We started our week off on Labor Day Monday. Dad had to work (no irony there) and so we decided to be couch potatoes. Mr. T parked himself on the coach with my laptop and proceeded to spend the day studying his favorite topic: Minecraft. He had discovered a nice guy named Paul Soares, Jr., a dad of boys who is quite funny and clearly gifted, and who does some very nice tutorials on youtube aimed at the child audience. Am I a big fan of the game? Not so much. But since my son is studying it with the voraciousness of a groupie to a rock band, who am I to complain? The fact that my son was finding an actual goal within the game helps me to cope with it.
In the meantime, I discovered that Rovio, famed game designers of Angry Birds, has a new release called "Amazing Alex" a ""whiz kid who turns everything into adventure. From cleaning his room to battling cardboard robots in his backyard. Alex creates amazing chain reactions..." another awesome physics game to challenge my little PJ's puzzle brain. This gave me time to look at our Moving Beyond the Page and make a strategy, as well as investigate some new history books to order. T Man loves his history.
Tuesday started off with nightmare battles trying for some cooperation to do some school work. (There's that WORD AGAIN, Mom!) After the usual threat of zero gaming, things turned around. T wrote out our grocery list, emptied the dishwasher and offered to join PJ for a game of Scrabble. PJ and I had worked our way through the day with Life of Fred, Boggle, Dreambox and were just pulling down the box for Scrabble. I decided to give them each 10 tiles and we actually finished a game, the boys nearly the same score of 140 and 144. PJ beat his big brother. I, of course, found the word FOUNDER on my tile holder and was able to play FLOUNDER for a 50 point bonus, but they didn't seem to mind ;-)
Wednesday was much nicer and we moved through our day with wonderful cooperation, working on our Map of the Community, doing some Ooka Island and reading Horrible Histories. At one point the house was too quiet and I found these two taking over Life of Fred and finishing the first book. I'm feeling a little bit of a loss over that; I wanted to see how it ended! :)
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| Liam and T tutor each other on Minecraft |
Thursday featured a playdate and nature hike to Temescal Canyon with our gifted homeschooling friends. It's always such a treat to be with this crew because they are as funny, interesting and quirky as us. We hung out at their house on the Westside for a bit and the little ones played board games and the big ones played Lego Hero Factory and then tutored each other on Minecraft.
Our trip to the Canyon was a lot of fun. The weather couldn't get any more beautiful and the kids couldn't be a better match. The boys separated off in their little teams and explored the creek and ravines.
On the other hand, put this kid in a giant play structure with a bunch of 4 and 5 year-olds during the week and he's having an absolute blast. Go figure.
Friday we met up with another gifted friend just to let the boys run and play. Kid's Concepts in Torrance isn't cheap, but it was just the kind of physical outlet these boys needed.
It's now Friday at the end of the day and T is waiting for the use of the laptop. While he's waiting, he's sprawled out on my bed reading the 8th book in the Life of Fred series. The kid just slurped up the other 7 books since Tuesday. Sheesh, I really need to pay my library fines and get back over there... ;-)
If you want to read more about our friends Liam and Sutton, you can find them on Amy's blog, A Voracious Mind.
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