It's been a while.

Holy cow, guess we've been busy. The last thing I posted about my son getting into the gt program was quite a while ago! He is really enjoying it, and although had a bit of a sluggish start in the fall with everything, is ending up the year really well. His attitude is great, he is happy. Cub Scouts was a big success, I think mainly because the husband and I were the den parents, so that really really kept things in the areas I knew he'd enjoy.

He earned a bunch of pins and we just finished building some rockets and will be blasting off soon out at a nearby park with some members of the local model rocket club, to wrap up the year.

Have to stop to make dinner for our now 4 year old daughter, and my son and husband are off to boys ballet class. Recitals are coming up in a couple weeks, will try to post pictures.

Yay! New Harry Potter movie coming out! I have a date with my son to go see if Friday - I was shooting for opening day, but decided that was too crazy.

We did pursue some additional ability testing for our son, turns out he is pretty smart, like we thought. He should be in the gt program, and will be in language arts. I am a little sad about math being a solid interest of his but his scores, so far, being just off the mark.

The school did indicate that they might be able to do some accomodation for him in math since he comes so close to the outright 'need' of a 98th percentile type child (aka 'gifted'). So, I will try and figure that out in the fall.

Summer is going well, not broiling hot by any stretch, as of yet. Finally found a cool, affordable place to stay at the beach, so I'll be reserving that soon. Also going to set up as much camping here and there as possible!

Sleeping Beauty, the aftermath

SO....for some insane reason we did sign up our daughter for Sleeping Beauty. It seemed like every ounce of her extremely strong will went into bucking every attempt to get her to behave, be good, be like the other little girls while she was waiting in line. When the music started she was usually well behaved and willing to try the steps. She did pretty well considering how insane things looked while we were waiting. I tried to pull out a couple of times, but the director kept stating that she would be in it. So she was. Whew.

My son did a great job as a goblin, he and 3 other boys really got into their roles and very scary costumes they got to wear. Plus the evil 'witch' they got to accompany was an extremely accomplished older dancer who previously worked with the Bolshoi, he was really nice to the kids and they enjoyed working with him. I think they learned a thing or two about expressive dance.

Sleeping Beauty

My son has just tried out for Sleeping Beauty, to be a goblin accompanying the wicked witch. When they were first talking about it, they suggested the few boys be small princes, and there was some ok response from the boys. Then the director came up with the goblin idea and the boys are very very excited about that. There are 3 boys who normally take class and another boy who just joined in order to be a goblin. They will get to have silver bat wings and be really really scarey!!

My daughter is also going to *try* to be in it - she is very very young, so we will see how it goes. But she did audition and picked up on about 80% of the steps (not too complex). At any rate it will be insanely cute.

More on the boy

Cogat results, as well as Naglieri results, are in.
My 8 year old took these tests as part of the usual screening of all kids for the gifted program for our school district.
He did very well in a couple of areas: mainly non-verbal; considering he is supposed to be very verbal, and is already in the pre-gifted sort of program they have for language arts, this was sort of odd to me.
Also his quantitative score was very low and I am concerned about that, so I think I am going to look at having some more testing done, possibly look at a learning disorder. There are other things going on too that make me think this, I am not just going based on one set of test scores...Nothing super major, but enough to make a mom wonder.
And I'm not one for wondering about stuff for years and finding out after all is said and done that I should have found out more, earlier.

He has seen the other kids in his program reading Harry Potter books for their book reports, so he is now inspired to do so as well. He seems to be doing ok with it, so far, fingers crossed. I know he enjoys the stories, but I was afraid it would be too-many-words-on-a-page and sort of discourage him. He loves these wimpy kids books, there is a new one out this Jan, and I guess the humour and pictures are most appealing to him.
He was reading the first chapter of the first H.P. book and was just delighted that there was a good joke it in, so I hope that will keep him going on it. (I found them delightful and very funny in parts). I am going to read along with him in another copy of the book so we can have a chat as he goes along.
He has been doing some amazing drawings lately: robots w/steam and firefly power, in great detail. Detailed plans for clubs he wants to start, plans for armour he wants to build (all broken down into various parts, showing elbow joints, rivets, etc.).
And of course there is Yu-Gi-Oh! (!!)
He is really psyched I am taking him to a yugioh tournament next weekend. It is run by a gaming store and the person I spoke with sounded really nice. He said there is *NO* card trading, losing or winning of cards, etc. He said they try to make it a really fun learning atmosphere for the younger fans (under 13 only). Sounded exactly what I was interested in finding. If interested in tournaments, you can find out more on the yugioh website.

Movies, Books

Just watched recently with the kids: Alvin and the Chipmunks and Underdog, both were funner than expected and I might possibly even watch the Underdog one again since I really love that guy who plays the sidekick. He is also the sidekick in The Emperor's New Groove. When I first heard his voice (Patrick Warburton, as Kronk) I thought it was surely made up, but apparently he really does talk like that...
Well James really sped through those Wimpy Kid books, but now the reading has sort of petered out. I tried asking at the local cool bookstore if they had anything similar, but I guess there probably isn't anything really similar out there. The lady there recommended a series call Hank Zipser (sp?) written by, of all people, the Fonz. That's right, Henry Wrinkler is now penning apparently pretty good books for kids, mostly for boys.
Without any illustrations to speak of other than the cover art, James couldn't get too excited about it - but that's sort of the problem. He kind of needs a book which is at the 4th or 5th grade reading level, but by that point most authors/publishers aren't doing books with lots of illustrations. The wimpy kid books are sort of an exception to this. Please post any suggestions you might have for books for boys ages 8+! :)

PS

PS - Currently reading John Adams; highly, highly ...highly recommend it.

Been busy...just like everyone else.

I've been busy so I haven't been posting at all. That's my mo, however.
Like it or lump it as dad used to say.

I have been pondering my children and their greatness, wondering about sending my second grader to an art enrichment program during the summer. I think he'll definitely enjoy it, the only issue is getting him there and back, but I think I've got that part figured out.
It's 1/2 days for two weeks and I think it will be very inspirational for him, and if not, it will at least be a break from the regular hum drum of the summer.

He is reading like crazy now. It's like some reading spigot just turned on and you can't get him to close the books he likes; he reads while he's walking, etc. My sister said her daughter is that way too. I guess 7.5 years of reading to the boy have paid off, he LOVES reading. It's really great to see. I have found in my life that reading and books are one of my greatest pleasures so I am delighted to see him reading for the pure pleasure of it! I love my friends and family and really pretty well enjoy my work most days, but give me a good book and a few hours and **bliss**.

His latest all-out favorites are the Wimpy Kid books. They incorporate comics as well as text so that's right up his alley.
http://www.wimpykid.com/

Time Flies

Tempus fugit. 'Nuff said.

Here's the fun new thing we found at the Lego store near us:
Jello molds shaped like bricks with studs and everything.

Now that my son is 7, we also really checked out for the first time the buckets of bricks in the back where you can 'pick your own' Lego's like they were blueberries or something. Previously he's mainly been interested in the full blown kits.
Later, my husband said there was one couple there who were filling a $100 bucket by clicking all the bricks together neatly so as to get the most they could into their bucket. Ah, to have that sort of time on your hands.

Now that my son is 7 a lot of things have changed with him. I know you always hear that '7 is the age of reason', but there really does seem to be some threshold he's passed over where there's a bit more suspicion about things like the tooth fairy, Santa, etc. It's sort of bitter-sweet.
He's got an increased interest in questioning just about everything, though, and being able to hold more than a 2 sentence conversation helps him sew all the salient points together much more easily.
I don't know how many times some 'well meaning' mother has wondered casually whether my son might have a hyper activity problem or attention issue. I haven't the slightest idea what would make them think this was fodder for casual conversation anyway, but he's always been great a school (where it counts most) and now finally seems to be coming into his own on all fronts. For others struggling with a 5 or 6 year old who just won't listen, you can feel assured, kids do grow up. I'll sort of miss all the insanity :).

On the other hand I won't miss: taking my son to the pediatrician because he's started to say 'what' even MORE often than usual in response to every question and I'm worried he's got an ear infection or worse. Hearing turns out to be fine (again).

Finally, for the more "sophisticated" folks out there, a new magazine I am enjoying somewhat for it's complete disregard for the idea that anyone might have a budget to stick to, and somewhat because the photos are pretty lush, if ridiculous at times: "GARDEN & GUN".
Seriously. I've been to the Peabody hotel once with the family, it was a blast. There's an article on the duck man and ducks they house there as well as an article on kids and Airguns.

Signing off now, hopefully NOT for another 6 months.

One more Lego tidbit

I remembered one more thing I like about the lego site / stuff in general - their video games are really a blast!
We purchased the Star Wars one and are probably going to get the bionicle one that recently came out. I really like that the people look like legos and when someone gets blasted they fall into a million little lego bits. The games are well developed, at least from my limited perspective, and have a lot of levels so kids don't get bored easily.

Lego dot com

I can not recommend heartily enough the www.lego.com website for kids. My 6-year old is a lego fan and very into the bionicle series, but any legos will do. We recently discovered that he can set up his own web page on the lego site and he has been really enjoying it.
It is pretty darn easy to set up, and so easy to update he's been editing it himself repeatedly whenever he feels like it! It is free, except for being a lego ad :)
The site allows him to add pictures of creations he comes up with, as long as they involve legos; the even accept drawings of lego characters so he's posted some of those. It has been a real inspiration for him. He has started using some of the character-type kits in unusual ways, going beyond the instruction booklets they come with, which of course is how the original legos were always supposed to be used!
Lastly, although I know this will mainly appeal to boys, there are girl lego products out there: click-its, etc., so some of the girls in your family may be interested in checking this out, too.