A bear-y nice place to live

Well, the day finally came....the ol'e diorama animal project that every kid in America must do at some time in their elementary career.  We were warned by Grace's kindergarten teacher about a week ago that we (and I do mean "we") were going to need a shoebox for an up-coming homework assignment.  The project directions were sent home on Wednesday and the project is due on Monday.  To most people that means 5 nights to get it done, but in our house it is very difficult to add any "extras" to our normal routine of dinner, music, bath, and a little reading.  The few hours we have together before Grace goes to bed is already jam-packed! So, our project needed to be completed in three nights.  Not a problem....I've got this.  I work with 700 preK, kindergarten, and first graders.  I have seen hundreds of projects like this.  The only problem, as my secretary pointed out on Friday afternoon, is making sure it is mostly Grace doing the work.  THAT part is the challenge.

Mrs. Peterson's "spin" on the project was that the children needed to begin with a small stuffed animal.  It had to be one that you could find in the real world - dinosaurs, unicorns, and mermaids were not allowed.  We started by taking out all of Grace's stuffed animals and counting them.  Any guesses how many she has?

This pile includes a grand total of 68 stuffed animals!  That is a lot but I actually thought she had more.  Then, out of all these animals she need to choose just one for the project.  Her choice was the most recent purchase, the black bear from the Disney movie Brave.  She named him "Fuzzy Bear", we looked up the habitat of black bears on the internet, and took one of Kyle's shoeboxes for the diorama.

Our plan was to make a cave and a forest.  Fuzzy Bear needed a place to sleep at night when he and the other animals were left alone at school.  Grace said she thought they were going to have a dance party or a parade in the halls.  Who knows?  Maybe they will!