E is for Electronics

I'm excited today because my sister sent me info on a new cool resource to use with homeschool. She saw an article in Fast Company about Circuit Playground. Here's the article. It's founder is passionate about teaching people about electronics and encouraging to make things themselves using electronics. They're even beginning to put out videos for kids that teach about basic electronics information. The first one called "A is for Amphere" introduces what electrons are and what current is (in a way that a 5 or 6 year old could understand). At just a few minutes long, with cool music, and a funny robot puppet it kept my kids riveted. They wanted to watch it several times. The company also sells electronics kits and badges for learning electronics skills to encourage kids and kids at heart to make their own gadgets. You can check out their website at www.adafruit.com I'm looking forward to trying one of their kits with C in the coming year. I hope that someone out there is as excited about this place as I am!

New Things

My little guys and I are a couple weeks into our new homeschooling method. I had always thought of homeschooling as *the* way to make school fun. I imagined us curled up with books and making marvelous discoveries in the back yard. I almost had that dream squashed by starting our homeschool experience with a couple different cyber charter schools. My C seemed to enjoy it at first. I did too. Kindergarten was neat. He learned how to read. But there was a lot a sitting. Still not was expected of him. It was kindergarten after all. Then first grade. Oh how we both ended up hating first grade. Then through a series of blunders my first grader was reported to our home school district as truant. I had to sit through an online meeting explaining how important it was that we attend school regularly. I had to fill out a form and mail it in explaining why we had missed days and what I would do to see that it didn't happen again. It made no difference that we schooled on weekends and through breaks because we were always behind because I just couldn't have him sit at a table for 5 hours a day. We didn't go on their field trips because it would really mean a whole day of not doing work and we would get even more behind. It just mattered that we had missed logging into the system during the week. Yes, truant. Yes, still talking about cyber school. Yes, it was my fault. I'll say it again, it was completely my responsibility to make sure we were logged in and/or got the correct level of excuse in within the allowed time. And yes, I still think it is ridiculous. Luckily it was close to the end of the year, we finished the year without further incident and promptly withdrew. I faced my fears of doing this thing without someone else telling me what to do. And the fears of could we afford it? Could I still teach him everything he needed? Could I make it fun? Could he ever *like* school?

This first year has been full of ups and downs. Successes and failures. The good news is I think we're both excited again. I think the answer to the last question is no - he probably won't ever like school. But he can like learning. These last couple weeks have been a blast for both of us. I get up and find him in his project room already working on something he's excited about. This morning it was a minecraft mask which he so cleverly paired with a turtle shell constructed two weeks ago. I'm so thankful that we don't have to get everything right in an instant.

The Kindness of Strangers

We returned from the library not long ago. We had gone to get yet more books on insects. C's current project focuses on insects and we just can't get enough of them. But I digress.

As we were walking to the car we saw a man on a bike pedalling through the parking lot and out on his way to who knows where with a toy in one hand while steering the bike with the other. It was a Star Wars toy. C saw him and said out loud with all his boy enthusiasm, "I like that ship that he has!" as the gentleman sped past. I smiled and kept on walking. It was a ship from Star Wars. Large and very cool and I wasn't at all surprised to hear this exclamation. Suddenly we see that the man has turned around and is pedalling towards us. His arms are covered in tattoos, he didn't have much if any hair on his head, and had an earring I think. Probably in this mid 40s. Not exactly a picture that screams "soft spot for kids." He says "You do?!" and he lets C examine it closer. The toy looked clean and was large. Probably would have cost $50 or up at Toy R Us. Nothing we would ever have been able to imagine justifying as a purchase - even for a birthday. I smile and think that was a nice thing to do. C says "I wish I had this ship!" I am just about to explain that yes, it is a nice ship but it is not his it is the man's. But the guy just says, "Really? Well, it's yours." Elation. The man tells me he just found it with some other toys and since he collects this kind of thing he had picked it up. I asked him if he was sure and told him it was a very kind thing to do and he pedalled away.

An unexpectedly kind gesture from someone unexpected. Thank you Mr. Tattoo Bike Rider, where ever you are. You have given a lot of joy to this child today.

You never know who you're looking at - who your talking to. The outer appearance should mean so little, but we allow it to mean so much.