Spyro Tinker

Calvin received the Tinker Crate monthly science kits as a Christmas gift this year. Every month a box arrives that promises to keep him busy for hours on end, and so far they've been fun, fascinating, educational, and fairly vast in scope. We haven't even managed yet to explore all the different paths of learning each one offers, but we go back to them as new discoveries offer themselves.

Last month the kit was what I have been calling a mechanical spyro graph, although, as Calvin has pointed out, that isn't really what it is. It's a platform, to which he attached a motor and three markers. When he set the motor running it vibrated, as motors do, ever so slightly. And not much happened. But when he unbalanced the motor with a glob of clay, the vibration increased and sent the contraption shaking across a paper in a semi-predictable manner. When he moved the motor or the glob of clay, it changed that pattern. We had fun with alterations and predictions, but his favorite part of the kit this time, actually, was the artistic component. He loved the art it created, but he loved even more the art it let him create by using the motor's rotation instead to rotate paper discs, and the markers to color them.

Lego airport

Before leaving for vacation I always try to get all the chores done, the house, clean, the important jobs taken care of. It's supposed to make the return to the norm easier on the other side. Why is it, then, that coming home from vacation is always such a mess? I'm sure that landing after midnight had a little to do with it this time, but by and large, it takes me at least a few days, if not a whole week, to recover from a week away. Only some of it is the laundry (how do we amass twice as much laundry per amount of time when we're away from home?), there's also the unpacking, and the vacuuming (because I do understand how the dog's shed twice as much hair per time when we're away), and just the reacclimating, I guess. And this time there was also wedding picture editing to get done, and a book sale to prepare for.

All this to say that, in spite of my careful planning to return to our regularly scheduled weekly activities by Wednesday, we didn't actually get to them until Saturday, and that's never regularly scheduled anyway. Calvin did practice the piano and complete the previous week's math, and we did get our chores done, but other than that you could call this our first try with unschooling. Wednesay and Thursday Calvin was pretty much on his own, and in that time he designed and built an airplane out of Legos. Then he added an airport. And to top it al off, he wrote of instructions for the project on his computer. All self driven. It was a fun experiment of sorts, but at the end of the two days we were both ready to return to our regularly scheduled program.

A designer at work...

A brand new passenger jet

(perhaps a flight I'd rather not be on)

I'll bet those passengers are thankful to be pulling up at the gate...

As the passengers disembark, let's get a good look at the pay phone in the airport. That's right, a pay phone.

After that flight, the first passengers into the gate stopped off at the pub to check out the rotating taps

A quick turnaround—the representative at the gate is already announcing boarding for the next flight

There they go, boarding via the jetway

Bears

I thought I'd let Calvin write this one for me. I recently gave him an assignment practicing his creative writing style versus his academic writing style. The assignment included two short samples that are in response to the book Bears on Hemlock Mountain.

Creative writing: Describe a journey over the mountain:

I was sent on an errand; to go get the silver pan from our treasure chest at the top of the mountain. The mountain was tall, about 100 to 200 feet high. And some people said there was a monster on the mountain.

I sighed and looked up the mountian. It was a long way up. I put one foot in the side, then another, and then I started to climb.

The sun was just beginning to set. There was a beautiful sunset in progress. Oh, the purples and reds and greens and yellows weaving their way acorss the sky, traversing its giant blue field.

I was about halfway there when i heard a sound: CRACK! I whipped around to see what made the noise. I kept feeling more terrified every second. Almost there! I said to myself. Only ten feet left! I pulled myself up to the top of the mountain and then slowly let myself down into the cave that held our treasure chest.

The cave was dark. Really dark. I quickly rabbed the silver pan. Then I went to the slide hole. My dad had madea hole int he side of the cave that led onto really smooth snow. We called this the slide hole. I lowered myself onto the snow and WHEEEEE! I flew down the mountainside, going home.

Academic writing: Black Bears

Black bears are amazing. They are five feet at lenght, and they weight 300 pounds. They come in fur colors of black, brown, bluegray, and white. The colors bluegray and white, however, are rare.

Black bears aren't only amazing in just looks, they also do a lot of neat things. They will eat acorns, berries, branches, and honey. They climb trees very well. Some even makie their winter dens in trees. They live in mountains, forests, and swamps of the U.S.A., Canada, and Northern Mexico.

Things about which we do not speak: frustration

It is easy to believe, even for long stretches of time, that this life we've created is charmed and perfect. We love what we're doing, what we're exploring and researching, the books we're reading, the topics we're delving into. In part, that's the point. Homeschooling allows us the freedom to make that happen.

But the truth isn't at all that simple.Even the things you love become tedious at times, and that old adage, about anything worth doing or having is worth working for, is true.

Things often come easily to Calvin. Over the years it has become increasingly clear that he expects this, and when something isn't as easy as he expects, he becomes frustrated quickly. It's a common reaction for bright kids, but it's hard to watch. My go-to response has always been to applaud his struggle and use that old adage about the greatest things requiring greater work, but it usually falls on deaf ears. And why shouldn't it? The more I've thought about it, telling him that the things he struggles with are worth more only negates all the things he's learned easily in the past. And aside from nobody wanting their knowledge demeaned, the truth is that it's a lie, and kids can see right through lies.

And there's another important piece to the puzzle, too, the piece that adds color to the overall picture. Our feelings, our emotions, add color to our lives, and frustration is one of those emotions. In telling my son that he should revel in his struggles and award himself for hard-won feats I'd hoped to aleviate his frustration and avoid what is ultimately a painful and frustrating experience for myself as well. But that's the wrong lesson. Frustration is part of life. And while I'd like him to learn how to successfully work hard for his achievements, and to self-reward, it is just as important to me that he learn how to be frustrated and self soothe, or calm, then move forward.

So over the past few months we've changed our approach to frustration. It started with admitting that I had been wrong, followed with the admission that we all get frustrated (as if he hadn't seen me deal with frustration myself), and ended with what I hope will be the ultimate lesson: that the frustration matters less than what you do with or after it. But frustration response is habit forming, and it can take time to change bad habits. Around here our go-to response to frustration has been negativity, like grumbling, physical outbursts, or even giving up. So we introduced positive and negative jars: in the face of frustration, when we choose to respond in a positive way a pin goes in the positive jar, and vice versa. A positive reaction can be laughter, a reframing of goals, or simply walking away, but most importantly, it can come after an initial outburst, because expressing frustration is okay.

Hydrometers

Calvin loved playing in water when he was a baby, and it turns out not much has changed. Our science exploration this week, building on what we did last week, revolved around the what, how, and why of hydrometers. Out came the kitchen scale again, and several of the objects we used for our demonstration last week, plus a few additional items, all followed up by a field trip to our local home brewing store (where else would you go to get a trusty hydrometer?)