Making memories one day at a time.......and then I write about it.

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Much Building And Use of Imagination

Mr. M has been busy using his imagination 'round these here parts. He goes to a school that I am just loving. A school that encourages the kids to think outside of the box, to use their imagination, and the sky is the limit. Earlier this school year, Mr. M participated in a program through the school that helped the kids write their first novel if they so desired. Mr. M desired so he would stay after school for several weeks and wrote his first novel. Not only do they help the kids write a novel but they help them get it in print and bound so they can have it for their own. In Mr. M's music class, there is a concert coming up. Rather than shoving her own agenda down her students throat, the teacher is letting the students choose which songs they would like to learn and perform. Mr. M has been practicing his guitar so he can play and sing 3 songs he's chosen. These kids will be performing either solos or in small groups. What ever is their choosing. For extra credit, Mr. M's Science teacher told his students for extra credit they could build a simple machine. There were specifications the students had to have in their simple machine. Mr. M didn't really need the extra credit but wanted to take the challenge so built his simple machine which to me, isn't all that simple. He drew up the plans himself and came up with this project. He spent hours and hours building and tweaking and experimenting and finally after three days got it just how he had imagined it. The extra credit was for 150 points. Mr. M got 160. Yeah. I'm kinda proud.




My baby sis called me recently and told me about some books she'd found on Amazon that she really liked. She had thought the potato cannon my boys had made looked fun but was a bit too much for her younger sons to tackle so went and found these books:




What is not to love??  Any little boys dream come true!  Three books full of an arsenal of spit balls!
I thought they looked like fantastic fun too so ordered them for The Natives. Mr. M has been going nuts with the Medieval Weapons one. I love that these projects are made with common things around the house and are explained well enough that lazy me doesn't have to help! The Natives can make these on their own and I get to sit and eat bon bons and pick the lint between my toes.





Mr. M has built several other projects but this is all I've taken photos of so far.

9 comments:

  1. How much fun is it to live at your house? Is he in a public school for the creative types? I always wanted to teach at that kind of school....

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    1. He is! It is so fun to walk down the halls of the school and see the projects on display that the students are working on. I'd love to have you be my kids' teacher!!!!

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  2. Great projects! I will have to look into those books for my boys ;-)

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  3. Those books are so fun! Our homeschool co-op used one of them to design a class that Sandy took. What a blast!

    Your son's school sounds heavenly. I just got emails from our homeschool political special interest group about the Common Core Curriculum that is being pushed on the states by the federal government. If it gets accepted then schools and options like you guys are enjoying will be over. You might want to do a little research about Utah's stance and see if a call or letter to your state reps/senators might be in order. Our state is currently debating whether to adopt it, and I spent quite a bit of time sending letters to my reps/senators.

    Ugh! How miserable are politics when boys (and girls) should just be able to learn as individuals instead of a collective?

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    1. Anaise, My sister is looking into this. She home schools in WA and is frustrated by the lack of information she is finding on the subject.

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  4. Your kids build the coolest things. And way to go Mr. M on the 160! Bonus bonus points; not everyone can make that claim.

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    1. I love all of the cool books and ideas available now a days! There is so much at our kids' finger tips!

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  5. so are all your kids going to this school next year?

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