Last week was not much for Kitchen Table School. There were orthodontia visits, dental visits, an MRI (to figure out my headaches), the SAT while it could still be taken ( the coordinator thinks this will be the last window before the school goes totally virtual again) and my loops were thrown for loops.
But there was a lot of learning going on. This year the F.I.R.S.T. Lego League club for K and her friends is coached by Matthew and two of his friends from Lego clubs past who needed more volunteer hours for their high schools. Dan and I are backup mentors. Ben has started cooking dinner for us on Saturday nights so we have one less thing to worry about on club days and good smells to come home to.
It’s so nice to hear Matt ask how to keep the kids doing authentic work on the research project when they aren’t really developmentally ready for a long research project; or how to encourage the girls to explore programming without singling them out for help and thus undermining his own intentions to encourage them. It used to be I heard Dan and myself ask each other that.
K has started an art class at GCT. Deadlines are new for her. Learning about deadlines is a thing!
She is making such wonderful work, and learning good habits and hacks. At least as far as I can tell, I’ve only read books on art and drawn in a knitting design notebook. This week she makes a comic strip. One of her classmates already has a character and some stories. It was charming. K’s idea for her strip impressed me – of course, I am her Mom and I do think that she’s brilliant. That’s why I hired another teacher for her in this subject.
Yesterday we hiked at the Manchester Reservoir after art class with our friends (in masks). It’s been a dry summer and some of the little islands have become peninsulas. We saw foot prints of people, racoons, deer, dogs and plovers.
At least I think they were plovers. Their prints were darling triangles with veins. I wonder if I can make a modern lace pattern with that motif? Pity I didn’t take a photo or draw a sketch. I’ll have to go back there again before it rains.