Boy at Work

These days Kiernan has homework. Homework! Kindergarten homework! Can you believe this?

Amazing.

Right now it consists of practicing upper and lower case letters and doing a bit of reading each night. Twenty minutes of reading, to be precise, which he notes on the front sheet of the homework by giving the title of the book he has read along with its author. Some recent titles include Hop on Pop by Dr. Seuss, The Complete Guide to Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Reptiles by Chris McNab, and My Daddy Snores by Nancy Rothstein. Why he would be interested in that last one, I have no idea.

The twenty minutes of reading, in particular, should never be a problem. He loves to read, so that's never a chore. The problem is, already, finding the time. Finding twenty minutes. I cannot believe I just typed that, but finding twenty minutes has already started to become a challenge. This is mostly my fault as I am wont to let him play for almost two hours after school each day with his friend Oliver. I love watching him play with his friends. I don't know that I can really put it into words except to say that I think it's cool and this is what his life should be about at this point.

At this point? Heck. From now on.

It's also sometimes pleasant time for me, even in the sledgehammer heat of the Valley. I sit on the benches that surround one of the big trees on the playground and read my book while Kiernan and Oliver bury dinosaurs in the dirt and make mud with Oliver's water bottle. I'm actually reading a book for chunks of time for the first time since I can remember. It's kind of nice.

But still, work is a good thing. Learning that is important too.

After working on letters and reading during the week, homework is turned in on Friday. One more thing is due on this day. The Mystery Bag. I could write out what the Mystery Bag assignment is all about, but I think I shall just post an image of the last one.


So, as you can see, this time around Kiernan chose Bonitosaura. A dinosaur. I know! How weird is that! His clues, in case you're having trouble translating, are...

1. A sauropod (sauropods are an infraorder or clade of saurischian ["lizard-hipped"] dinosaurs, as I'm sure you well know).
2. Long tail (backwards 'g' there).
3. Loud feet.

Now, while it is the case that Kiernan has many toy dinosaurs, he does not have a Bonitosaura. Why choose that particular dinosaur, you ask? Because just that day Kiernan's Nana and Pop sent him two very cool posters. One featured birds you might see in the backyard. The other one was entitled "Weird Dinosaurs". Here's a picture of the latter:


The directions on the Mystery Bag assignment clearly state that the object in the bag can be "an item or picture of an object". So, Kiernan set to work finding an image. This was his idea, and he did this on his own.


There he sits, at my computer, searching the Internet for images of Bonitosaura. The poster spread out on the floor for inspiration.

P.S. Thanks Nana and Pop!