Sunday, September 23, 2007

Cameron's Whale Watch

Mitch is stepping in as guest author this week. This week was filled with most of the regular things like school, work, cleaning house, my perpetual bathroom project... (Carlie finally convinced me that I needed to move the light fixture mounting point from the ceiling to the wall. I am letting some of my manhood go when I admit that her idea on my remodel project is actually better than what I was going to do.)

We won't bore you with most of the details of our daily rituals, so we will tell you a little thing that Cameron has been doing in school.

Cameron has really taken off on reading, so he was given accelerated reading assignments. In one of his books that he was reading, he became highly engrossed in the lives of humpback whales. To his excitement, he discovered, at the end of the book, that he could "adopt" a whale. He asked his teacher if their class could adopt a humpback whale. She passed this off as a phase that would soon pass.... needless to say, the persistant will prevail!!!
He began to get his class involved and excited about this project. The teacher soon realized she was outvoted, so she gave Cam the assignment of finding out all the information needed in order to adopt this whale.
Well Cameron decides that he needs to go about this with very thought out steps...
Step #1: To truly convert his class to loving humpback whales: He comes home and searches the online Encyclopedia (sadly, he is getting better at surfing than we are) and prints off a two page report on these ocean giants; he takes the report in and reads it to his class, and they take the bait!
Step #2: Find out how their class can "adopt" a whale: Upon more searching of the internet, he was able to find the New England Whale Center, and all about this adoption process- the names of whales, cost of "adopting", and all the freebies they give you when you adopt... Again, more printing!
Step #3: Come up with ideas for raising the money to "adopt" this whale: Cameron has always loved to sell baked goods whenever we have had a yard sale... so his first thought was, "hey, we can sell cookies and stuff in the hallway". Again, the class was unanimous. (So who do you suppose get's to bake most of the stuff for the bake sale? Yep, good 'ol mom... lucky she likes to do that kind of stuff!)
So, after all this hard work and effort on Cameron's part, his class will be having their fundraiser on October 1-3, to raise money in order to adopt a Humpback whale! He has had to warn the class though, "it has to stay in the ocean, it won't fit in our classroom!"

3 comments:

Rob said...

Mitch, that's so awesome! Cameron is a genius, and you guys need to capitalize on this. Remember the dude from Jeopardy? That could be Cameron up there earning millions of dollars.

Maybe we'll contribute to the Whale Watch fund when you come and visit.

By the way, how much is it to adopt a whale? If you adopt it can you put a restraining order on Greenpeace from coming within 200 yards of it? Or whalers?

Katie said...

Cameron definitely get's his smarts from me... NOT! I want to know too, how much does the whale adoption cost? Will you get cute little whale pictures of your adoptee as he/she grows up? Will it be yours forever? Can you go and visit on weekends? Does he or she know Shamu?

Carlie said...

To adopt a humback whale- sorry Katie, it's not a killer whale- is only $40, but to a 2nd grade class, that's a lot. They are having a bake sale to earn the money at their school. They get a 8x10 picture of their whale, recorded humpback whale sounds, and a bunch of other stuff... it's fun for the kids! And I have wondered too, if this will save them from being hunted... hmmm... curious to know.