Extreme Engineering

We watched a Discovery Channel DVD called Extreme Engineering last week, highlighting projects such as the Bering Strait bridge concept. 30 years in the making, this project is still only an idea. However, all the boys were fascinated by the magnitude of the project and the extreme conditions that need to be taken into account if this project ever should go ahead.

The DVD included coverage of the Confederation Bridge which joins New Brunswick to PEI. Since the older boys have all crossed that bridge, it was quite a meaningful experience to learn about its construction and the challenges the engineers had to overcome in designing the structure.

How many words?

Skye and I had read recently that, by the age of 2, Aaron should have 50 words in his vocabulary. Both of us felt certain that he was a long way from that goal.

However, when Austin, Aidan, Aaron and I were driving home from Aidan's ENT Specialist appointment at Children's Hospital on Friday, it occurred to me that Aaron actually has a rapidly expanding vocabulary. So, I invited Austin and Aidan to help me count how many words Aaron knows. We reached about 70, and still weren't done. A few times, Aaron piped up with a word we had missed - it was so cute - as if he understood what we were trying to do!

Austin has been working with Aaron to teach him new words. Austin explained how he uses positive reinforcement as Aaron demonstrates his knowledge. Austin has been paying particular attention to the word, "please," both verbally and in sign. Aaron signs, "please" regularly and has expressed delight at our ability to understand and respond to his requests. For instance, if he asks for a sock while we are in the living room, I walk him to his room, open the top drawer and reach for a pair of socks, and he squeals in delight, repeating, "sock," "sock!"

The Socialist

This conversation started with Austin's observation that Daddy spends a lot of time on the computer. "It's like he's choosing the computer over his family." To take this into context, Austin wasn't feeling very good about losing allowance for the day, because he had wilfully ignored Skye's reminders to prepare for bed so he could be in bed on time today (one of the daily criteria for earning allowance). I explained that Daddy needs to unwind after his workday. Austin said it would be better for Daddy to unwind by spending time with his family, than by getting back on the computer after being on a computer all day at work (I guess he doesn't realise that Skye actually spends very little time on a computer at work).

Austin said, "Companies need to start paying their employees to spend time with their family." Employees could earn money for spending time with their kids or friends/family because they are helping the future generation. This will be good for everyone on the Earth.

I asked Austin how companies will be able to make money if they are paying their employees to be away from work, spending time with their families. Austin explained that the employees will want to work hard because they have such good employers who are doing such good things for the world. So, the companies will make money, and families will be less stressed.

I asked Austin about the employees who don't have kids, and he said, "Well, they do want kids, eventually." I said, "Some people choose not to have kids. Some people feel it is responsible not to have kids, not to contribute to the population explosion." Austin feels that we don't have a population explosion ... this was a bit unclear, but Austin said we have evolved to be so smart. We (humans) used to be more spread out, but now we are living close together. Austin says, "It's natural to want to have kids ..." I could have debated this further, but wanted to stay on topic.

Austin gave other examples of when employees could earn money when not working to contribute to company earnings. If an employee were feeling grumpy or angry, and left the workplace to buy a coffee to make himself feel better, that would be good for the company and good for the employee, so, even though the employee wasn't spending time with family, he would still pay them, because what they were doing is for the greater good. If, however, an employee stayed home and did nothing (what does doing nothing look like?) but watch TV, for instance, he couldn't pay them - they'd just have to take an unpaid day off.

I was particularly impressed by Austin's astute statement, "The only reason we haven't been able to change is because we haven't gotten enough people to agree. Until we have enough agreement, nothing will change."

A Riddle

While driving to Po-Co with Austin today I gave him a riddle to solve.

What English word is pronounced the same when four of its five letters are removed?

We worked through the clues over the next 40 minutes. One of the main clues that he arrived at was that the final "word" is a single letter word so we started going through the alphabet to see what single letters also made words. Some of the ones he came up with were:

• Why
• Pee
• Pea
• Sea
• I
• Cue
• A
• You
• Are
• Tea
• Tee

None of these there were 5 letters long but he was close so I helped by introducing him to the word Queue which he hasn't heard much. We then discussed how in England it's the preferred way to describe what we would call a line-up of people in North America (as in the bit in Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie where Arthur Dent says, "OK. Leave this to me. I'm British. I know how to queue.").

The Cove

Tonight we watched the documentary called The Cove about the Dolphin killing in Japan. Quite an impressive show and it's a shame that there is so much corruption and lying about all this. There were segments on how the world's fisheries may be only 40 years from a global collapse. Austin's reaction was to say that he didn't want to ever eat a fish again. So we started looking into if any fisheries are maintained in a sustainable way. I found this reference that a friend had given me before.

The Gift

Austin and I went to meet with Sue Hall, from Positive Dyslexia http://www.positivedyslexia.com/. Sue uses the Davis Method, designed by Ron Davis, author of The Gift of Dyslexia and The Gift of Learning. Sue refers to dyslexia, dysgraphia and dyspraxia as a "Talent."
Sue explained about how Austin's brain works when he is writing letters and numbers. It's really cool, how she described that dyslexics and dysgraphics see, in their mind's eye, in 3D. So, it is very challenging to know which way to place a letter on a 2D page. That's how Austin is able to write "5" backwards (I find it challenging to do this) and a "g" upside-down and mirrored.

Sue delivers a program that takes a full week, Monday to Friday, 9:00-4:00, working with her one:one. The medium she uses is clay. The students she works with, learn writing and math skills that enable them to use their brain the way it was intended to be used, instead of how schools try to force them to use their brains. This way, students can create similar output to their counterparts in a school/work setting, though they are using their 3D brains in the way nature intended. Sue suggested that Austin has devised reading strategies to decode words, enabling him to read very well for his age.

Sue's program sounds very interesting, but it is very expensive. If we qualify for a bursary, we may be able to put Austin through the program, if he is willing and interested.

Incentive to type

Skye and I have been challenged to find ways to positively motivate Aidan to get in regular practice on his violin. His teacher asks him to only practice for 10 minutes per day. It might be hard to believe this, but even that is challenging when we don't have it built into a daily routine. Prompting Aidan at various times of the day, to practice, hasn't been successful so far. We've considered getting him into another lesson, closer to home, in the middle of the week, but this will cost at least another $80/month, and may require an additional trip to the lesson, if we can't coordinate with Austin's music lesson time slot.
On the way to Aidan's lesson on Saturday, I was inspired to try the same incentive program that was so successful for both boys, when learning to toilet train ... Lego!!! Only this time, it's big-boy Lego. I bought Aidan the Star Wars Separatist Shuttle and Austin the Power Miners Crystal Sweeper.
Aidan earns 19 pieces per day, for 2 weeks and Austin earns 22 pieces per day, for 3 weeks.
Aidan earns pieces each day he practices his violin for a minimum of 10 minutes, and Austin earns pieces each day he practices typing for a minimum of 15 minutes. So far, it's working like a charm.
And we have the side benefit of a lot of math figuring ;) They've been going through the instruction books, to find out how far they'll get "tomorrow," and how many days it will take to get to various stages in the building process. They work out how many pieces they'll have in a week. Austin worked out 7 x 22, by starting with 10 x 22, then subtracting 3 x 22. He arrived at 144, because he had worked out 3 x 22 to equal 76, in his head, so he subtracted 10 too many. Once he realised where he went wrong, he corrected, but accidentally took another 10 off to arrive at 134, and caught himself quickly to change his answer to 154. I worked out the answer by multiplying 7 x 20 = 140 and adding 7 x 2 = 14, 140 + 14 = 154.
This incentive program might be a way to teach our boys a bit of patience, too. They are so accustomed to not having to wait for what they want, and not having to work for it. Not entirely, of course (they do chores to earn pocket money), but Skye and I feel that it's very difficult for our kids to understand what it's like to have to live without things you want, when they seem to be surrounded by such abundance.
Anyway, it is achieving the primary goals to motivate Aidan to practice his violin and Austin to practice keyboarding.

Information at your fingertips

Austin, Iain and I watched the TED talk on the 6th Sense research project at the MIT media labs.

http://www.ted.com/talks/pranav_mistry_the_thrilling_potential_of_sixthsense_technology.html

Iain and Austin were particularly impressed with the idea of using gestures to access information and features. The demos of using your hand to dial a phone, the wrist watch gesture and the picture-taking gesture inspired them the most. I asked them to put some thought into ideas they have for new gesture features or interesting ways to use the ones in the talk. I need to follow-up with them on this.

Boys' night to cook

Last weekend was the boys' night to cook and the challenge was to cook something that they hadn't cooked before (so no spaghetti and no tacos). They attacked the cupboard full of cookbooks and came up with ginger beef and noodles as their choice. Carla was out doing errands so they quickly called her to request a few missing ingredients from the store (noodles and beef).

With dinner time quickly approaching they launched into action. Iain cut the beef into strips and Austin chopped the green onions. They both collaborated on the seasoning (we discovered that we were out of Paprika but decided to go ahead anyway and hoped that it would still taste good). Both the boys like the flavor of garlic so lots of chopped garlic went in (yum!).

Once the meat was cooked, in went the water and noodles. It's at this point that they discovered that the wok would have been a better vessel to do this kind of cooking. The pan they chose was overflowing with good stuff.

About an hour after starting we got out the noodle bowls and had a very tasty dinner. I sure hope they do this one again some time! :)

Audiblox

Austin started using Audiblox on November 16. This is a program designed by Dr. Jan Strydom of South Africa, to reverse disabling effects of dyslexia, dysgraphia and other conditions.

The exercises use coloured blocks for block design, sequencing and patterns, letter tiles to practice spelling, bean bags, a page of arrows to practice orientation (up, down, left, right)... Austin particularly enjoys the block design exercises, and he is doing very well at them.

I've noticed that he is creating clever ways to remember the colour sequences - very similar strategies to building vocabulary when he is learning a new language. For instance, when he sees a horizontal series of three blocks, blue/white/red, he says out loud, "France," if he sees these blocks in a vertical orientation, he says, "France sideways," and if they are red/white/blue, he says, "France backwards." He uses similar phrasing for green/white/red, substituting "Italy" for "France." A yellow/black combination is "Bumblebee," and a green/blue combination is "Vancouver." He explained that he's referring to the Canucks' blue/green jersey. A red/white/yellow combination is "too bright." I've noticed that he consistently uses the same descriptions for the same colour combinations.

He's not mixing up his green and red, but occasionally gets blue and green in the wrong positions when they are together in a colour sequence.

He hates to repeat a design, so I've noticed he is now trying harder to get them right on the first try.

Austin and I have agreed to practice Audiblox together for three months, 5 times per week, to see if it makes a difference with his handwriting skill. Fortunately, the exercises are varied, he's not being timed, and I'm usually able to hold his interest through each section. We spend 45 minutes per day on these exercises.

Where is all this wind coming from?!

Now that we've seen the destructive force that the wind can have when it topples trees (see the earlier post about the tree falling in our yard), Austin was interested to know a little bit more about where this evening's strong wind was coming from. This required that we did a bit of investigating using the Environment Canada web site. The best information is found on the Marine Forecast pages for the Georgia Strait South of Nanaimo.

First we took a look at the detailed weather reports from the local marine weather station at Pt. Atkinson.

From this we could see that the average wind speed had been increasing all afternoon and peaking at 1700 (5pm). However, the gusts had continued to increase all the way to a top speed of 50 knots (approx 90Km/h) between 8pm and 9pm. The other thing that we noticed was that the temperature had been dropping all evening which is what you'd expect once the sun goes down but why was it rising again? Time to break out more reports to see what was going on in the bigger picture.

By going to the Environment Canada Analysis Charts we can see a large low pressure system moving in from the North West. The contour lines indicate the rate in change of air pressure and can be thought of as a slope with the air moving down it like water. The closer together the lines, the steeper the slope and the faster the wind. So now we know what's creating all that wind tonight. But why is the temperature rising even though the sun's gone down?

Looking at the Analysis Chart a little more we can see some thick, curved lines spiraling out from the big L (for Low) with triangles and semi-circles on one of the lines. These indicate warm and cold fronts where the triangles represent a cold front and the semi-circle bumps represent warm fronts. Austin could see that on this chart there is a warm front just off the coast of Vancouver Island and Washington State. This is bringing warm air to us which is causing the temperature to rise.

Timber!!!

One of the big hemlocks in our back yard came down on Friday. When Austin and I were driving home from his Spanish lesson, I received a call from our neighbour, to give me the news. I was pretty worried that the tree might have come down onto our house, and that it will cost a lot to have it removed.

Austin was quite cheerful, and mentioned that, if the tree hadn't come down, we wouldn't have an opportunity to inspect the upper branches and see what was living in the tree. I said it would be sad if birds lost their nest as a result of the tree falling. Austin said, "But, it's natural. And besides, most birds will have flown south for the winter, by now." What an optimist!

Austin was excited to explore the tree, and he brought his leatherman out, so he could use the saw blade to cut off a few branches. He gave Aidan a lesson in how to saw off branches.

The District sent an arborist to inspect the tree. She determined that a fungus had caused wood rot, weakened the tree, so in the heavy winds, it came down. The other big hemlock on our property is not experiencing the same fungus, even though the trees were adjacent to each other. However another arborist (Jesse) determined that our tree has dead wood at the base of the trunk, so that's not a good sign, and he pointed out to Austin and I, how most of the branches, and therefore most of the weight is on the south side of the tree. If the tree is going to fall, it will fall to the south - directly onto our house. Jesse also explained to Austin and I that our hemlock is experiencing "mistletoe," causing additional shoots to grow at the ends of limbs, making them heavier. Jesse pointed out that the tree that fell would have been sheltering our tree from northerly winds, and now our tree is more vulnerable. So, all in all, the situation is not good for our tree, or our pocketbook. Austin left that conversation feeling pretty convinced that the tree has to come down.

The good guy almost always loses

Austin just shared an observation with me. He pointed out that the good guy almost aways gets in a situation where it looks like he's totally lost. But then at the last moment something changes and he wins and the bad guy can't believe it. I shared with him that this was a classic aspect of most modern story telling. We then explored several other stories that he's familiar with that all shared that common pattern.

Now I want to go look up other story patterns and share with him :)

Lego Star Wars Trivia Lesson

Today, Austin invited me to play Lego Star Wars with him. He had a few ships set up on the living room floor. Initially, I resisted. I've been aware, lately, that I am uncomfortable having Austin guide the learning process and I've wanted to have some input of my own. I reminded him that I had planned to take him to the library today, but he really didn't want to go out in the rain. I worried that, by not going to the library during our two hours together, I would have to take extra time away from my work to do the library run. So, I reasoned, it would be best to do the trip to the library with Austin, during our time together.
Skye is home today, not feeling well. I shared my concerns with him, and came to my own conclusion that I could do the library trip at the end of my work day instead, so I could spend time with Austin, uninterrupted.
So, I went back to Austin and let him know that I could go to the library later, so let's have our time together. Skye had suggested that I ask Austin if he'd like to dictate a story to me, and I would type it for him. Austin said, "That's not really my thing. I don't want to do that. Let's just play Lego." I responded, "Well, I'm not going to play Lego, so we'll have to think of something else to do." And so the awkwardness began... Austin said he doesn't understand, if he is doing SelfDesign, why can't we just play Lego together? He pointed out, if he were with a SelfDesign LC, they'd just say, "Ok, let's play Lego." So, I had to leave the room again ;) I consulted Skye. I think part of my reason for resisting playing with Lego, was to satisfy Skye's suggestion to type up a story. When I shared with Skye, my conversation with Austin, Skye agreed ... just play Lego with him.
So, perhaps not entirely willingly, I returned to the living room, prepared to participate in Lego play. I asked Austin if it is possible for the Jedi to have peaceful relations with others in the Universe. Austin said, it is. We set out to locate General Grievous, whom we found, with light sabres blazing. Austin had Yoda on the Republic Gunship (Austin built this himself, from scratch, modeling after a kit he wants to buy someday). Yoda exited the passenger hold, and performed many fancy maneuvers to battle with Grievous. Grievous was on the run. Austin asked me to hold the Republic Attack Shuttle aimed toward Grievous, so he couldn't escape. Anakin Skywalker and Ahsoka (Anakin's Padawan) were on board the Attack Shuttle. Austin built the Attack Shuttle from a kit, and made a few modifications. Four passengers can now fit on board, instead of only three when guns are loaded in the passenger hold. The cockpit is also an escape pod. Austin explained, if Anakin needed to escape, I could simply pretend that Anakin had walked into the cockpit, then I could pop off the escape pod and fly away.
Austin also built a Slave I (Jango Fett's ship), modeled after a kit he wants to buy (oh my goodness, I just looked this up - it's $310!!). I told Austin that I like his creations even better than the kits. He's actually done a really good job of creating vehicles that closely resemble the kits. On the weekend, Austin helped Aidan to convert his AT-TE into an AT-AT Walker. Aidan absolutely loves it!
After the battle with Grievous continued, and all I was doing was holding the Shuttle above him, I became bored, and asked Austin if we could do something else.
Austin suggested some Trivia. He said I could ask him a few questions and he would ask me, so we could make a game of it. I don't know my Star Wars characters and vehicles very well, so we didn't get very far. Austin took this as an opportunity to teach me about Star Wars, so he proceeded to teach a lesson for 45 minutes, on parts of the vehicles, and a battle scene. My head is spinning with missile launchers, laser cannons, Cyborgs, Droidecas, Speeders, Walkers, Battle Armour, etc. Austin plans to quiz me tomorrow, to see how much I've remembered.

Testing, testing, 1,2,3 ...

This has been testing week for Austin. He is going through a comprehensive psycho-educational assessment with a registered child psychologist (Joan). This assessment involves three 2-hour sessions 1:1, Joan:Austin. November 3 was the first session, November 6 the second, and November 10 will be the final session.

On November 3, Austin brought a couple Lego creations to show Joan, and Joan was very obliging. She likes Lego and was curious about what they were and how they worked. Austin came out of the first session feeling really validated. It was cute, because Joan said, enthusiastically, "Neat kid! He has lots of smarts. He's so creative. We just have to find another way for him to express himself that doesn't involve writing." I agreed that Austin is very creative and has lots of imaginative ideas, and Austin looked accusingly at me, asking "Then why did you yell at me yesterday, saying I wasn't learning anything?" I didn't go into an explanation for Joan, I just said, "Yes, we had an altercation yesterday." Joan nodded and explained that she had heard all about it.

Truth is, I was busy working in my office, and Austin was playing Lego in his bedroom above me. I could hear "Pchew, pchew....." and had a pang of guilt that I wasn't properly educating my son, or adequately engaging him in "academic" pursuits. So, with this thought fueling my words, I suggested to Austin, that he consider doing a "learning" activity instead. Austin insisted that he *is* learning. And we got into an argument. It's particularly challenging when my head says one thing, and my heart reminds me that Austin is a 10-year-old boy and children learn through play.

On the second day of testing, Joan explained that Austin measured in the 99th percentile on the Patterns section of the test. So far, I don't know much about what this would indicate about Austin, but I gather these results are atypical. Skye and I will meet with Joan on the 12th, to discuss the results of the testing. Joan will write up an extensive and comprehensive report for us to use whenever we feel it would be appropriate and helpful. This is the nice part about seeking an assessment privately - we are in control of how/if the results are used in Austin's education.

Tomorrow, Austin will complete the testing. I'll pick him up early, from Academie Duello.

Conversational Tidbits

Over the past few days, we have had several conversations with Austin, on different subjects.

Prehistoric ecosystems in modern-day Argentina: Today, I mentioned to Austin that my friend and her family will be travelling to Argentina. Austin said she was travelling to the home of some of the largest land creatures ever to live on the earth. I asked if he was referring to Argentinosaurus, and he clarified, also Giganotosaurus. He explained that it would be necessary to have a suitably large carnivore living amongst those large herbivores, or else life would not be sustainable. He really gets the concept of ecosystems.

How many minutes in a day?:

On the drive to Coquitlam yesterday, Austin and Aidan were discussing time, and wondering how many minutes there were in a day. Skye invited them to work out the answer. Since they know how many hours are in a day, and how many minutes in an hour, they can work out how many minutes are in a day. After about a minute of silence, Austin said, "1,440." Skye asked Austin how he had figured it out, and he explained that he worked out 60 times 20 = 1,200, then asked Aidan to remember the number 12. Then, Austin worked out 6 times 4 = 24 and multiplied that by 10 to equal 240, then he added the 240 to 1,200 to get 1,440. This is very close to the approach Carla used. Skye calculated 60 times 10 plus 60 times 2 to work out how many minutes are in half a day, then doubled it to get the same answer.

Many of the world's languages are disappearing:

This evening, on the drive to Austin's music lesson, we were listening to CBC radio, a discussion about the prediction that, over the next 100 years, 90% of the world's languages that exist today, will be extinct. We heard an introduction to the first of Wade Davis' Massey Lectures. Wade Davis has recently written the book, "The Wayfinders; Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World." I told Austin that, with his special skill with learning languages, he could help to preserve some of these threatened languages. I also told him that his Grandma teaches a language that is at risk of being lost - the Kaska language. I reminded Austin about his Kaska name, Quain (sp?), which means "Woodchuck." Austin suggested that he create a new language, rather than work to preserve a language that's going to die anyway. He explained that he creates faster than he destroys, so perhaps this would be a way to preserve the idea of multiple world languages - giving birth to new ones. The interviewee (Professor Arrister?) was explaining that it takes a linguist 4-5 years to collect and record everything he/she can from a dying language. It is Arrister's hope that, by preserving a language, they will succeed in preserving its culture, traditions and storytelling that have been passed down through the generations.

An afternoon at Science World

We showed up for one of the Home Learner sessions put on by Science World. It was something about plants but the kids didn't get much out of it other than to build some paper air planes (which was *not* what the organizers were asking them to do). That's not quite true. Austin does like to grow plants so he was happy to come home with his packet of dirt and seeds. They are now "planted" in a couple of our nice tall drinking glasses ... I think that we need to find a better home for them.

While there we stopped to watch one of the science demonstrations. Austin was impressed by the exploding balloon of Hydrogen. I think he said something like, "Cool! The air actually burned!" He then got a chance to go on stage and add the oxygen to the fire that was cooking in some kind of pot (the presenter wasn't really clear what she was burning but it was a good demonstration of the need for the 3 ingredients of fire; fuel, heat and oxygen). The final demonstration was "shooting air" using air guns which were finally filled with smoke from a smoke machine. Austin really liked the slow motion rings that were shot over the crowd.

We hadn't eaten much lunch due to our hectic schedule so we caved in and ate at the White Spot (yuck). Austin had some interesting observations and questions. First he was frustrated with their fixed menu (you can't order it if it's not in their computer). Then he had some very out of the box ideas about how he'd run a restaurant if given the chance (something about letting anyone who knows how to cook to choose how they want their food which then led to a discussion about a reality TV show idea that would be called, "so you think you can cook"). He also didn't like the service and wanted to know if the owners of businesses always made more money than their employees. Then he observed that the purpose of businesses was to sell things to people at a price that is higher than what they paid for it (or paid for the parts & work to build something). He then asked how insurance companies made money (they don't resell anything and they don't build anything). Business was certainly the theme of those conversations.

Scuba Diving at Whytecliff Park - Day 2

Wet and cold. That's the main theme for today's diving.

Austin spent about 1.5 hours diving today and managed to complete all but one of the skills needed to get his open water certification. He was limited by the thick gloves, the wetsuit hood and the cold water. He should do OK closer to summer when the water is warmer.

There were 3 seals keeping an eye on them ... or hoping that they'd surface with one of the many large crabs they saw on the bottom! Oh, and Austin found a discarded snorkel on the bottom.

Austin was quite cold by the time he got out of his wetsuit but a few cups of hot chocolate and several layers of clothing took care of that.

Scuba Diving at Whytecliff Park

Today, Austin did his first two of four PADI Junior Openwater dives at Whytecliff Park with his amazing instructor, Chelsea Cameron, from The Diving Locker. Chelsea works so well with Austin and genuinely enjoys his nature and sense of humour.

It took over an hour to get suited up in the wetsuit, neoprene boots and gloves, attach his buoyancy compensation vest/device (BCD), regulator and gauge to the air tank, don his 20-pound weight belt, mask and snorkel, and waddle (Austin's description) over logs to the frigid water, fins in hand. Chelsea was so patient through the process, helping Austin with his weight belt where he collapsed in a heap of drama (wink, wink) with still a few metres remaining to the shore. Even the tank and gear themselves are quite heavy, particularly for a boy of 10 to carry. I called the weight belt Austin's "ticket to adventure," because without it, he'd just skim the water's surface.

In the days and weeks leading up to today's dives, Austin has been really enthusiastic and eager to go. He noticed a slight leak in the hose connector to his BCD and was fairly concerned that he may run out of air on his dive. Chelsea assured him that it was a very small leak, and he needn't worry about running out of air. Nonetheless, he felt compelled to repeatedly check his gauge (3000 psi), insisting the needle must have moved a millimetre while they were finishing suiting up.

Chelsea said Austin did really well. We're lucky it wasn't raining. It was quite cold, and Austin was certainly ready to dry off and warm up after spending about 75 minutes in the water (they didn't get out between dives - just floated at the surface). Austin enjoyed the underwater scene so much that Chelsea said he didn't want to end the second dive.

The skill Austin needs to master tomorrow, to qualify for his certificate, is mask removal and clearing while kneeling on the ocean floor. Today, he panicked during the mask-clearing exercise, when he accidentally breathed in some ocean water through his nose. He ripped his regulator out of his mouth, and surfaced in a hurry. This is quite a dangerous panic response, but very typical of new divers of all ages. Chelsea suggested filling up the bathroom sink with ice cold water, wearing the mask and snorkel, breathing through the snorkel while removing and replacing his mask. Austin practiced this several times, using his strategy of holding his nose once he removed the mask. Skye and I have tried to encourage Austin not to hold his nose, because it simply won't be practical when he's demonstrating the skill tomorrow, with 3mm-thick neoprene gloves on his hands!

In the first dive, they went as deep as 24 feet for about 20 minutes. I'm not sure how deep they went for the second dive, but Austin explained that a subsequent dive would generally be more shallow than the previous dive on the same day.

Austin marvelled at the huge crabs, lumpy seastars, jellyfish and anemones he saw during the dive. He said we don't need our crab trap anymore - he can catch them himself!! I think we can give him the job of cleaning the hull of our boat (wink, wink).

Gordon Korman

Austin and I went to see Gordon Korman at the West Point Grey United Church on October 21. Gordon did a short talk before staying to sign autographs for fans. He lives in New York and was in Vancouver for the Writers Festival.

Gordon told the audience about how he got started as a writer. It's a great story about a 12-year-old boy who was the grade 7 class Scholastic monitor. He wrote a story as a Language Arts project that year, his mother typed it up into a manuscript and he mailed it to the address on the Scholastic order forms.

Two years later, This Can't be Happening at MacDonald Hall was published. Now, Gordon Korman has written more than 60 books. Austin purchased Swindle and its sequel, the newly-published Zoobreak.

When Austin met Gordon Korman, he told the author that he liked the ending of "Schooled." It was a happy ending. Austin is hoping that it will turn out to be a movie someday. Gordon Korman explained that movie rights have been sold for several of his books, including "Schooled." That's an interesting phenomenon itself. I guess many movie rights have been sold on books in print, but most of these will never see the big screen.

Upon hearing of Austin's chance to meet this author, Austin's Nana sent him this note:
"Dear Austin. You have just been in the presence of a very determined young man, Gordon Korman. I took a class to see him in Ladner when he was promoting his first book. He was just a teenager then and so delightful. Do you know he was given a homework assignment to write a short story and came back to school with a chapter story!! -- and the story goes on from there with a publisher seeing his potential. I think it is so special when you can work at what you love best. Most writers start with a "regular" job and write on the side until they can make enough money with just their stories. Love Nana"

360 degrees

Austin, Aaron and I went for a walk to the park the other morning (Sunday Oct 25). On the way we did a bit of review of circles. We started out by talking about the snowboarding tricks, 360 and 180. Austin right away new that they meant a full and half circle. He then computed 1/4 and 1/8 of a circle as 90 and 45 degrees. We then went on to discuss how this applied to the large sphere we live on, the planet Earth.

If Earth is to be measured as a circle, where does "zero" start? Austin suggested the poles. While that's a sensible place to start, and you can start anywhere you want, the two places most people start from is the equator for the circles that run around the middle (latitude) and a funny place called Greenwich in England for the circles that run through the poles (longitude). We then discussed some of the differences between them e.g. there are 360 degrees of longitude but only 90 degrees of latitude so you need to specify North or South when talking about latitude.

We briefly touched on minutes, the unit of measure smaller than a degree and the fact that 60 minutes make up a degree.

Entiendé? Spanish verb conjugation

Spanish lesson this morning. On the way to Wondertree, we listened to the first track of a Pimsleur Spanish cd (Skye and I had used this when we were learning Spanish 10 years ago). Austin was learning entiendo and entiende/entiende? The cd introduced us to hablo castillano, and Austin substituted yo hablo espanol. He is grasping verb conjugation quite easily, and complained that Spanish is so similar to French, that he might get confused.

Gloria sent Austin home with a few verbs to conjugate himself. He likes to see the exceptions (ie. mover to yo muevo) in which the root (ie. "respir" of "respirar") has to first be converted before the verb can be conjugated.

Austin tried to use his new vocabulary in a short conversation with Gloria this morning. She is observing that Austin wants more than she has planned for the classes, and she is finding ways to accommodate him in the context of what she is teaching. It's wonderful to witness the creativity in this exercise.

Gloria is teaching new vocabulary words in the house (la casa), and using props. The attached picture shows Austin's drawing of the house. They would place the corresponding props into the rooms of Austin's house drawing, as they built their vocabulary.

Playdate

Austin and I went to Joe's house to meet him for the first time, play together and have lunch. Joe is Austin's age, and has similar interests. We were welcomed with open arms by Joe, his mother and sister. Joe's room reminds me so much of Austin's bedroom - Lego everywhere!! Austin and Joe built some Lego together and hit it off immediately. Austin left feeling really buoyed up and convinced he has gained a new friend. Joe invited Austin to his birthday party on October 30 - Austin is thrilled!

It's so nice to see Austin having success in a peer relationship. This experience seems to have affected Austin's general demeanor. He is pleasant and responds to criticism favourably. He bounces back quickly from disappointment.

Joe loaned us the book, There's an Owl in the Shower, by Jean Craighead George. We haven't read it yet, because we are in the middle of The Thieves of Ostia. Austin is learning about what it would have been like to live in the time of Ancient Rome. The main character lives in a house that is built into the city wall.

Lego Transformer

Austin created a Transformer with Lego. In vehicle-mode, it is a fighter jet. In robot-mode, the cockpit has to be removed. The cockpit can operate independently of the vehicle or the robot.

In vehicle-mode, the robot's arms and legs are part of the wings. The flat surface of the wings becomes the robot's torso and shoulders. for the legs and arms, Austin needed to choose parts that swivel. The arm & leg parts came primarily from Lego Knights. The rest of the pieces are "random."

Learning Plan

Austin Alyn Cove

Learning Plan

October 5, 2009

Biographical Sketch:

Austin is a 10-year-old boy who is half-Lego, half-man. He is highly sensitive and loves to create. His most creative pursuits are with LEGO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He also loves to play music, draw, and build structures.

Austin likes dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures. He likes to play with friends.

Austin has three brothers: Iain (15), Aidan (7) and Aaron (1.5). He lives with his Mum, Dad, Aidan, Aaron and Gemma (our nanny) in North Vancouver, BC. Iain lives with his Mum in Coquitlam, BC.

Austin’s most successful learning experiences have been in the subjects of animal biology, dinosaurs, mythology, music, language, playing with friends, sailing, swimming and SCUBA diving. Austin learned to read at the age of 4 by building up his vocabulary of sight words.

Austin is really skilled at building Lego, playing music, interacting with friends, SCUBA diving, sailing, learning new things, and retaining information. He has excellent recall and learns new languages with ease. He effectively presents analogies and metaphors using his expanding vocabulary.

Goals:

· To be a very good Lego guy

· To have good friends

· To learn how to create Lego products

· To learn to speak Spanish fluently with Spanish-speaking people

Challenges:

· Writing

· Math

· Peer relationships

Learning Focus:

LEGO !!!!!!!!!!!

Spanish

Music

Cooking

SCUBA diving

The Caribbean

LEGO !!!!!!!!!!!

Schedule / Time Line:

Weekly: Monday to Friday, 3-5 hours per day

Monthly: Review progress

Over the year: Re-assess

Expectations for Learning Consultant:

Review and feedback on weekly O4Ls and Learning Plan

Recommendations for skills development, strategies, etc. Suggestions for applicable tools and resources.

Resources:

Family

Friends

Learning Consultants

Mentors

Lego

Travel

Books

Art supplies

Software/Games

DVDs

CDs

Academie Duello

Board games

Field trips

Internet

Software: Zoo Tycoon, Age of Empires, Spore

Assessment and Evaluation:

· Ongoing parent, mentor and Learning Consultant observations (conversations and feedback)

· Self-assessment (modifying and choosing activities, articulating understanding, reflecting on understanding, planning, setting goals)

· Work samples (projects, experiments, art, Lego, music recording, book reviews, etc.)

· Affective indicators (enjoyment, interest, curiosity, participation, confusion)

· Conversations and discussions (listening, questions and answers, debates, sharing, theories, hypotheses, etc.)

· Written/online/oral tests (unit tests, quizzes, chapter reviews, etc.)

1. SelfDesign Praxis Planning (Learning to Learn, Systemic Thinking)

· Learning Plan Creation and Updates

· Learning Curve concepts

· Conversation

· Theories and Hypotheses

2. Wellness (Health, Physical Activity, Sports, Exercise)

· Daily Physical Activity

· Obstacle Course

· Playing with friends

· Basketball

· Swimming

· Swordplay

· Tag, Dino, Grounders, Dino Makeup, Made-up Tag, Lego Tag, Freeze Tag, Sneaky Statues

· Cooking healthy food

· Drumming

· SCUBA diving

3. Languaging Communication (Writing/Reading-Media)

· Reading books

· Journal writing

· Conversations

· Review educational material (eg. SCUBA diving)

· Watch DVDs

· Browse the Internet

· Read the newspaper

· Write Book Reviews

4. Humanities (Social Studies, sociology, anthropology, psychology, history, geography)

· Mythology

· History (Academie Duello)

· Dragons

· Dinosaurs

5. 2^nd Language (Cultural Connections including learning 2^nd language)

· French

· Spanish

· Baby Sign Language

· Teaching Aaron how to speak “human”

· The Culture of the Caribbean

6.Logic (Math, Analytical Thinking)

· Algebra

· Artillery Trajectory

· Zoo Tycoon, Spore, Age of Empires

· The Periodic Table of the Elements

· Times Tables

· Settlers, Seafarers, Cities & Knights, and other Board Games

· Plain Old Math

7. Living Skills (Tools for Living, Applied Skills, Information Technology, Financial Management, Career)

· Cooking

· Engine Disassembly and Reassembly

· French & Spanish

· Spore, Zoo Tycoon

· Good relationships with other people

· Be an awesome brother!

· Saving money for Lego and the Caribbean

· Playing “Hotel”

· Field trip to Dad’s office

8.Science (Ecology, Naturalistic Understanding)

· Science World Homelearners Program

· Travel to the Caribbean, learn how to conserve water, learn about nature

· The Periodic Table of the Elements

· Paleontology

· Science experiments

· Animals

9. Creativity (Artistic and Creative Activity)

· LEGO!

· Art Attack

· Music composition

· Cooking

· Building

· Storytelling

· Imaginative play with friends and family

· Movie making

An invitation to swim

This morning, Austin was invited to go swimming at Karen Magnussen Wave Pool with the Wondertree group. Owen and Julie (two of Austin's favourite grownups) are supervising a field trip today. Since our car is in for servicing today, we didn't think it would be possible for him to join them, but Marielle offered to pick him up, and I've arranged for Elaine to collect him from the pool at 2:30. I could tell that Austin felt really good to be included, particularly in an activity that he loves! I can't wait to hear how he liked it.
Skye and I will be taking Aidan and Austin to see A Shine of Rainbows tonight at the Vancouver International Film Festival. Looks like a great film. The main actor is Aidan Quinn. The director, Vic Sarin, sounds like a really interesting guy. He's from Vancouver.

Strategy for Building Vocabulary

2009-09-28

Spanish lesson today. It was great! Gloria is very creative in her delivery, and flexible in response to the children's suggestions. Gloria observed, and told Austin that he makes associations all the time. This really helps him to remember vocabulary. Austin was trying to help Simon remember "tortuga," for "turtle," and he explained that it's the name of an island from Pirates of the Caribbean. I noticed that Austin can often come up with 2-3 word associations for each new vocabulary word. He's building his vocabulary fast!

We are reading "Schooled," by Gordon Korman. Austin is enjoying it, but isn't as gripped as he was, by the Olympians series.

Swimming lessons from 3:30-4:15. Austin was keen to go, and we could see he was enjoying himself, diving down at every stroke. I was thinking, he will find that swimming style to be useful when snorkelling in the Caribbean! He got a good workout.

Music lessons tonight.

Using the fall equinox to work out the other key celestial dates

Over dinner Austin and I were discussing the first day of Fall that passed this last week. I told him that in the Northern Hemisphere we call this the Fall Equinox. We then worked out that in 3 months we'd get to the first day of winter or the Winter Solstice. And 6 months from that would be the Summer Solstice (Austin was left to work out what month that would be in). I pointed out that September was 1/2 between the Summer Solstice and the Winter Solstice so he worked out that March would be the month for the Spring Equinox.

Reading Mania!!

Austin just spent the past 4 hours this evening reading 169 pages of The Last Olympian and he read 86 pages of Battle of the Labyrinth in 2 hours this afternoon. He's now over 1/2 way through The Last Olympian. Just like the previous 4 books in the series, it's got him totally sucked in!

Learning Curves

Yesterday Austin and I were talking about learning curves. This was after Austin tried playing my guitar for a few minutes and try one cord (D). He said, "that was hard!" This led to a comparison between learning to play the piano (easy/gentle learning curve) and the guitar (steeper/harder learning curve).

With a piano it's easy for anyone to just press the piano key and make the correct sound. Linking more than one note together is a simple matter of pressing one key then another. However, once you want to play more complicated pieces the learning curve starts to get steeper. For example, playing a melody with one hand and chords with the other.

We observed that with playing a guitar it's not simple to even get the correct sound when playing a note. You need to place your finger in the right spot (after the fret but not too far back), apply just enough pressure and strike the correct string. All this to just play one note! However, we speculated that once your body built up a "muscle memory" for the right way to play the notes (or chords) that it would become easier to learn more advanced songs.

I then described to Austin that most instruments tend to have a steep learning curve. It's usually more difficult than a piano to just make a correct note when beginning. Examples we discussed were trumpet and saxophone.

We also discussed what a "learning curve" is and why it's called a curve. I described how on the bottom of the graph we have songs that are increasing in complexity along the bottom and along the side we have the concept of "learning difficulty". We could then see that if we were graphing learning to play piano that the first few songs along the complexity axis are not that difficult to learn but as we move along to a song like _Fur Elise_ the difficulty starts to move up a lot more (FWIW this is a song that Austin has been trying to learn for about a year now but is a little "stuck" as it requires more effort on his part ... he's hitting the foothills of his learning curve!). We then did a graph of what it would take to just play a simple 3 chord song using the guitar and could see that right away, we had to place the first graph point high up on the "learning difficulty" axis. This creates a much steeper line when drawn on the graph. This is where the phrase "steep learning curve" comes from.

All the graphing was done using fingers drawing virtual graphs in the air so we don't have any paper to take pictures of.

This discussion lasted about 15 minutes. Austin played on the guitar for about 30 minutes and actually managed to make it sound fairly good w/out knowing a single chord! He just fooled around until he had it making sounds that he thought sounded good (and they did).

Science World Homelearners Labs

Today, Austin and Aidan attended a couple science labs at Science World. Austin's lab learned about the rainforest, and Aidan's about growing food.
Austin came home with a large pine cone covered in lard and bird seed, to hang in our backyard. However, Austin's thinking of not hanging it up, because it may actually turn into a death trap (ie. easy pickings for Jazz, our calico cat). Aidan came home with a few seeds in soil. He thinks he has both lettuce and carrot seeds to plant at home.

music and story telling this evening

Tonight Austin got inspired to make some music that tells a story. He sat down at the computer and using Garage Band he composed a new tune. He then selected the images for this movie (I operated iMovie for him this time).

The story behind the song according to Austin ...

So there's a couple science researchers. They go to the NASA Research Center and take their final courses on E.T life. They get promoted to Astronauts and go on a mission to Mars looking for E.T. life. When they take off there's this vibrating, rumbling sound in side their bodies. One of them says,
"am I dead?"
"No, way", says someone else, "I can still see Earth".

Then they stare in awe of the inky blackness of space.
[sc: we did a lot of google images searching to find just the right images that capture the "inky blackness of space"]
Four days from launching from Earth the Astro 1 approaches the Moon. The astronauts are pleased but yet upset because there is much more of this to come. Except there is no Moon, no Earth. Just plain black space. They enter the space between Earth, Earth's Moon and Mars.

Then, the astronauts woke with a start. The communication radio was buzzing with static. The radio was like that for one more day until they heard a weird communication sound. Kind of like understandable language. When they got closer to Mars the communication got clearer. They could then see what was trying to contact them. A huge outer space border. There was intelligent life on Mars! The astronauts were excited but at the same time scared.

When they got closer, border patrol fighters swarmed around them even though they were not in the atmosphere (the aliens created the atmosphere on Mars). When they got by they saw that the borders didn't look to friendly with their defences out. They shot out blanks just to test our awareness.

When the warning shots finally ended, a hole opened and a different color of Mars was visible. The aliens had cut a hole in the atmosphere so that we could enter without burning up. We were escorted by five patrol fighters.

As we started to land I could see how these aliens had actually formed and lived. From deep, deep underground they had evolved. There were an intelligent life form that could produce oxygen on land and could filter the air, breathing in carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen (like trees on Earth).

When we landed the aliens were talking and talking and talking. They were touching us like we were some aliens ourselves. If we were them, humans would be considered aliens. Humans don't usually consider ourselves as aliens but that's what we are to other life forms in the universe.

When they got the feeling that we were not there to harm them they hosted a party. A party to celebrate that we are not alone. They then filled our ship's cargo holds full of passports to enter Mars. We gave them a couple printouts of our country's passports. At first they thought the passports were for a couple planets but then they got the picture (one planet, multiple countries).

The party was the best in all the centuries. No parties that has ever happened could beat this one. After spending a couple weeks we announced that we had our birth day by now. We celebrated like no other.

When we had to leave it was one of the saddest moments I have ever felt. They had emotions so strong that we could feel it like they were saying it.

As we left the patrol fighters had aliens on the outside of the ships waving their good-byes as we left the atmosphere and the planet mars.

I did the typing for Austin but no editing ... the story is as he told it to me. Between composing the song, selecting the images for the movie and telling the story this took about 2 hours this evening.