Gracie entered our school’s PTA Reflections contest in the photography division. This year’s theme was “Diversity Is…” We gave her the “kindergarten version” of what diversity is and started to help her brainstorm on ideas of what she could do for her photo.
I had lots of different ideas to throw out at her, but little miss had her own ideas. She decided she wanted to do a scene of a tea party with all different kinds of “friends”. In her essay that she hand wrote to go along with her photo entry, she explained that even though all of the friends at the tea party are different, they are still friends. She also explained that she edited the photo to add the white border that looks like clouds because it looks like a fairy tale, and to her it would be like a fairy tale if everyone was friends even if they were different. (I’m paraphrasing. I will post the original essay after we get it back.)
She set up the entire photo shoot. She cleared out the living room furniture and set up the table, chairs, dolls, tea set, etc. Her daddy put the camera on a tripod for her, turned it on and turned her loose on it.
She took 97 photos :) When it came time to editing them and choosing which one she wanted to use, she sat on my lap at the computer and we opened up 2 at a time. She would chose which she liked best, and we’d open another one and she’d chose again. We did that for every single picture.
Once she chose her picture, we spent quite a bit of time choosing how she wanted to edit it with digital software.
Then she chose what color mat to use.
Throughout the entire process, I tried to give her my opinion or give her suggestions. She wanted nothing to do with them. She had her own ideas and said she didn’t need any help. There are a few things that I tried to talk her into doing differently.
Boy, did I learn a good lesson here! Step back and let her shine!
Because…
She won her division (K-2) at our school!
Her project was forwarded to the Arkansas State PTA Convention where it was judged with all of the other K-2 division school winners from around the state.
And guess what?? She WON 1st place at State!!!
Here she is getting her award at the State PTA Convention.
They had her picture on display at the State convention. Here she is standing by her entry.
This past week, she was invited to be recognized at the School Board meeting with the other reflections winners from around the district. She loved it :) She eats up being in the spot light.
Now, we are waiting to hear if she won anything at the National level.
Of course, she can’t wait to enter the contest again next year!
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