Normalizing muscles

Today, Austin's occupational therapist, Jane, told me that over the summer, it appears that Austin's muscles have normalized. He is more confident and wants to teach her things.

He also has better endurance for the physical exercises they do together.

Jane will be giving us some exercises to keep in mind while we are on our trip. She referred to Stick Kids. I think there is also some software she may be recommending to us.

Oops!! Wrong Target!

Austin and I stopped at Superstore on our way home from occupational therapy, to buy some food for lunch.

When we left the store, I was pushing the cart and Austin skipped ahead to the parking lot. I remember thinking to myself, "Thank goodness I don't have to worry about him running into traffic. If Aaron had done that, I'd have to abandon the cart and chase after him."

As I came around the corner of the building, Austin jumped out at me, calling, "Boo!" but there was another customer (a man in his early twenties) walking into Austin's path. Austin certainly surprised that guy, but he was a good sport about it, saying that he needed to wake up ;)

By the time we got to the car, I had fallen into a fit of giggles. Austin said, jokingly, "Oh sorry. The trap was already locked and loaded. Hey! Wrong target! Stop the missile!!" Austin figured that I must have laughed for about 6 solid minutes on the drive home.

Painting with the Boys (by Skye)

We needed to paint our basement suite to get it ready for renters. Skye, Austin and Aidan stayed home to paint, while Carla & Aaron went to a 40th wedding anniversary party in Tsawwassen.

Time estimation:

Austin and Aidan were given two different walls to sand and paint.

Austin divided his wall up into the sections that he could reach while
standing still (a practical choice). He noticed that this made approx.
6 sections of the wall. When he did this he noticed that he had
completed 3 of the 6 sections and said that he was 1/2 done that task.
He then estimated that he had 15 more minutes to go as it had taken
him 5 minutes to complete the last section.

Corrosion:

We were working with TSP to clean the walls before painting. I had
cautioned the boys to wear protective gloves when they were washing
with the TSP solution because it is corrosive. Austin asked what
corrosive meant, so we dove into this page to learn more about it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causticity

This introduced Austin to concepts of acids and bases. We talked about
some of the acids and bases we have around the house:

Acid:
citric acid in fruits

Base:
Soaps (dish, hand and TSP)

We touched on the fact that both of these will "burn" your skin and
some can generate heat. This introduced the word exothermic which
Austin correctly parsed to mean "outside heat" which I clarified was a
process that gave off heat (like burning wood). We then talked about
the opposite of exothermic which is endothermic. An example of an
endothermic process is evaporation (which is why our bodies perspire
to cool us down).

These are topics we'll certainly explore more in the future but it was
a good intro for now.

Time: painting exercise was about 30 minutes of discussion and 2.5
hours of activity

Time: discussion of acids, bases, and thermodynamics was about 30 minutes long

Communicating in Matoran

Last night, Aidan practiced his spelling words. While Aidan and I were going through his words together, Austin asked if I would make him a spelling test. He wanted me to select words from his Bionicle book. So, we ended up doing two spelling tests, and two bonus words. He did very well.

Then, Austin wanted to know how many letters from the Matoran alphabet I could remember. Austin set up a page with circles for the Matoran letters, and asked me to fill in the circles for the letter codes I knew. I started with A and C, then I remembered B and R and D. Austin suggested X, because it's basically an X in a circle, then he walked me through the rest of the alphabet, telling me about his memorizing tricks. We have a picture of the alphabet (Austin cut it out of the page). The letters are not in "alphabetical" order, because of the process we took to record them. He's quite a good teacher. I'm pretty sure I have the whole alphabet memorized now.

Then, Austin asked me to write a note to him, in Matoran. I wrote, "I want to go to sleep." Then, Austin asked me to write "Bionicle" in Matoran. Then, Austin set up a couple anagrams for me to solve. He wrote, "INHDKII," which, unscrambled, reads "Nidhiki." I had first spelled it, "Nihdiki," but Austin told me it's not like another Bionicle name that has the "H" prior to a "D." I don't remember the name he told me.

The next anagram was KAKOPA, and I unscrambled it to "Kopaka." Then, he wrote, "HYDRNXAO," and I unscrambled it to "Hydraxon."

Then, it was my turn to make an anagram. I wrote, "SMTRYYE," and after asking a few questions, such as, "Is the first letter an S? M?" and "Is the third last letter a Y?, E?" Austin solved the anagram as the word, "mystery."

Then, I really needed to go to sleep, so Austin continued without me. He wrote, "The Vahi is one of the legndary (sic) masks. Good night mom."

Then, before he tucked himself into bed, he wrote out a two-sided letter, all in Matoran code. This morning, I read it when I woke up. This is what I read:

"Hi mom. Can I have a glas (sic) of milk. This is what I wanted to teach you. To be able to write your oun (sic) sentenses (sic) and I've wrote (sic) this page so you can memorize your Matoran. I hope you've remeber (sic) your Matoran or you'll have a real hard time reading this page that I've given you.

So this is my Matoran. I've memorized all the Matoran alphabet. You want to see the alphabet ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ. And that's the Matoran alphabet. Some times (sic) I'll accidentaly (sic) write English letters, but for the majority it's Matoran. I'm surprised (sic) that I have a Bionicle from evry (sic) time in Bionicle history.

It's realy (sic) nice here in Deep Cove. It's too bad that we half (sic) to leave this place, but the Caribeean (sic) might not be so bad. Well I'm getting ____ (sic) so bye.

Teridax

Austin doesn't have a Makuta Teridax Bionicle. He would have really liked to have one, especially when we were visiting his cousin, Jonah's, place and discovered that he was willing to give his old Bionicles away. But Auntie Vicky runs a daycare, and the Bionicles are being enjoyed by the kids at daycare.

Austin was initially disappointed, but soon suggested that he build Teridax for the daycare kids. He would need access to a computer, so he could find the instructions and rebuild Teridax (199 pieces). Teridax was in pieces in a Lego bucket, so it took some considerable sifting to find each part. After about an hour, Austin had built Teridax, and he was well pleased with his accomplishment. He proceeded to tell Vicky about the value of the older Bionicles, and what Teridax might sell for, on eBay.

A couple days later, Austin showed me his version of Teridax. He had built him, using other Bionicle parts. Austin's Teridax is bigger than the original. Austin likes his version better, in some ways. He felt the original Teridax's legs were too short, and he was frustrated that there were no knee or ankle joints.

Here are some photos of Austin's version of Teridax, with some size comparisons to Antroz, Kongu, Gali and Hahli.

Good things

Admittedly, it hasn't been an easy adjustment to the new school year. Austin is bored and misses Aidan. Austin and I have had three fights in the past two days. Two fights about his desire to buy things (a food treat and Bionicles). One fight about how he's spending his time (he wanted to play Roller Coaster Tycoon and I didn't want him on the computer).

After so much disharmony, I am craving a focus on what has gone right, so far this week. So, here goes.

Good things about the past two days:

1. Austin had his first occupational therapy session of the new year, and it went very well. Austin had a good workout.

2. Austin learned about RNAi, and found the subject to be very engaging. This new knowledge sparked his imagination into seeing what life might be like if RNAi were used with the specific intention of responding to a coming world human population explosion.

3. Austin made me a cup of tea last night and drank chamomile himself, without argument.

4. Austin made me another cup of tea this morning.

5. Austin gave me a lesson in Bionicle "genealogy" this morning.

6. Austin baked delicious cornmeal muffins this morning and served them to our guest, Claudia.

7. Austin asked Claudia if she would like a cup of tea, he prepared her tea and asked if she wants milk or honey, and he graciously brought her tea to her. She was very pleased and impressed.

8. Austin completed two drawings today. One of Bionicle masks, and another of a dragon.

9. Austin helped out at the grocery store, getting the milk, frozen strawberries and onions.

10. Austin helped to unload the groceries from the car and to carry bags upstairs.

11. Even though Austin was disappointed that things didn't go his way today, he quietly tucked himself into bed and went to sleep without a fuss.

Ah, now I feel better. After all, it has been a pretty good couple of days.

RNAi

Today, we learned about RNAi. The "i" stands for "interference."

Austin believes that one day, we could send genetic recipes to stop the growth gene when humans are around the age of 2. This could be a way for humanity to survive a burgeoning population. If humans are small, they will need less air to breathe, and less food to eat. They will continue to develop muscle strength and gain knowledge as they get older.

Austin suggested that about 50 of these smaller humans could live in our house, compared to 5 (or 6, or 7, or 10) now. We laughed about this, because we actually did have 10 people living in our house for a 3-week period, several years ago. And that was before Aaron was born!

I asked Austin if we could use RNAi to make humans more intelligent. He said, with complete confidence, "No, the only way to get smarter is to keep gaining knowledge as we get older."

Here's a segment from the video we watched today. I just love all the DVDs we ordered from HHMI. They were all free, and all the material has been entertaining and engaging for everyone. We've watched the DVDs on Evolution, Obesity and part of the RNA DVD.

Royal BC Museum Field Trip

On September 12, we went to the Royal BC Museum in Victoria. Austin really enjoyed the exhibits.

He saw a large relief map of BC. Austin estimated that it was two stories high and about 5 metres wide. Colours representing the various elevations were projected onto it. They would occasionally project extra information like a visualization of California, Oregon and Washington all fitting into the space of British Columbia.

Skye pointed out to Austin the Rocky Mountain Trench and he said, "hmm... so BC is not part of North America?" This is because the trench was created by two plates moving apart after colliding. Austin was kind of correct in that BC is on a different plate from most of North America. Austin explained that continents don't always have to be separated by oceans, such as Europe and Asia, which are separated by the Ural Mountains.

Austin also saw the life-sized woolly mammoth. The ice in this exhibit was real. He saw a replica of a BC coastal forest that contained:

- elk

- deer

- bears
- squirrels, etc.

He saw a cougar skull and a Humboldt squid. Austin was carrying a digital camera, and took a picture of the squid.

He walked through the coastal First Nation pit house. He saw beds made of dirt and animal hides. He thinks they might be comfortable but not as comfortable as the more modern memory foam mattresses ;)

He saw an animal hide/clothes making table. He noticed tools made with sticks strapped to rocks, used for skinning the animals. The people made tunics out of hides.

On another floor, he saw the "time lost" exhibit. The exhibit begins in the 70's and 80's (Star Wars, old computers and PacMan arcade games). Next was the 30's or 40's ("old" as Austin put it). Cigars that sell for $0.05 instead of $10 today. A mini Chinatown, hotels and saloons, brick roads (his feet hurt after walking on it a while). Next was a farm from the same period. The display had donkeys pulling things (no engines). Austin says, "They had ZERO technology." A donkey pulling a cart was the most technology he could spot. Skye asked if they had shovels and he said, "Yes." S: "Isn't that technology?" A: "Yes, but it's oooooold technology, invented by the Sumerians."

Next, he saw an old sawmill. He couldn't remember seeing any engines. There was one two-man saw, one belt saw. Next was a mine with hand-cranked drills. Austin tried cranking one and it was impossible to do - it was so hard to move. He saw some gold panning.

Next, they went to the BC maritime history section from "the old tall ship period." They could see the stern of the tall ship. They saw the old bunks, no hammocks in this one. Then they saw some modern-day battle ships.

We all watched an IMAX movie on whales. Some of the opening footage showed the elusive blue whales. Austin felt there was nothing new learned. Skye was underwhelmed and a little annoyed at how shallow the material was ... even the footage was only average for the most part.

Math U See

I ordered the Epsilon package from Math-U-See, with an extra box of manipulative blocks so A1 and A2 could share. I was excited when the package arrived today, and brought the blocks upstairs to show the boys.

A1 was initially not interested, and stayed at the computer, playing rock songs on youtube. I showed A2 how to add two 3-digit numbers together, using the blocks. He immediately grasped the concept of combining to make tens, and was eager to make an equation for me to solve.

I asked A1 to get off the computer and take a look at the blocks. He came to the dining room with a chip on his shoulder, and I discouraged him from coming in, unless he brought a new, more positive attitude. I had to go out of the house for a few hours, so I left them, building structures with the blocks. Initially, I was hesitant about not using the blocks as they are intended, but a voice of reason told me just to let it be. And thank goodness for that. About 2 1/2 hours later, I received a call from Austin, telling me about the equations he and Aidan had been solving. Austin was teaching Aidan multiplication. They solved both 197 x 3 and 55 x 3, correctly. Great stuff!

Also, A1 asked A2 to draw a circle, then A1 labelled 0, 360 and 90 degrees on the circle. He asked A2 to solve for 180 x 2, and showed A2 how 180 degrees represents 1/2 of a circle. So, A2 was able to see that twice 180 equals 360. Great teaching method, Austin!

I asked Austin to show me how they solved the equations, and it seems that they didn't use the blocks. Instead, A1 says that he showed A2 the way A1's teachers had taught him in school. However it was acted out, doesn't really matter. I'm excited about the enthusiasm A1 demonstrated for math, and teaching his younger brother. He showed A2 the trick for multiplying by 10, and A2 was blown away at how big a number he can multiply now, knowing that all he has to do is add a zero! A2 loves big numbers ... particularly googol and infinity.

A1 is still reversing his numbers when he prints, but he is less resistant to writing, so that is another step in the right direction.

We worked on his Learning Plan today ... more to follow.