Paper, Paper Everywhere

June 3, 2009, 8:12 pm
Filed under: Uncategorized

A family of six generates a shitload of paper. Almost an entire paper grocery sack full every week. And that doesn’t count all the junk mail I try to recycle at the post office. Surely there is a better way.

Since it’s the last week of school, the amount of paper coming home has spiraled out of control. Again, there has to be a better way. Does everything they do in elementary school require a corresponding photocopied worksheet. Couldn’t the 5th graders actually make up and write out sentences with the spelling words in them instead of filling in the blanks on a 6 page worksheet?

One good thing has come out of this landslide of end-of-year papers. The kids are bringing home anything and everything with their name on it, and there are some real gems in there.

I found a story Bowman wrote on the computer as part of his typing tutor, entitled “Jimmy Bob, The Boy Who Loved The Dump”. The story is as full of awesome as the title would lead you to believe. Isabelle brought home a journal full of weekend recaps. My favorite was from a few weeks ago and included this line, “I roasted a marshmellow and I put it on some choclate and a graham cracker and a smores was born. It was most delishish!”

The very best thing, however, was a total accident. Mason handed it over unintentionally when I made him empty his backpack, which hadn’t been done since Christmas vacation. It was a list of meticulously kept grievances perpetrated by Bowman some night while Davie-O and I were gone, entitled “The Horrible Things Bowman Did While U Were Gone….”

I hope you enjoy this list as much as I did. I will copy it exactly and in it’s entirety.