Tuesday was Native American Architecture class. Mikro made a canoe, and a three sisters garden for the model village. He also worked on the longhouse. They put in sleeping platforms and started working on the outer bark covering. It doesn't seem like there will be enough time to finish it, so it is likely to be displayed in an "under construction" state. I'm really impressed by how well Mikro has worked with other kids, and how willing he is to try new things, like sculpting in clay and using a hot glue gun. He is usually fairly timid about tasks that require a lot of fine motor skills, but he has jumped right in and made real progress. He is really starting to enjoy building and crafting. He also had great fun with his friends at the park afterward. We are soooo sick of winter around here, I've pulled out our brightest colored clothes to try and cheer us up a bit, and maybe inspire Mother Nature to finally give us some Spring...
Wednesday was library day. We picked up and dropped off, but also spent some time reading there (yay-- books I didn't actually have to cart home!) We are perilously close to our library's 50 book borrowing limit... Mikro also built a periscope from a science kit.
Thursday was working at home again. And delivering our Quarterly Report to the school district. And doing our Illustration Friday pieces. We also listened to the Roald Dahl Audio Collection that we borrowed from NYPL as an audio book. Mikro saw these balloons stuck in a tree, and thought they looked like early Easter eggs... I was just glad for some color other than winter grey!
Friday was the much looked forward to beginning of the spring series of classes at the Science Museum of Long Island. This week's theme was ecology. They made a food web, created terrariums, and took a nature hike. I got to hang out with my grownup friends, and meet an adorable brand new little baby. We met up with Kev and some local friends at GCT and rode home together, with Mikro regaling the other family with tales of his make believe planet, Skafeedra, and its ecosystems.
Yesterday my back decided to protest how much running around we've been doing. I can hardly move. (Hopefully it will chill out by Tuesday, so we can make it into the city for our final session of Native American Architecture.) Kev and Mikro spent the day reading about and playing with their new Arduino electronics kit and building circuits. They started off with a simple circuit that lighted a single LED, then moved on to multiple LEDs flashing in patterns (starting with the one given in the directions for the "sketch" (or program) and then inventing patterns of their own, and figuring out how to write the code. (See my very short YouTube video of the flashing LEDs posted yesterday.) At this stage, it is mostly Kev doing the figuring and talking Mikro through it. But Mikro did do some of the actual building himself. They also got a simple motor running before quiting for the night.
Today Kevin is half snoozing through the NASCAR race on TV, while Mikro works on his library pile. He's done some math reading, some science (he is really into reading about robots, and is looking forward to building one with his dad some day...), and even some history. I owe him some BrainPOP and Dreambox Math time on the computer, too...
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