The Project Panic

Last week I was dropping Natalie off at school and I noticed a bunch of kids—older kids, so they had to be fifth graders—holding projects.

Hmmm. Tommy, who is a fifth grader, had never mentioned any project. There hadn’t been any paper about one in his backpack either.

I rushed home, ready to ask him about it. He wasn’t at school, because he was sick. It turns out that was a GOOD thing because when I asked he was like, “It was a molecule project and it was due today.”

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“Why didn’t you TELL me!” I shrieked. I didn’t want to freak out too much because, well, he was sick. But honestly.

“I…don’t know,” Tommy muttered.

“So you were going to go to school and turn in NOTHING?” I asked. How could he DO that? I could never have done that. I was not a straight A student but I always turned everything in on time.

“I…” Tommy’s lower lip wobbled. “I was confused.”

“Did you get a paper about the project?” I asked. “I didn’t see anything.”

Tommy shook his head. “He just told us to do it.”

That might be a problem. Tommy needs an actual paper on what he needs to do. Otherwise he can get lost. He has his teacher and another teacher that they go to for math and science. His real teacher understands how he works. This other teacher might not.

“Well, what exactly do you need to do?” I questioned.

“Make a molecule,” Tommy said.

I waited for my brain to compute. It did not. Molecule… molecule…what was that again? Crap, I need to go back to school.

“Okay,” I said. “Okay. Well. We’ll just….Google it. And…come up with something.” I handed him some medicine to take and rushed downstairs.

Google told me what a molecule was. And that there was a molecule kit. Yes! A kit! I am so not crafty. I couldn’t just make a molecule out of pretzels or yard sticks. Plus, the projects I had seen that morning looked fancy. Balls painted bright colors, some even with glitter.

I went to Hobby Lobby looking for the kit.

No kit. All sold out.

Naturally.

Ugh.

But Google had said you could make molecules out of candy. Tommy could do that! I’m sure some of those fancy projects that I had seen had been done by parents. Tommy was going to do his on his own. When he felt better later one, I instructed him on what to do and this is what we came up with:

Nothing horribly fancy, but you know, FYI, if your kid forgets to do a molecule project, you CAN make them out of gumdrops.