For all the schools in California fourth grade is the year that the kids learn all about the missions in California. I have heard about the infamous mission projects from other parents. It is generally a project that is assigned to the kids. It ends up being a project that the parents have to pay for and end up doing on their own. Part of me secretly wanted to do that project and let my inner architect come out. Then I thought about the mountain of laundry I always have and decided that building stacks of nicely folded laundry suits my inner architect just fine. I was secretly relieved when Kaden's teacher (a mother herself) decided that we would take a morning and the parents would go to school and help the kids crank out the mission project with miscellaneous items found from home. I wanted to hug the teacher for being so practical. I was honestly surprised at how much fun it was. I think in some ways being artsy and creative scares me because #1 I don't think I am either and #2 the thought of the mess makes me cringe. I have a very artistic friend - we will call her April - who taught me to just sit down and do it and you never know what you will end up with. Kaden really raised the bar with me. He had s a vision of what the mission would look like. Kaden really got into it (OK, I really got into it too!) and all of the kids in the class helped each other out. The kids brought in junk from home to create the missions and they were bartering back and forth for different building materials. We painted, we cut, we glued and we created. We let our inner creative artists come out. Kaden had some great ideas for the weapons room. He made sure that room was perfect. We had a cemetery, a church, a kitchen, stables and of course the weapons room. When it was time to go I really didn't want to leave we were having so much fun. To the unseasoned eye our mission may just look like painted cardboard with plastic trees thrown in for good measure, but to Kaden and I it is a masterpiece.
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