items reminded me of my own childhood and my love of fancy office supplies.  My dad used to be me many pencils, erasers, and pens.  Collecting these was one of my early obsessions and compulsions, and buying those items brought back a flood of good memories.

Each night, we spent about one hour working on the poster. First, Nicholas used a ruler to mark straight lines on the poster so the writing would be straight. Then, he wrote out all the text in pencil with his best handwriting. Next, he wrote over the pencil with markers and erased the pencil marks.  For the table, he drew all the teams' crest, and he filled in facts about the teams.

Here are the crests of the 20 teams. Click on the picture for a closer view of Nicholas' handiwork!

Then, we found pictures to put on the poster and organized them with topics of his choosing.

To put such a poster together is quite a feat, but the students also present their work in front of their classmates and take questions and comments.  Nicholas' presentation is below.



Here is the Q and A.



I was so impressed by this young man. Let me remind you he is six years old currently.

I was tough on him when he was working on his poster because I knew how good he was capable of making it.  There was a lot of erasing, concentration, and a few tears of fatigue and frustration.

After the presentation, Nicholas and I reflected on what he had accomplished.  I asked him if the hard work was worth it.  He did not hesitate and said, "Definitely!" I could not agree more.

Atta boy!