School projects are the thorn in my side! It's the 7th grade here when things get so over the top out of control. . .yeah, they've had a major project every year since kindergarten (it used to be the school science fair--mandatory entrance--in elementary plus whatever classroom projects they did).
When my son was in 7th, the year began with a "family tree" project for English, a wooden cribbage board for algebra, a fair project for geography--had to be something 3 dimensional that went along with the fair theme (and it wasn't even our county fair!), and a science project--it escapes me at this moment what that one was. As the year progressed he had a European trip project for geography, an African country project for geography, a poetry book for English, and finally a photographic project for science that documented evidence of everything they had learned that year. My question was did any of these 7th grade teachers talk???? At one point he had 3 projects going that were 6 weeks in durations--all in the same quarter! It was horrid!
These were (are) not easy little projects. For example (and my daughter is now in the 7th grade and had pretty much the same projects--thankfully, better spaced by the teachers): the European trip project involves actually planning a trip to an assigned country. The child had to have a complete itinerary for a minimum of 10 days. He had to have names, addresses, phone numbers, amenities, cost and dates for hotels, restaurants (including what you ate), attractions visited (including cost and highlights of what you saw), flight numbers, airlines, cost of tickets, etc. The itinerary had to include at least 5 different cities and a minimum of 3 attractions in each city. He also had to document how he moved about the country including the cost of that transportation. Photographs of the sites seen, the areas visited and the like were also required. In addition, there was a report about the country itself that needed to accompany the itinerary. This had to be written in the first person and contained a multitude of information, i.e., population, three largest cities, geographic coordinates, climate, and on and on--all very dry information that no kid would be able to (or interested in) write about from a first person standpoint. Another aspect of the project was a poster on tagboard that contained a map of the country, the flag, ten facts about the country not covered elsewhere, weather forecast the the time period visiting, photographs of the country, and other things I don't recall. Finally, the child had to choose their favorite attraction visited and create a brochure for that attraction. The brochure had to contain all information about the hours of operation, cost, an overview of the attraction, pictures, and the like. This is a VERY expensive project when you consider all the photographic downloads, printing, notebooks, photo holders, posterboard, paper and incidentals to make it neat.
This same teacher has an African project he assigns during the final quarter of school--I'm expecting it any day. It's a scaled down version of the above--report, poster, costuming, and food items from the country assigned--seems like there's something else, just don't recall right now. This is also a semi-expensive project AND involves cooking/costuming.
When you toss in the family tree project (another notebook, photo holders, paper), science projects, wood for the cribbage board, and the materials necessary to complete the fair project--more wood, Lincoln logs, tubing, and miscellaneous other items--these projects are pricey. We often wonder what those without means do? Then there are those kids who are thrown to the wolves because they don't have parental support!
Is it just me or are our kids being projected to death? Some of the things my kids have been asked to write/research are things I did as a junior, senior, or while in college. It just seems there aren't enough hours in the day for them to actually be kids--they spend so much time on day-to-day homework AND then all weekend chasing information for a project. Of course, there's the stress it places on the entire family, too. They do need help with these things--and I really don't mind. When, however, I'm putting in 30 hours on a project--it's over the top. As someone else said earlier--I've already done my time in school.
My other big complaint is why am I the one teaching this stuff? They get the assignment and the teacher devotes NO class time to these major projects. Do they expect 7th graders to somehow omnisciently understand about booking travel? How about researching on the internet? Then, of course, there is all of that writing. . . Frankly, my dear--these things have "parent project" written all over them. It's not that I object to projects--I just feel if they are so important and valuable to the learning process--perhaps a little classroom time should be devoted to them. After all the points received make up 80% of their grade for the quarter.
Our kids have both been 4.0 students since grades began. They work very hard and we are involved at school as well. I really resent being "forced" to spend my family time as ordained by someone at school because of an arbitrary project. If it was one project a year--okay, but four from the same teacher plus the others from the various classes--c'mon. . . I have better things to do with my kids!
My DD4's preschool does a school play each year starting when they are 2. And parents are responsible for costumes. Last year DD was Little Miss Muffet and her Easter dress was her costume. This year she was the Scarecrow in a Wizard of Oz skit. I "creatively" put her costume together for about $15. Dorothy's mom went to a seamstress and had the full up blue and white checked dress made and bought the red sparkly shoes (Target for about $15). 
