At school these days Huck and his classmates are learning all about America.  When this first started he came home quizzing me about our flag and seemed genuinely impressed (and surprised) that I knew about the stars and stripes.  When we had a layover in D.C. over Christmas he could hardly believe his eyes as we flew in sight of the Capitol building.  He loves to talk about President Obama and his family, and now they’re working on a puzzle of all the presidents.  At worktime one day last week they each had to create an American symbol, so Huck and his friend Olivier made the White House out of blocks, which has stayed that way ever since.

And currently their teacher Marilyn is putting together American mobiles to hang around the classroom.  Here are Huck’s drawings of the flag, White House, Liberty Bell, Statue of Liberty and Empire State Building for the project:

Sometimes during reading time at school Huck gets happily lost in a big dictionary and teaches himself things like Roman numerals I-X, sign language A-Z and 1-9, and flags from around the world.  He is most impressed by Libya’s totally green flag.  And sometimes his idea of fun is to draw random flags with me from his Children’s World Atlas, always extra excited when a flag contains the colors red, white and blue.

Last week Huck began coming home with all kinds of Martin Luther King, Jr. stories, facts and songs, always calling him Dr. King and seeming troubled by some of the things he’s learned, like the “Whites Only” signs that used to be a part of our country.  Explaining racism to a kindergartener is hard; he looks at me like I must be making it up.  Celebrating an American like MLK by having a Monday off together to play with marble runs, draw flags, read library books and go sledding is much easier.