Cars' homework last night was to put something "brown" in a paper bag and then at school today, he would give hints to the class and they would try to guess his brown item.

Now, my children are notorious for getting the most obscure item, giving the lamest hints, then getting upset when no one guesses what they have (Jax and Dex have had similar homework). So, I tried to steer Cars towards some really obvious brown items such as pine cones, some dirt, a twig, a plastic horse that was brown, etc. Cars would have none of it. Jax tried to convince him to put a brown paper bag in the brown paper bag (apparently this is very funny to 10 year old boys). Nope, Cars did not like that idea either.

When Cars finally decided on his brown item, I groaned. He wanted a piece of cardboard because "cardboard is brown". Ugh.

"What hint will you give?", I asked him.

"It comes from trees", he said.

Well, yes but that makes it sound like it is a pine cone or an acorn. I tried coaching him. "It is made from ground up trees" and "Boxes are made from it". He was so dismissive when he said "I don't want to say that".

So, I cut a piece of cardboard off a box. Then I tried coaching him again "It is very stiff paper". All he wanted to say was "It is squiggly in middle", which is true but too vague.

Anyway, off to school he went with his square of cardboard box in his bag. After school I asked him about his project and he said in disbelief "Nobody even guessed what it was!" He had apparently told them the "It comes from trees" line and he was indignant when someone guessed "pine cone".

Hopefully his next oral assignment will go a little better. In the meantime, he wants to keep his little piece of cardboard because it was his "homework" and he was proud of coming up with the idea all on his own.