Homework

Last week Harper came home with the March kindergarten newsletter which included some homework instructions. Each kindergartener was to take the provided piece of paper and draw a map of his/her bedroom. We discussed the assignment just enough for me to be sure that Harper understood what she was supposed to do and then I let her go and do it. Here is the result:

 

If you click the image you should be able to see it much better. In case the spacing/handwriting is throwing you off, here are the things she labeled: door, closet, book shelf, love seat, doll house, books, chair, basket, radio, dresser, me (her), Kit (her doll), Max, (her stuffed dog), bed, and lamp. She also drew a quick Michael's room, though some of that is cut off, as is the road she drew outside her window, because the paper was a little larger than our printer/scanner thing. 

It certainly isn't the neatest work a kindergartener has ever done, the scale is off, there's lots of smudgy erase marks, some of the perspective went a little awry, and yet I LOVE it. I love it so much. I feel like it looks pretty much like the essence of kindergarten work. I can tell how hard she worked by all the detail she included and the fact that everything is carefully in its correct place. And she was so proud that she did it all by herself. 

I have no idea what the teacher's goals were for this assignment, other than the obvious one of making the children think about how maps are a spot/space viewed from above. I don't know if she will be expecting something neater and cleaner, maybe with more parental guidance. I do know that this is one of the mountains of papers that come home from kindergarten that I will be saving. She'll enjoy looking back on it one day.