Robots

Spring Break Day 5: Robots (and Free Choice)

Despite my best efforts, today was not a day for teaching. I provided lots of ideas, but the boys wanted to create their own schedule today, with a mismatch of the things we have been doing all week. Giving them screen time when they wake up is always a bad idea...because they never want to leave the screen. Here is their list:

1. Painting - whatever they want on paper. This got them motivated for a while, but their paintings were mostly about computer games they were just playing. Actually, Fireboy and Watergirl is a cool 2 player game, so at least they were playing together. Check out twoplayergames.org for more.

2. Lego building...today they created starships, and star war figures. They are really into Star Wars!

3. Surprises - They get to do something nice for someone else in the family and surprise them. Zach started things off by making everyone's bed. How sweet! It was nice to see they wanted to be sneaky spies...doing good things for others.

4. Jumping - downstairs on the old matresses. We actually ended up playing "Dog", and all three of them pretended they were dogs being trained by me. We had a good discussion on pets and how to care for them properly during lunch time.

By the time these activities were done, the food disposal was plugged, I found a few spots on Luke (that look like chickenpox), the hallway light burnt out, and my hanging metal wire for art came out of the wall..and all before noon. Arggggg.

When Luke was napping, we went ahead and made robots out of recycled materials...

...watched some cool YouTube videos of robots playing music, and started to build robots with KNex, our solar power vehicle set, alien robots kit and snap circuits. These are all kits that we own, and it was nice to bring them out again and let the boys create robots that really move.

It was not the day I expected, but with three kids most days usually are not. My dear husband came home and saved the day. He fixed everything, and played with the boys for an hour so I could fold laundry. He makes things so much calmer, when I am feeling a bit exhausted or stressed out. Thank you Scott for being such a great partner. We make a good team.