Homeschool day 51 of 180
Government school day 41 of 170
Kelly and Christian exercised their creativity this weekend. Yesterday evening, Kelly and I were sitting at the upstairs computers. I was not doing anything on the computer, just using the desk for homeschool corrections. Kelly was at the Windows computer working on her book. I do not know whether she only works on her book when she is content or working on her book makes her content. After we had been there awhile, Kelly stopped typing, looked over at me and said, “Do you think that being able to type fast is a big advantage?”
I thought about if for a second and said, “Yes, but maybe in a little bit of a different way from what you are thinking.”
She said, “Why?”
“Well, do you know how we have taken a systematic approach to learning stuff? Both you and Christian started very young with reading, writing, typing, bicycle riding, swimming, drawing, and a bunch of other things. When you started you were pretty bad, but little by little you got better by practicing every day for just a little while. It does not take too long to get good if you are consistent and do not get discouraged. Attitude is everything.”
“Yes.”
“It is a big advantage to be able to systematically learn things. It requires patience. That you can type 60 words per minute when you are twelve is probably not as important as the fact that you spent fifteen minutes every day of every summer since you were seven doing Mavis Beacon Typing.”
“That is true.”
“It does help to be able to type as fast as you can think, though.”
She has a great little book coming together. She has not started writing the book yet because she has been describing her characters, refining the plot, outlining the chapters, and working on her illustrations. I think it would be great to put up one of the illustrations for her book up here on the blog tonight. It is the one that shows all of the characters. It might not be the final illustration for the book, but it is nice and really gives a flavor for where she is going with her book writing efforts.
Kelly’s book illustration
Christian had a major breakthrough in his creative endeavors this weekend, too. He has been doing claymations. His two main themes have been ridiculing the self organization of molecules into human beings and tank and artillery battles. The “evolution” themed claymations are pretty hilarious, but so are the tank scenes. There has really been a limited number of people involved in these scenes. The main one being the person that is formed as the molecules self-organize. The tank battles have generally featured a tank and a cannon moving around shooting at each other. The problem with doing people is that it is hard to get them to move in lifelike ways. He had a major breakthrough last night right around bedtime. It is a fishing story that gets around many of the technical issues while still providing for a funny and succinct plot. I will try to put it up here when he gets it finished.