Mattie's 4th grade mission project

I have known (and dreaded) the mission project for many years.   It does not seem like a fun thing to me and buying a kit just seems like cheating.

At Christmas break this year we went to San Diego and we stopped at the mission in Oceanside.  Some of the 4th grade teachers let you do a photo report or a power point presentation rather than the dreaded model.  We haven't heard anything about the report at that time, so we went on the tour and walked around.  

Then the assignment came.  Must build a model.  Family can help.  Great just what I wanted.   So I started a pin board (on www.pinterest.com my favorite cyber home)  and started researching.  There wasn't much help out there.  The best tip I found was to use under cooked noodles to be the roof tiles, so that is what we did.  

Here is her mission

While in a craft store in garment district in LA, we found these little 'accessories' for the mission.

 The mission was cut out a 2 pieces of Styrofoam.

 The cemetery wall was built out of foam blocks.

We decided to do a poster background with some pictures from the actual mission and to display the required paragraph.

 The whole thing.  My great contribution to the project was suggesting to hair spray down the 'earthen path'  We put down glue on the base then applied the 'earthen path' then hairspray--worked like a charm.

  

The project was pass/fail so since Mattie (and her dad) turned in something, Mattie received a PASS.  It total we spent about $40 on this project.  We did throw it out--after pictures.  Hopefully Jake's 4th grade teacher won't require a model.