The other day the boy came home with an alpha pals book. It had pictures of animals and he was supposed to write other words that started with the same letter as the animals next to the pictures. He did--though I confess I had to help him come up with at least 80% of the words. He is easily distracted when we are doing something he's not really interested in.
He turned it in the next morning only to have it sent home again because he didn't color the pictures. I gave him some crayons and told him to have at it. He did and I admit his coloring was less than ideal.
He turned it in again. It was sent home again. Apparently he needed to color it better. I gave him some crayon and told him to try harder. Now keep in mind this was the day Optimus Prime destroyed Madison's homework, so I was busy making Salt Dough and trying to find paints. In otherwords, I was NOT supervising the boys coloring.
In the midst of all this he shows me his alpha pals book. He has taken a ball point pen and covered every inch of it in blue scribbles. When I suggested it wasn't so great he started to cry. He was very proud of his work. I told him it was fine and shot off and email to the teacher basically saying please please don't send this damn thing back. He'd worked hard on it, and yes it looked awful but apparently that was the look he was going for. It didn't come back.
I thought it was pretty much over until yesterday when he pulled out a different paper that had, "This is NOT coloring" written across it. He read it and started cry. Uggg.
Keep in mind I do love his teacher-- she's great! She's not trying to be mean. She just wants him to do well. If you ask him to color a monster or a rocket ship he'll take his time and do an awesome job. He's just not that into coloring Bradley the Brave Bear. Can you blame him?
I just wonder when coloring became so important. Isn't it enough that he has a math worksheet, 20 minutes of reading, and unfinished class work to do everyday? Is it really that important that he color well?
7 comments:
But here's the interesting thing--there are no rules in art. Any type of coloring job should be acceptable. Suggesting that a child should color neatly is implying that there is only one way to be an artist. Where does that leave the Jackson Pollock's of the word?
I am so with you there. Lincoln hates coloring and I am afraid he wont do well in school because of it. That seems wrong to me. Since when is coloring a part of the SAT??? Besides, I think a little part of each of us dies the day we learn to "color inside the lines."
S&S, I think coloring with a #2 pencil is a significant part of the SAT, especially in the lines.
Just ignore it. It will all go away.
Sister critical-- I hear you. In fact that is going to be my new motto.
Juliette- but it IS important! I've seen many a teacher send a kid back to recolor or continue coloring a paper. Why? Who knows. It's probably like crawling...except instead of them being good readers if they crawl, they'll be serial killers if they color poorly.
I'm sure it's something like that because The Kid has a kid in her class who is going to be a serial killer when he grows up...and his coloring sucks.
(Beth, I'm sure this doesn't apply to your kid. He'll be a serial... something else...like a Jedi.)
CarrieAnne, apparently you haven't looked at the picture on Beth's log-in/ID thingy. He just might be the first serial killer bunny.
Kaes loves to color, but she doesn't do it conventionally at all. She can spend entire minutes on a picture and then scribble over the whole thing afterwards to finish it off. Thanks to this heads-up, I foresee tears in our future too.
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