What's your animal???

About a week ago, Alex's teacher sent home a letter saying that his class was going to be doing a project. An animal project. The children would check out a book from the library, read about their animal, and then have to report on that animal. No keep in mind, Alex is in kindergarten. I'm thinking "How in the world is he going to do that?" But I kept an open mind and figured that the kindergarten teacher who's been teaching for 20+ years knew what she was doing. :^)

This past Monday, Alex brought home the project. I then went "OH!!!" It's really neat. He was write the name of his animal and then draw a picture of it. He was then supposed to write what his animal ate and then draw that. Next, he was to write where they live, and you guessed it, draw it. Finally, he had to write what he thought was interesting about the animal and then, once again, draw.

Only one problem: we didn't have a book. It wasn't till Wednesday that I found out what his animal was. I picked him up from school and he excitedly tells me: "Mommy! I got my animal book!" For the last two days I had been thinking about the cool animal he would write and draw about. Maybe a lion, or a bear, or cat, or dog. You know, something "normal." So we get in the van and I ask "So what's your animal Little Man?" Are you ready? No, really. Are you ready?

Alex: "LIZARD!"

Me: "I'm sorry, did you just say LIZARD????????"

Alex "Yup." (With a big ole grin on his face)

Me: "Really?"

Alex: "Uh-huh"

Me: "Did you pick it or did your teacher pick it?"

Alex: "I picked it."

You see, being a girl, I would never have picked to do a report on a lizard. I'm learning more and more that boys are just a different animal all together than girls.

So I get all excited because I want him to really enjoy doing his first big school project. And you know what? I learned something. I honestly learned something about lizards.

We figured out pretty early on that the term lizard was too broad. So we picked a specific type of lizard: the iguana. So we started reading about the iguana and learning about what they eat, where they live, and something interesting about them. Then, yesterday, Alex drew the pictures. Today, he wrote out the sentences. By the way, the writing part, was very challenging. That's a lot of writing for a kindergartner. But it was very good practice and I realized we need to work with him a little more on his handwriting. So here you go! Alex's report on Iguanas:

The whole report

I'm sorry. I don't know why but this makes me tear up. Okay, moving on.

I showed him the picture of an Iguana and this is what he drew. I think for a 6 year old this is pretty awesome!

"They eat bugs." And he drew a picture of bugs flying through the sky.

"They live in the desert and rainforest." He decided to draw a rainforest.

"Are interesting because they lay eggs." And he drew a mommy iguana who dug a whole in the ground and layed her eggs.

I'm one proud momma! What a great report Little Man!