State Fair

Julia, with her current LOVE of the geography and cartography of the United States, is thrilled that it's almost time for the Third Grade State Fair.  Each third grader at her school will report on one of the fifty states, as well as create a diorama of one of the state's important landmark.

Julia was assigned the glamorous state of Arkansas.  Apparently, it was her third choice out of five.  (The first, second, fourth and fifth being Lousiana, Michigan, North Carolina, and New Mexico.) 

ME: Julia, what made you want to learn about Arkansas?
JULIA: I don't know, I just feel like it's, kinda, like, FRENCHY there.

Ah, yes, Arkansas: the Francophile capital of the United States.

Before the holiday break, Julia came home with a thick packet of instructions for how to go about planning her project, as well as several pages worth of check-lists and planning prep.  Apparently, Julia didn't feel this was worth looking through.  I had recently bought a pair of dress shoes, and I offered her the empty box to use for her diorama.  She was delighted, and immediately hurried away with it.

I happened to glance over at her with the box and one of her new "metallic" markers that she got for Christmas, and approached as she was writing this inside the box:

"Fact!  The name Arkansas comes from a French word that means"

ME: Julia.  What are you doing?  That's not actually a true fact.  "Arkansas" is not a French word.
JULIA: (face falling) Oh.  I thought it was.
ME: Honey, you have to do actual research before you start working on your diorama.  You can't just write random made-up facts inside the box.
JULIA: But I thought that was true!
ME: Honey, you have to confirm your facts by doing the research.  Remember how you got a packet with a bunch of pages to use for planning, before you start your project??
JULIA: Ohhh.  (chagrined) I *forgot* we're supposed to PLAN.

I guess she just really wanted Arkansas to be Frenchy.

Anyway, I came up with a way to salvage the project.  I had Julia do some research on the Blanchard Springs Caverns in Arkansas.  She has started on her diorama, and in order to make it a cave, she got to conveniently use black construction paper to cover the insides of the box.  (Including her BS "fact.")
Take a look so far:

Ta-da!  You'd never know she had written something completely not true inside!

I can't wait to see how the rest of the planning goes...