So, which makes for a better school day?

Knocking out history, readers, math, science texts, some dictation or composition, maybe some art or music or foreign language (depending on the day), updating timelines, studying geography? Thus having the satisfaction of a list of checked boxes?

OR chasing interests where they may lead? Even if that means drawing comics for a week, overdosing on NCIS, mowing lawns for pay, intensely studying Indian sign language from an out of print book, playing "Oh Susanna" on the guitar a thousand times in a row and then singing it in a thousand different ways (but always at hyperspeed until mom says to shut up because she USED to like that song but doesn't anymore), designing cool lego worlds for hours with your friends, making taco salads for dinner for everyone, griping about national politics, watching the birds at the feeder, and making a plaster volcano with dad?

What do you think? I'm cyclically torn.

ETA: Sly asked to do another chapter in Life of Fred: Fractions this morning. Then he asked to do yet another, but I said, "Enough." Next he went and cut and edged the neighbor's yard for $25. After a shower and playing with his baby brother, he worked on his drawing. He's trying to figure out how to draw good abs, Wolverine (from X-Men), and more. He drew a young man in a nice suit too, and when I asked he said it was a young man dressed like Elvis going to a prom. Obviously, he's got an imagination! Next was listening to a few minutes of talk radio on the way in to meet Dad for lunch, inspiring a conversation between Sly and me comparing and contrasting the attributes of economic forms in relation to citizens and govt, including communism, capitalism, socialism, and fascism, and identifying various national gov'ts that practiced each of those, and considering very briefly the current trend in our own nation, for better or for worse. Then while I did some grocery shopping, Sly visited with his buddy "the sushi guy" and some other homeschoolers hanging out waiting for their shopping mom too. He rejoined me at the checkout, where he helped with the self-checkout and bagging. Finally, Sly helped carry stuff in, cleaned his half of the boys room, watched some more NCIS (which always leads to interesting questions and conversations). And now Sly is out fishing with Habeeb and Jman for a short while before dinner. And I'm sure I've left stuff out.

But just in that list we have math, reading, PE, personal finance, personal hygiene, art, cultural literacy, politics, current events, history, socializing, home ec, organization, and nature. But none of those was on my list of boxes to check (not even the math, because it's 'just a supplement!'). Hmmmmm. And the day isn't even over yet. Maybe before the day is done, we'll have a box or two checked off of mom's list! :)

Wordless Wednesday: SB3

Lucky Charlie

This weekend we took the camper out for another practice run before our big June road trip. We camped right next to our previous campsite (#58 instead of #57), which worked great for 'different but same' for Jman. Plus, it put us still near the playground, the swimming area, and on the water with a dock. Can't beat that!

On the way, someone commented that we should have packed our lone fishing pole. Another quick thought and we were locating the nearest wallyworld on the handy dandy gps. As it turns out, we could take the next exit and a scenic route and pass by a store on the way to the campground. We followed the GPS, and at a red light in an intersection in the little town, Habeeb said, "It's says it's supposed to be here, but I don't see anything." We started through the stop light and then we saw it--a LITTLE and OLD wallyworld tucked into a little and old strip mall behind a Hardee's fast food restaurant. That's how LITTLE and OLD this wallyworld was--it was hidden by a fast food joint! We pulled in, gaped momentarily, and then Habeeb and Sly went in and bought a couple inexpensive fishing poles and with some basic tackle. We drove back by the place on our way home on Sunday because we just had to have a picture. It's just so NOT what we were expecting!

So, anyway, back to the story of Lucky Charlie. We took those fishing poles to the campsite, and even though it had gotten dark, Sly wanted to go fishing. It didn't take long before he had his line in a mess and was complaining that "that nevers happens to the professionals! (wah!)" Obviously it was time to pack it in for the night. :)

The next day dawned bright and beautiful. Sly eventually drug himself out of bed, ate some breakfast, and wanted to go fishing again. Habeeb had already fixed his line for him, told him how to do it himself next time (because there WOULD be a next time, because it DOES happen to professionals too!), and helped him try fishing again. After a while, Sly was casting like a pro--and fixing his own fishing line when it tangled up on him again.

Jman wanted to fish too. At first I was casting for him and letting him reel the spinner in, but that wasn't good enough--he wanted to cast too. I had my doubts as to the possibility and the SAFETY of that, but when we had the dock to ourselve, I decided to try to help him cast hand-over-hand, partly because I wanted to stay close enough to him to not get hooked myself!

Well, I was trying to help him, and he was trying to do it himself, but he WAS listening and echoing the little chant I was coaching him with. "Finger . . "--grab the fishing line with your finger on your casting hand and hold it to the rod. "Flip . . . "--flip the bail (little bar) over on the reel. "Throw!"--cast! Then reel her in, and repeat. "Finger . . . flip . . . throw!" Well, wouldn't you know it, Jman learned how to cast! In no time, he was doing it all by himself! However, because of the autism, he just didn't/doesn't have great 'perspective taking' to make sure that he's got good clearance before casting, so we still really have to closely supervise. But hey, he was so proud of himself! And WE all were too!

So, back to Lucky Charlie. Sly had the fishing thing down now, but wasn't catching a thing. I told him he wasn't holding his mouth right. He tried other ways of holding his mouth. I told him we needed to sing the "Fishin' Fever" song. We sang the "Fishin' Fever" song. Still nothing. So, I said maybe the fish weren't hungry for spinners that day and to maybe try some other kind of bait. We didn't have any bait, but I said you can fish with bread balls for bait. He decided to give it a try. Nothing else was working anyway.

So, Habeeb helped him rig up a hook and bobber and Sly made some bread balls. He started out fishing on 'our' dock, but when Jman came down to join him (with me following closely), we decided Sly might be safer on the next dock over. He moved on over there (only to be followed by Jman, of course! But Jman was satisfied with casting once from that dock and then moving back to 'his' dock!). Sly continued to fish over there for a while, Jman decided to go to the playground, SB3 and I followed him, and Habeeb was working on packing up some of the camp stuff.

Sly decided that since he could see his bread bait in the clear water that he'd ditch his bobber and just watch with his eyes. And then . . . and then . . . while nobody else was around paying any attention to Sly and his fishing . . . he got a bite, and not only was it a bite, but it was good size fish with a lot of fight in him. Sly fought him in, yelling for someone to come over. Our neighbor campers passed along, "He's got one!" We dropped what we were doing ('dropping' SB3 off in the 'baby jail') and went to see what he had.

Lo and behold, he'd caught a 2.5+ pound catfish! Not bad for your first time fishing all by your lonesome with an after-thought rod from a rinky-dink wallyworld and nothing but bread for bait! We were totally ill-prepared to deal with such a catch, and our other neighbor camper helped get him off the hook with his pliers. We quickly got him strung up, dropped back in the water (tied to the hitch on the dock), and took shelter in the camper from the rapidly descending thunderstorm.

After the storm passed, we checked on Sly's catfish, finding him alive and well, still tied to the dock. We finished packing up camper, and brought Sly's catfish home in a roughtote of lake water so we could weigh him before cleaning him (and so we'd have proper equipment to clean him with!).



Well, when the time came to clean the fish, Sly was having second thoughts about 'killing' it. We told him it was perfectly fine to 'tag and release'--that folks do it all the time. Sly decided to let his catfish go in the pond/lake/river near home. Thus, the catfish was dubbed "Lucky Charlie." Sly, however, has promised both me and Habeeb that in a survival situation, if it's his life or the fish's, the fish is TOAST!

So, how was YOUR mothers day? Mine was pretty darn good. :)

"more I can fly"

Jman has a new request. He wants to jump out of an airplane. Seriously. He really wants to. He pointed to a picture in a Richard Scarry book of a bunny and a parachute. He looked at me and said, "Yes!" I asked the question, and he eagerly said, "Yes!" again. I pointed out that that would entail going "down down down." (He doesn't like 'down' to the point that it's an OCD kind of a thing. We can't even say the word without him correcting it to 'nup,' which I think is a contraction for 'not up.') He wasn't swayed--still wants to jump.

Later I asked about flying, thinking maybe he just wanted to go flying. Yes, he wants to go flying. And jumping.

And today, after verbally requesting "more I can fly" several times throughout the day, I also discovered this new drawing of his:

He's been studying on his own drawings that have lines indicating motion lately. He added in those motion lines above his parachute, indicating that the parachute and bunny are going down. And the bunny paratrooper is saying, "Jman."

Yep, he really wants to go flying, and jump out of an airplane. And I'm game! But unfortunately my little bit of research online seems to indicate that most places require you to be 18yo or older. Bummer. He's gonna have to wait on starting his skydiving career. But maybe we'll still see about getting him a hop in a small plane. That's a very doable thing! Although Habeeb rightly pointed out we'll have to make sure he's seated somewhere where he can't open a door and jump out! THAT would be bad!

Writing Assignment: the Friendly Letter

Sly's assignment was to write a friendly letter to a would-be pen pal in another country with a different culture, and to include telling them about a holiday or celebration we celebrate here. I suggested he write for real to his 'sponsor brother' in Sri Lanka.

May 7, 2009

Dear A.,

My name is Sly. I am eleven years old. I live in Alabama and I like to pretend that i'm a spy or secret agent.

Here in Amarica we have celabrations for diffrint things. The most recent one was Easter. When we celabrate Easter we also play a game called Easter Egg Hunt. The way you play is before the game some one hides a lot of plastic eggs with candy in them all over a field, then every one who's playing gos out in the fielb and tries to find the Easter Eggs.

If you didn't know we have a new baby boy. He can crawl quite fast now.

Your friend,

Sly

A couple of additional observations:
Sly did use proper friendly letter format, but blogger isn't letting me reproduce paragraph indentations.

His cursive handwriting was very nicely done. He still writes slowly, but very neatly. Amazingly enough, though, he can still reverse letters in cursive (as he did with 'field' and 'fielb' above).

His spelling is SOOO much better than it used to be. We used to use a spelling program, and he would learn the words and ace the tests, but still not be able to spell words he 'knows' when he was writing in real life. Finally, I just quit worrying about spelling, and over time it is simply correcting itself. Often he will know a word isn't spelled quite right, but he no longer lets that stop him from continuing to write. That alone is another big improvement, and the increased writing naturally leads to increased opportunities to work on spelling 'in the real world' where he needed the spelling work in the first place. Funny how sometimes 'relaxing' is the right answer to progressing. Anyway, he did correct all spelling errors before we mailed the real letter out, but this is how his letter was before any corrections.

There just aren't words . . .

Field Trip Friday

Jman, SB3, and Jamberry spied a sister dojo's karate demonstration and stopped for a peek:
Then went on to the zoo, where we saw the kangaroos:
And Jman played on the new playground:
And watched and later rode on the train:
And saw Marty, Alex, and Melman:
Meanwhile, back at the courthouse, Sly and Habeeb attended the Law Day program at the JAG school on base. Jack was on trial for the murder of the giant ogre. Darth Vader was the prosecuting attorney and someone with a really funky wig was the defense attorney. Jack was found not guilty by a 2-1 decision. That's Sly kneeling in front wearing the tan vest and holding an Indiana Jones hat in his hand.