The Start of School

We haven't started school this week, as planned, because a business closing scheduled for last week slopped over into this week (GRRRR). However, in honor of the traditional first day of school, this is a picture of a splendid project expanded from an enrichment project in Calvert School 2nd grade.

In the very first week of second grade, the history lesson was the Star Spangled Banner. They suggested that, in order that the child could better visualize the flag Francis Scott Key saw, we lay out with yarn or rope the size of the original flag. Well, since I have a flagstone courtyard, I'm the wiseguy who said to the high school girls, "Just help the little guys draw it with sidewalk chalk!" Little did I know that they'd chase chalk through every store in four towns around here. Anyway, I think the dimensions were something like 40 ft by 60 ft, and they really enjoyed drawing and coloring it. I couldn't get all the stripes in the picture, taken out an attic dormer, because it was too close to the house (and I'm no dummy - I'm not hanging too far out a window 30 feet in the air). They all did enjoy the excuse to not work that day!