The Way to a Boy’s Heart is Through Space

Wednesday January 28, 2009

Rocket Boy used to obsessively do puzzles, but for the last year really hasn’t been interested at all. A shame too, because we have some really nice ones. Well this morning he decided that he wanted to do puzzles. Great! We started with a tangram, but with one missing piece we didn’t get too far. Then we moved on to the 48 piece wooden puzzles (Melissa & Doug) that come with their own tray. I had him make a chart of the puzzles he wanted to do so he could time himself to see how much he can improve. He did a total of five puzzles with 48-100 pieces. The kid had puzzle mania. I won’t complain one bit. They hit on all sorts of skills he needs. The last two puzzles he did were very fanciful artwork from a company called D’jeco. One in particular was populated with all sorts of space creatures and planets. Rocket Boy was painfully slow putting that one together because he kept making up stories about the creatures. The completionist part of me was getting impatient, but the educator part was thrilled.

After he finished it we did a story cloud exercise, in which we came up with a main idea for his story and four secondary points. I then got my writer-phobic child to actually write several sentences. He cheerfully (mostly) wrote about the aliens going to a birthday party but the way was dangerous. Then he listed three of the obstacles they would have to pass to get to the party. He filled about 3/4 of a page in his notebook without complaint! That is unheard of in our house. The story had a beginning and middle, but no end, but that’s ok for now. There’s no need to quash excitement by forcing too much lesson. We’ll deal with that another day.

Next time I want him to write I just need to remember to involve space aliens in peril.

He was so excited about his story that he put on a play of it, complete with ticket taking and an imaginary participatory audience. Then he realized that he could make a book of it. He was zooming with excitement and at that point I was bone tired from keeping up with him.

We cuddled on the couch to watch some PBS and the school day was happily done.