Tonight was

science project night.

We spent the better part of the evening trying to figure out what the scientific method is for a fifth grader. No we didn’t have the handout from the teacher. Too easy. We had to look it up on the internet. The project and the scientific method. So I guess you could say we were trying to be smarter than a fifth grader tonight.

I think we did a pretty good job.

Sometimes I think someone is telling me out there it would be so much more beneficial if you had one night to do the project, left the book somewhere else, lost the school paper, and basically just started from less than scratch. Now that is a project.

The project is about density. We made a diver guy out of aluminum foil and danced him around in a water filled pop bottle.

I am proud to say that my niece did the work (almost) completely by herself. I made sure not to give her any answers, making her think on her own. Come to her own conclusions. Just helped her by asking her the right questions. She made her poster all by herself too.

I am one of those parents that will not help my kid by doing the work for them. It is so satisfying to let your kid do the work. And it is very easy to see when the parents do the projects for them. Really annoying. Really cheating.

If I could go back to fifth grade and do the work now, well, I wouldn’t be in fifth grade. I would be an adult posing as a fifth grader. It would be something different.

So I let the kid do her own work. I let her handwritting be what it is. I let her sentences be what they are.

Then I stand back and tell her what a fabulous job she did. Because she did.

She has many years to work on grammar, poster board layout, and all the other ways to make her project more finished.

Who cares right now? She is in fifth grade and doing very awesome.