4th grade students began the year with a calligraphic painting lesson based on similar painting examples by Katsushika Hokusai. Students painted 'giant' garden plants common in the "Land of the Midnight Sun" where the almost 24 hours of sunlight influence plant growth. After painting a whopper of a plant, students then created a whopper of a story by transforming their painting with simple stick figure drawings that further emphasized the size of the garden plant.