The Room With A Hue

I have a group of 3 third-grade boys that love to trace on their Chromebook screens. Two weeks ago, I warned them that it would be their last week of tracing because I didn't want them relying on it like a crutch. I had it in my mind that they were "cheating" and looking for an easy way out, and I thought that taking the option to trace away would encourage them instead to develop their observation skills. I DID add some stencils to my drawing center before I visited them again, thinking that this would somehow satisfy their desire to trace and my desire to wean them off of it. The long story short is that one of the boys did not take it well at ALL. He got up shortly into the next class and left the room. One of the other boys seemed fine with the challenge, but the last one was pretty down on himself and his abilities the whole time. And then he asked me, "What's the difference between a stencil and tracing?" I knew as this whole thing was unfolding that t