Paint the town red

I had a very fun elementary school memory flash before me, and I thought I would share it. In Mrs. Barton’s fifth grade class we studied geography for one whole semester. One of the ways they tried to make it fun was an outdoor “project”. The art teacher drew a US map on the concrete outside by the 4 square and hop-scotch area. Then all the kids in my class got to paint the individual states a different color. Obviously we didn’t have 50 different colors of paint, so we just re-used the 5 primary colors over and over. Each afternoon Mrs. Barton would call a few kids to go out and paint a little bit on the map. It was so fun.

Unfortunately it didn’t help me learn geography; I’m still terrible at it. But it was a great way to make learning fun and a memory that will stay with me forever. I wonder if they repaint it every year, or if it’s long faded away? I’ll have to drive by and check the next time I’m in town.