I got an email from Cody’s kindergarten teacher late last week informing me that Cody would be coming home with a Dinosaur Report page; he needs to pick a dinosaur to do a simple report on. In her email the word simple looked like this “SIMPLE”. She went on to say:
“If you want to get more elaborate and include a picture of the dinosaur, that’s great, but make sure your child can tell what the dinosaur is called, whether it’s a meat or plant eater, and whether it’s a big or small one. Interesting facts can be as simple as, “Really big teeth!” The big idea is that they are learning about something that they are going to share with the class!”
When Cody got off the bus after school, I checked his backpack and sure enough there was a Dinosaur Report page. Two pages, actually.
The due date was over a week away. I can only assume, due to the length of time given to complete the project, that her definition of the capitalized word SIMPLE is really referring to a full on PowerPoint presentation complete with double sided, colored handouts with space on the side of each page for the children to jot down notes.
Currently Cody is waffling between the T-Rex and the Velociraptor. I will keep you all posted as to what he decides.
p.s. I hope you all know that this is quite tongue in cheek and that I will not be sending my child off to kindergarten with a laptop, projector, and red laser pen in which to aid him in presenting his first school report (ok, maybe the laser pen, because how cool would that be? Accidental burnt retinas be damned!)
p.p.s. I may stay up late into the night creating a report all of my own on the awesomeness of the Pterodactyl. And I will rock the hell out of PowerPoint. I love PowerPoint! And yes, I do know I am a dork.
UPDATE: Cody’s final decision and dinosaur of choice is, drumroll please, Diplodocus.
p.p.p.s. If you are lucky and I become one of those mothers who lurks in the back of the classroom with video camera casually in hand, you will not have to Google Diplodocus but can instead watch an informative presentation on said dinosaur in a future post. Stay tuned.
Shoes On The Wrong Feet 
I was hoping that the image at the bottom was Power Point. It was not. I I cannot give you full credit. And the two-sided hand-outs got caught up in machine. They are now 4-sided hand outs. In eight pieces. That’s okay, right?
Ah, but it is a PowerPoint slide
I just didn’t know how to attach a PowerPoint document to my postI wanted everyone to be able to see my beautiful title slide, even those poor souls lacking in PowerPoint, so I copied and pasted. And eight piece handouts are just fine, especially considering that my dogs ate mine. 😉Thanks for the comment!
I had a great time reading this post. I can’t wait to see what his presentation looks like!
Don’t build your expectations up too much – we are rocking the poster board and markers – since he is only kindergarten. 🙂
My kid digs PowerPoint. And since I have no clue how to use it, he’s on his own. That works out well for me. Can’t wait to see the finished product!
I loved making presentations back in my college (well the slides and the words, not the act of presenting) and even got to make some for work before I started the stay at home mom thing. Mmmm, maybe I should start making full on presentations about life as a SAHM to present to the dogs or the neighbors or who ever would listen.
We decided to go with poster board so it can be more hands on for him.
Are extra points awarded for correct pronunciation? Cody will rock this!
Oh, dear I hope not! During our initial research period I was mispronouncing it left and right and now neither one of us can keep it straight.
I’m waiting for the video, since I can’t even pronounce Diplodocus.
Di-PLOD-o-cus. Except that I keep pronouncing it DIP-lo-doc-us and getting everyone confused. 🙂
Great post! So funny. His report is going to be awesome! 😉 Looking forward to the video! 🙂
Thank you! We shall see about the report though. If he is anything like his momma he will stand up in front of the class and then completly freeze, deer in headlights, and forget every word.
Good luck, Cody! Can’t wait to find out how it all goes. 🙂