Lego field trippin'

The School Box went on a special field trip this weekend to a Lego Store grand opening, and of course spent way too much money (on only 2 items, which makes it even scarier!). Jman can't wait to start building his new Passenger Train. We're thinking that perhaps we'll start really building a Lego City as a train layout project with him. He already has some other Lego trains (the Holiday Train, the Blue train set, and the Santa Fe Super Chief engine, all of which are the older style electric trains--way cool). What we don't have many/any of are any of the cool Lego City buildings or destinations (everything from farms to pizza parlors and hotels to fire stations). All in due time, I suppose. Afterall, Legos and model trains are both lifelong hobbies!

Sly is working on paying for a Lego Mindstorms set. For those who don't know, Lego Mindstorms is a programmable Lego robotics set. You program it with your computer, and it's bluetooth capable. With Sly wanting to get into computer programming and already being a Lego freak, we figured it might be time to go ahead and jump off that ledge. We went ahead and purchased it, but he has to pay us back for a minimum of 50% of the cost PLUS live up to the standards we're setting in a school/chores/etc contract with him, meeting those standards for a minimum of one month before he can actually buy (and open) the set. So, maybe a month from now he'll be building and programming Lego robots, or maybe a couple or three months from now, or maybe next year . . . time will tell. :)

Here are some pictures from the day. The boys helped a Master Lego Builder who was building an 8' tall R2D2 out of legos. For their trouble they got $5 coupons and some certificates with their names on them. They also had fun posing with the lifesize Lego Indiana Jones in the store. We still have two more $5 off coupons and a $10 gift card, so I expect we'll be back up there sometime in the next couple months either adding to Mindstorms or (more likely) adding to the Lego City. Legos are so cool! (As if we needed any more legos! haha!)

12yo Makeover

Before:
During:
After:

Backyard Makeover

When we bought our current house a little over a year ago, this is what part of the backyard looked like. There aren't many pictures of that section of the yard because, quite frankly, it was unattractive and little used. We'd intended to take down that ratty metal swing set, but somehow, it just didn't happen. You probably know how that goes!

However, over the last week or so, we've been finally working on that section of the backyard, and it's becoming quite the hang out spot for the family, especially with beautiful weather we've been having!

First, we raked up all the leaves, and pulled a lot of the random weeds, and generally cleaned up the 'tree trash' under the huge old pecan tree (remnants of a pecan plantation)and out of the 'sand pit.' When we did that, we realized how nice and pleasant it was under the shade of that huge tree. That got us thinking about putting in a paver patio or some other nice and fancy 'outdoor room.' I actually got the booklets from Lowes and Home Depot and was looking into it. We were talking designs and plans and whether to do-it-ourselves or hire someone to do it for us. And then we realized that we didn't want to sink that kind of money into a house we may not stay at forever. And I began to enjoy just sitting in an old lawn chair out there under the tree with good old dirt for the 'floor.' So, we dropped the patio idea and 'got real.'

What's the right Jam-and-Habeeb way maximize enjoyment of that backyard spot? A good old fashioned wooden picnic table, for starters, as opposed to the fancy porch furniture I'd been scouting all season (and hadn't found a thing I liked yet). Plus it's got a couple added bonuses: It's cheap, and it's a great 'project' for Habeeb and Sly to do together (a trial run of 'shop night'). So, here they are, putting together mom's picnic table in the dark in the light rain. Do they love me or what? :)

Next, the boys power washed an old Little Tikes playset the previous owners left here and which was full of spiders and tree trash from sitting under that old pecan tree. It'll be great for SB3 in the very near future. Sly did most of the power washing, and being the bad mom that I am, I only have pictures of Jman when he took a turn at it. They also both worked on power washing a bunch of old Tonka trucks that were yucky from sitting out in the sand pit for the last year+.

After we took a step back, Habeeb and I had the same thought at the same time: We need to hang the hammock between those two trees! Jman wasted no time giving it a test drive.

Of course, being outside in the evening probably means bugs, plus it gets hard to see once it's good and dark. Habeeb jumped all over those two problems by finding the pair of old tiki torches we 'inherited' with a house we bought a few years ago. He stuck them in the ground and Sly got to work 'playing with fire.' What is it about fire that is so much fun?

Now, that big old pecan tree has a big old branch growing out from it that was just begging for a swing. We already have everything we need to build a playset (except the wood). What we needed for a big tree swing, though, was a good rope. $20 later and some creative rigging by Habeeb, and presto--we have a way cool make-shift swing! He rigged this up for me in the dark (what a guy!). If we leave it as is, we'll have to move that one tiki torch, or someone's gonna catch themselves on fire when they're swinging!

And so, about $120 later, we have have a remade backyard!

And here are some kiddies (and kitties) having fun in the new backyard!

Man Building

Sly is 12. On the one hand, he's still a boy, but on the other hand, he's in the process of becoming a man (or at least he should be!). We've decided to step outside of the 'school box' for a while and take a somewhat different approach, or at least a different emphasis with regards to his homeschooling. In the past, a lot of what has gone on here has been Mom (me) calling the shots, formulating the plans (or using someone else's plan, called a 'curriculum,' working hard to keep everyone else on track and on task. I spent a lot of the day making sure Sly did math, and reading, and history, and science, and this, and that, and the other. Well, we've decided it worked: The boy can read, and he can write, and he can do math, and he has a bit of a clue about how the world works (both scientifically and historically). Could he stand to improve some more in each of those areas? Sure, but who couldn't? It's time to work less on skill-building and more on what I'm calling "Man Building."

Habeeb and I are in the process of making a few major changes to help with our 'Man Building' project. For starters, we're actually dropping a lot of mom-created (or curriculum-seller created) school work. I have a wonderful curriculum sitting there on a shelf, about 1/4 finished, but we're essentially dropping it. Maybe we'll go back to the books someday because we want to read them, but I'm not going to police Sly to read them just because someone else (or even I) scheduled them into some curriculum. Mom playing the role of get-your-school-done-policeman at this point is not "Man Building," it's just nagging and stressful for everyone involved, and quite honestly unnecessary. As I said, Sly CAN read, write, do math, and has enough of a clue to be able to find out more about what he discovers he wants or needs to know more about (even if that simply means asking someone else for help in finding it out). So enough of pre-planned and policed curriculum for the sake of the curriculum. Our priority isn't to do the curriculum but to grow a man. To the extent that curriculum assists in that pursuit, fine. But when curriculum begins to stand in the way of that pursuit, it's time to sacrifice the curriculum, not the student.

So, our emphasis here is changing from Mom policing Sly to "finish your work" and switching to emphasizing Sly's role to Begin (without Policeman Mom reminding or nagging him to start, stay on task, and finish). "Begin what?" you may ask, since we're dropping the curriculum. Well, we're only MOSTLY dropping it. We ARE still keeping a few things, as we as a family feel they support our Man Building situation at this time. Sly still has to practice his guitar (or mom and dad quit paying for lessons). Sly himself wants to learn computer programming, so that's on his to-do list as well. He had started algebra with a co-op a few weeks ago, but we dropped the co-op because the pace was very aggressive (too much too fast to allow internalization and transfer into Sly's long term memory and way too much homework--we were getting NOTHING else done, and that's just not a balanced way to live life). However, other than the co-op pace, Sly was enjoying Life of Fred algebra in general. Therefore, he will still do algebra at home (but at a pace where he's really learning it instead of merely cramming it). These three 'subjects' (guitar, computer programming, and LoF algebra) are all Sly-chosen courses of study.

Habeeb and I have also thrown in a couple academicky requirements. We suggested that Sly continue studying Sonlight 5 science, which includes human physiology, anatomy, etc (handy things to know when you're a boy becoming a man). And, of course, some kind of Bible study: For what does it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and yet lose his own soul? The hugest part of being a real man is knowing that you are a man, created in the image of God, but NOT God; Fallen, and in need of saving, but that you can't save yourself; a sinner, who deserves no mercy, and yet is so loved and valued by his Creator that He sent His own Son to pay the price of saving you when you couldn't. If you don't own that bit of knowledge, or if that bit of knowledge doesn't own you, nothing else matters. And so, Bible study (and prayer), both individually and corporately as a family, will be part of the Man Building project (perhaps I should say it will be the CORE of the Man Building project!).

We're also making a couple of 'structural changes.' Habeeb and Sly are dropping karate on Tuesday & Thursday nights. The Cost Benefit Analysis says that we/they can do better things with that time. (Don't get us wrong: Karate can be a good thing! Our old dojo in a different state was fantastic, and definitely contributed to Man Building (or Woman Building), both physically and spiritually. But that just isn't the case with the dojo's around here, including the one we've been attending for the last year, which was the best we could find. It's time to move on. We may resume karate again when we move to a new place if we can find a GOOD dojo that edifies instead of just sort of, well, being a place to spend time and money).

Habeeb and Sly are replacing karate nights with 'shop night.' Together, they are going to work on building things (or fixing things when necessary, such as tonight's project--try to fix the broken clothes dryer). Not only will Sly learn some valuable skills (woodworking, craftsmanship, problem solving, read the instructions, research to FIND the instructions online, etc), but he'll also learn fabulous people skills (teamwork, delegation, collaboration, responsibility, follow through, etc). Perhaps above all else, it'll be a great opportunity for Habeeb and Sly to work together on meaningful projects, growing not only a man (Sly), but also growing their relationship. In karate, they were both studying the same material, but they were essentially separate individuals under the direction of another instructor. With shop nite, they will be a team, working together, learning both how to lead and how to follow. Plus, some neat and useful projects may get done around the house (like you'll see in the next post!)

Continuing on the team-building theme, Sly has decided to join Civil Air Patrol as a cadet. We'll learn more as we go along, but that will certainly generate some team and man building opportunities, and ought to be a lot of fun along the way, with the added benefit of being 'for real' (they really DO go out and search for downed aircraft or lost persons that need rescue or help in other emergencies, such as flying over cities hit by tornados taking photos to help determine needs and services). We'll see how that goes. He's gonna have to cut his hair off, though!

So, here's the 'what' that Sly will be working on (mostly his choosing, plus a couple mom and dad threw in): guitar, algebra, computer programming, human physiology, Bible, shop night, and Civil Air Patrol, plus, of course, his lawn business. That's plenty full enough without generating additional work assignments for the sake of curriculum! Especially when you consider he gets lots of "extra curricular" conversation about world and national current events and politics in this house, with applicable impromptu history lessons thrown where he lacks pertinent background info. It's a learning house by nature. We don't need to artificially create work, and then police that work for the sake of that artificially created work! Enough aleady! It's time to build a Man, not a Drone!

Now for the "how." Our goal is for Sly to increasingly think for himself, including organizing his to-do list (considering requirements like 'clean the cat box' and desires like 'read Calvin and Hobbes') and police himself to get started (as opposed to mom policing him to get started). Right now, it's more about Getting started" than "getting finished." But, this post has gotten long enough already. We'll save that chatter for another post later.

The Art Museum

We took Jman the artist to the open house at the art museum last week. It was very crowded, but he/we enjoyed it enough that it just might be worth joining and going back when it's NOT quite so crowded!

Jman especially liked this 'motion screen.' It'd be great for OT! I have videos of him moving around and doing jumping jacks and having a blast!
Here Jman and Habeeb are rearranging various bean bags on a tilting frame to try to literally 'balance the composition.'
Here they are going through a wood block printing press process. Each of four presses had a different color of ink. When you were done, your print was a smaller version of the one on the wall.
There were other special activities going on too. One was making a 'paper quilt.' The artists had a tic-tac-toe paper grid to fill in with either hand drawings or with pictures and designs cut from other sources (such as old art museum brochures that were out of date!). Jman began a Wallace & Grommit 'quilt.'
And, of course, there was art to look at, like this funky blue person glass sculpture thingy that caught Jman's eye (can't you tell I'm quite the art connoisseur?).
All in all, I agree with Sly: It was way too crowded to really be enjoyable (you can't tell from the photos we took, but there were a LOT of people there). However, it would be worth going back some time when it's NOT crowded. If nothing else, the motion screen is a great opportunity for some fun OT! :) But I think it might be fun to see if Jman would be interested in 'studying' any of the 'art' in the museum and transferring it to some of his own art creations too. If nothing else, it'd be fun to go back when the slot cars on the Talladega speedway modern art piece were back in working order!

Life is short.

Lord, remind me how brief my time on earth will be. Remind me that my days are numbered—how fleeting my life is. Ps 39:4

So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. Ps 90:12

Life is short. There are only so many hours in a day, and so many days in a year, and so many years that you may (or may not) walk this earth. If I live to be 70yo, I have about 11130 days left, or 1590 Sundays. Only about 30 more Augusts to go. That's really not that many, when you stop and think about it.

My days are numbered, and so are yours.

Smart people make a budget, a plan for how they will spend their finite money (unless you're the gov't, of course, but then again who ever accused them of being smart?).

Smart people should also make a time budget, a days budget instead of a dollars budget. Teach us, Lord, to number our days aright. And to what purpose? To apply our hearts to wisdom. Which, of course, begs the question, "What is wisdom?"

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments: his praise endureth for ever. Ps 111:10

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction. Prov 1:7

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding. Prov 9:10

With everyone else in 'back to school mode,' The School Box is reconsidering our days, how to spend them, to what gain, in what pursuits. Our days are indeed numbered.

Workin' for a livin'

I remember when this boy couldn't make it through half a front lawn working in the shade. Yesterday he knocked out a VERY overgrown lawn (took two passes with the lawn mower), plus weed eating and raking, working for over 3 hours, in the deep South in August, finally finishing when it was well up in the mid 90's outside and humid as all get out. I was impressed. This photo, however, was from a different yard he knocked out Sunday afternoon. He & Habeeb did our yard Saturday. Ah, summer time! And the chance for a boy to make a few hard-earned dollars here and there! You go, Sly!

Coloring outside the lines

Jman has indeed continued to work on his book he made a week and a half ago. Over the days, he gradually filled in the pages with drawings from books, videos, and whatever struck him at the time. Here's a picture that I think is based on one of his favorite books, "The Good-Night Train." I flipped through the (real) book and couldn't find a picture exactly like this one, but the style is much the same. I'm pretty sure the book was inspiration for his drawing.

About a week ago Jman and I were at a store where I saw a Wall-e coloring book I offered to get for him. He brought it home and disappeared with it. I didn't think too much about it for a while. Then I noticed that he was indeed coloring in it and drawing in it. One of the weaknesses of coloring books is that they might have a tendency to squelch your artistic creativity, seeing as how the drawing is there and all you have to do is fill in the colors.

But Jman isn't one to necessarily play by the rules. He added his own flair to the pictures he colored. Here he added a baseball cap and Frankenstein bolts to Eve, and drew in a hologram projection of the plant in a boot that she found but which was missing.
I think this one is really sweet. This is a picture of Wall-e and Eve 'dancing' in space near the mother ship Axiom. Jman paintstakingly colored the picture in, but then added his own touch: music notes! Afterall, the mostly 'non-verbal' movie was playing music while Wall-e and Eve were 'dancing with the stars!' And if you've noticed, Jman also didn't feel constrained by the coloring book's binding. He selected these two masterpieces from the coloring book, removed them from their original binding, and tried to add them to the book that he had made. Especially interesting is the fact that he placed them inside the 'covers' of the book, removing the last notebook page and putting the coloring pages just in front of that last page before trying to reassemble his book.

When I considered what Jman was doing with his coloring book, I thought about what he was 'supposed to do' with a coloring book. According to 'the rules,' he should have colored the pictures as they were drawn, using appropriate color choices (not a rainbow striped, largely pink mother ship, for example), and certainly leaving the book assembled. If he was in school or in an ABA program, his thinking and creativity would have been squelched, or 'extinguished,' as is the proper and popular terminology. He would have had the 'art project' designed and dictated by someone else. He and all the other kids in the class would have produced essentially identical and interchangeable products. It would have been very . . . boring, and mind-numbing.

But Jman isn't forced into that box. Instead, he has the opportunity to think and be creative. He's able to appreciate what others have already created (such as the books he's studying and using), but then he has the freedom to crawl out of that box and create his own interpretations and expressions. Jman is allowed to color outside the lines, and it's a beautiful thing!

Jman's first book

A couple days ago I caught Jman doing something I'd never seen him do before. He was trying to staple pieces of paper together. I've never seen Jman use a stapler before. I've seen him use tape, and I've occasionally had him use glue sticks. But I can't recall a time when I had him stapling anything, or when he was fixing pages together. But there he was--working very hard to staple a stack of pages together. Even funnier was the fact that he'd cut all the pieces of paper out of a spiral bound notebook. It seemed he destroyed one notebook to try to make another book.

Anyway, left to his own timing and his own devices, Jman has recently begun making great use of both scissors, and now, without instruction, he's using staplers as well. (Or he's trying to. He had almost too many pages for the little stapler we have, so I had to help him actually get the staples through the paper once I found him. He was trying hard though!)

Jman didn't do anything with his stapled pages right away. Just assembling the pages seemed project enough for him at that time. It was later that I discovered the larger project he was working on. He was drawing the cover page for a book he was making, modeled loosely on a couple of 'real books' he has.


At first he only did the cover page, then set the project aside once again. This is rather unusual drawing behavior for Jman. He typically draws on a page, then draws on the next, and then the next, and then the next. He can go through a 70 page one subject notebook in no time. (Good thing I stocked up on them one year when they were six cents each for back-to-school!) But Jman wasn't filling in the pages on this project of his at lightning speed. Just the cover, and then he set it aside.

Today I noticed he has added a couple more pages to his book. I honestly was expecting to find the first couple pages copied from his real My First 500 Words book, but that was not the case. Instead, the first picture resembles a drawing from a different book, and I'm not sure where the next drawing is from. However, that next drawing spans two pages. Another interesting variation, because Jman usually only draws on the front side of a piece of paper, not the back side. To draw a picture spanning two pages with writing on the back side of a page is a new thing for him.


Now, why do I share all these odd little observations? I suppose because I just find it absolutely fascinating. Even left to his own devices, Jman continues to learn and discover and create and grow in new and surprising and exciting ways. I have to work very hard to resist the impulse to jump in there and start taking his projects over, trying to direct him and 'make the most of' his projects. Either I could be teaching him more skills or academicky stuff, or I could be usurping his projects and interests to try to work on social and communication skills.

But when I resist the urge to take over, I'm realizing that he perhaps learns and grows even more. For example, rather than taking over his book-making project, I stepped in and helped him with the stapling problem. He just couldn't squeeze that little stapler hard enough to get it through the number of pages he had. I noticed, I stepped in, I offered help, which he accepted. And then I stepped back out and let him keep doing his thing when he didn't need me anymore. Perhaps that is an even better way of working on the relationship and communication skills--gradually teaching him that I'm interested and there when he needs or wants me, but also that I'm not going to come in and take over and ruin all the fun.

I've contemplating maybe doing a little more 'parallel' with him. If he's making a book, maybe I could make a book too. Not trying to take his over, not trying to direct his project, but just maybe finding a non-controlling way to 'share the experience' a little more deeply with him. Just as he borrowed my idea of folding the paper when I made a card and he made a DVD case, maybe we could both get some creative juices flowing and share and communicate more with some other parallel projects. I've even wondered if his book-making project stemmed in some way from the paper DVD case he made. It's an interesting thought.

Anyway, Jman is making a book, little by little, and that's a new thing for him. I wonder how long he'll continue with this project of his, I wonder how it will ultimately turn out, and I wonder about maybe creating my own parallel book to see what comes of that sharing. And increasingly I'm more and more comfortable with relaxing and 'unschooling' Mr. Autism.

Old MacDonald had a farm! (and so did SB3!)

SB3 used his birthday money to invest in real estate and live stock. So far it's just a hobby farm, but I'm pretty sure he has big plans for expansion.

The future definitely looks promising!