Book Review and Reading

Some kids bring their homework folder in on Monday. It's not due till Thursday. Vivian works on hers before breakfast on Thursday morning. Luckily last week we checked early and saw that she had a book review due on Thursday morning and she would have to read a book in front of her class on Wednesday . She selected If You Give A Moose A Muffin. By Wednesday morning she had read the book sufficient times to master most of the words. It was also the day of her máquina simple exhibition. And by Thursday before breakfast she finished her review ("I will tell my friends to read the book because it is funny").

Her English teacher was very happy with how Vivian read the book.

I find it amazing that Vivian can pick up almost anything and eventually and painfully read it. It's a quantum jump - almost like when she started speaking. Most of us read. It's easy to forget that it takes a few years of work to master this seemingly simple but precious skill.

Máquina Simple

Vivian just finished her máquina simple unit of inquiry at school. For weeks dinner table conversations at home centered around poleas and rampas and tornillos and finally she had to dream up a problem to solve it with a simple machine that she and I would build and she would take to school for the exhibition. One day she returned from school with a plan. She was going to use a polea to build an elevator so she could get things that her little brother wanted from shelves to tall for him to reach. Evan is pictured crying a healthy stream of tears.

The next day Vivian found a cardboard tube from a roll of paper that she wanted to use for the pulley. I built a little cardboard contraption and added the tube and a shoelace and the model was done. Then I cut up pieces for the real machine.  Vivian glued them together. I drilled a couple of holes and Vivian added some toothpicks and a tin of pancake mix and took the finished machine to school. It worked pretty well and Vivian and her friends showed off some amazing machines at their exhibition. You can see Evan listening and watching.

I don't think she's going to be a nerd. But she has the capability to. If she wanted.

Grandkids

My dad's mind has been all over the place lately. Last week one day he thought we were on  train and kept yelling out the names of the stations -  they were towns close to his place of birth. This week he is more lucid. And even though he doesn't always remember who the kids are he lights up when he sees them. On Vivian's birthday I asked her to stand next to him so I could take a photo. Evan ran up and jumped on his lap to finish out the group.

Evan Photos

Today I imported some photos from Jo's iPhone. In there I found two photos of Evan that I had never seen before. In the first one he is getting a haircut. He invariably returns home with uneven hair that Jo and I have to trim. It's obvious that he isn't enjoying the experience at Bird's barber Shop. In the second photo, he's singing with the rest of the school the day their old director left - dressed in his "real men eat cupcakes" t-shirt. A little bit behind him and to the left you can see his friend R who he has his arm around in a photo in a previous post. The last photo is from my iPhone. On Mondays Evan is off while Vivian is at school. So we get to spend some quality time with him. Jo and he and I had gone to 24 Diner for lunch with the intention of going across the street to shop at Whole Foods later. But all three of us ate too much and had to hurry home soon after I took this photo to nap.

He's in a learning phase. Two weeks ago he used to sing "ABCD now I know my ABCD's, next time wont you sing with me". Any attempt by us to coax him past "D" was met with an instant and vehement "No". Yesterday he went all the way to "Z". It looks like his teachers at Grace have the whole class on downers or pot or something all the time because they are all so chilled. But they are still teaching him something...dude.