The Rocket Legacy

I was just looking for a post I thought I'd published, about what the Rocket Phase of Ezra's caused to set in motion. But I can't find it, so even if it's here somewhere, I think I'll recap. Ezra claims he's "done with rockets," though he still uses his Nerf rocket launcher, and still says he wants to go to Cape Canaveral. I think he still wants to be a Rocket Scientist, too, though I haven't asked him lately. These days he's all about weaponry and self-defense.

In any case, the rocket phase started with YouTube, as previously posted. From that, he got into model rockets, memorized every Space Shuttle ever launches, developed an interest in Florida, learned a lot about planets/astronomy, learned countdowns in four or five languages, and developed a slight interest in whichever country was launching (for example, Japan or India). He also memorized about 20 countdowns, along with the static, background noise, accents, mistakes, etc.!

He also set up his Rocket Party (see post) and planned an entire 2-3 hour event with guests, snacks, Q & A, and lots of artwork.

Oh, and his drawing really took off!! With his Doodle Pro last summer ('08) he drew thousands of space shuttles just on our one-month camping trip. He also drew many with marker, and became an *excellent* drawing artist, in mine and many other people's opinions. He had many drawings up at the St. Paul Art Crawl, and he had his own painting booth out in the hall for the event, painting rockets for a crowd!

He also participated in the A-Z Gallery Art Show - he entered a drawing of Atlantis, I think.

He learned a lot about chemistry and physics by asking friends and relatives about rocket fuel, propulsion, etc.

He has been saving up change he finds around the house, to help us pay for a trip to Cape Canaveral.

He got a huge package in the mail from a family friend who works for NASA - got tons of merchandise.

Pretending to be an astronaut was his favorite passtime for over a year. He had a space suit we found for $6 at the thrift store (see photo at bottom of blog). He wore it almost *every day*, and developed his acting and "hamming" skills. He also obviously attracted plenty of attention and got into *many* fascinating conversations with adults about space shuttles, space, etc..

More recently, he exchanged letters with Bob Cabana, director of Kennedy Space Center. He wrote Bob a letter that I think was about 4 pages (dictated). Bob also sent him all kinds of photos, stickers, etc. (Turns out Bob is the son of a couple my parents know).

He took a NASA class last spring. He was too young for the class, but they let him in because he was so enthusiastic. This also led him to take "Blow it Up!" - a class at the Science Museum of Minnesota this summer.

Oh, and also last winter he started saying he wanted to learn math "because you need math to be an aerospace engineer." So he started asking lots of math questions, and we got him a workbook.

He also got into some great music and movies that had to do with space. Two of his grandparents bought him "Hail, Columbia!" for the holidays last year, for example, and for a long time he was really into the song "Rocket Ship" and would go around the house singing it. Oh, and he also got really into the religious song "On Eagle's Wings" after watching a sad video about the Columbia explosion set to music.

Oh! And I almost forgot - he started learning to read by trying to read the names of the space shuttles, and needing to retype them into the box on YouTube.

That's all I can think of right now, on a very distracted Monday morning. But I think so far it's a great list - and it shows how one thing can lead to another if a child isn't distracted from going in whatever direction he chooses!

A YouTube Education

Okay, I admit it - somewhere along the line, to keep myself from going insane, I introduced Ezra to YouTube. Or actually, maybe my husband did it? Anyway, it was probably about a year ago and we were just discovering it ourselves. How much fun we all had looking up our favorite segments of Sesame Street and The Muppets!

Anyway, that's how Ezra got into rockets and space shuttles - one of us decided to show him a launch. I think it was me, and that I did it to keep him quiet while I tried to get his brother down for a nap.

Let me please explain that I am pretty much against children using computers. Oops! Well, never mind my values. . .

So, Ezra is a YouTube junkie, sort of. He got a little carried away, in our opinion, so we went down to one day a week (he chose Sundays) where he can watch YouTube on his own. It is of course tricky because there is some creepy stuff on there - porn mixed with children's content, swearing and incest inserted into Ezra's favorite Christmas video, etc. etc. But for the most part it's been a huge learning tool.

The cool thing is, when he is interested in something, he can obsess over it via youtube for months! Watching the same launch over and over again, for example. Or more recently, watching everything about The Wizard of Oz that is on there - his recent favorite was a school play from the 90's. The songs were unbearable to listen to from the kitchen, but he and his brother couldn't get enough. Yes, that's right, I admit that, too - sometimes Ottar sits around watching YouTube also. Because he usually doesn't nap! And we live in a huge open loft apartment. Oh well.

But the cool thing is, when he was asking me about kilns, I found him some footage. Then we watched a video about welding, and one about blacksmithing. Now he is really interested in all those things (FIRE).

When people tell me their kids aren't interested in anything specific, I wonder if it's just because they aren't let loose on YouTube.

Miscellaneous Learning Bits

Here is a post I wrote weeks ago, but forgot to finish. So it does re-cover some things I recently discussed, but it's in a different way.

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I have not recorded so many things. People have started saying to me, "You will have to get him to start liking other things besides rockets." Then I start saying that he can learn about math, physics, etc. THROUGH rockets - and I point out that he has drawn literally thousands of space shuttles and rockets in the past several months, too. He is quite skilled!

But then these comments were gnawing away at me and I realized why: I was responding wrong. Because he *doesn't* only care about rockets. He asks me addition and multiplication questions all the time. Last night he was actually drilling *me* with multiplication tables. I have no idea why. And I don't even *know* my multiplication tables!

He also, as I said, loves art. He draws dozens of drawings daily, and he also frequently paints and has always been unusually adept (IMHO) at three dimensional art, like clay. (Gets it from his mama!)

He also loves to sing. He has been a performer since he was a baby. When he was about two he used to sing long songs like "The Cat Came Back" in the chiropractor's waiting room, much to the amusement of all the patients. One time he plopped down in the middle of a coffee shop right after a reading and sang it, too. He has a repertoire of about 20 or 30 songs - from The Sound of Music, to Ween, Eric Clapton, the Beatles, John Denver, lots of Christmas classics, lullabies, etc.

He also used to be really good at piano. He was a Suzuki student for over a year and was making excellent progress; however, he burnt out after about 10 months and I feel a little bit guilty because I think it was not the right approach for a 3-1/2-4-1/2 year old after all. It seemed like an excellent fit at the beginning, because he joyfully played almost every day. But once he got interested in drawing, he wanted to pull back and the Suzuki method does not allow that. So we got a little too obsessed with trying to get him to play, and he has hardly touched the piano now since last May. :( Hopefully he'll get back into it soon. But if not, I at least hope it helped to lay a foundation.

He is also writing all the time and asking questions about what things say, or how to spell them. He has memorized how to spell many useful words, such as "explosion" and "Endeavour" and "launch pad."

As stated earlier, we are usually engaged in reading a chapter book together at bedtime, and right now we are almost finished with Where The Red Fern Grows. Off the top of my head, other books I have read him include: Anne of Green Gables, The Yearling, My Side of the Mountain, The Tracker (most of it), Little House in the Big Woods, Little House on the Prairie, Pippi Longstocking, and Harry Potter.

He is also learning more about real food than most U.S. kids. Though he is not too into cooking, he does occasionally join me. He prefers baking, which I don't do as much of these days. But he knows what animals all the meats come from, knows a lot more vegetables than I did at his age, and is familiar with all kinds of traditional foods such as kombucha, kefir, and sauerkraut, all of which he has helped me make or has at least watched me make.

I guess I could go on and on. . . but I won't.

Politics & Weather & Art

Ezra was learned a lot about the election this year. We have MPR in the background so often, especially because our iPod broke. He asks lots of questions about Bush and war and McCain and Obama. He made us a homemade Obama bumper sticker. It says OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA. He fell asleep during the election results (in a friend's hotel) and on our way out we accidentally went to the Al Franken for Senate party, where everyone was celebrating the Obama victory! He woke up and I got to tell him amidst all the excitement, that Obama had won.

Ottar, who is just over 2, says "Who's talking?" when the radio is on. If I tell him the announcer's name he says "No! John A-Cain." He also says a lot, "Where's Barack Obama?"

I am really glad that my kids like politics because I was totally clueless at their age.

Also, did I meantion my husband is a meteorologist? So Ezra actually knows quite a bit about the weather - especially severe weather. Mostly he likes to think about rockets, though. Just now he is writing a book called "Rocky the Rockets Big Book of Explosions". Somehow he wrote all that himself! It is just going to be a picture book of many, many ways that Rocky explodes. He's been waiting to work on this for many days. He just got started after drawing the Delta 2 several times. He was drawing those in preparation for his "Rocket Lunch" rocket Q & A session he'll be hosting in a couple of weeks for some adult family members. This was all his idea and he has a very strict guest list consisting only of people who indulge him in rocket talk on a regular basis.

We've been talking about carving some wooden rockets, since his Made in China ones keep breaking. I just have to muster up the energy to embark upon a whole new art form when I feel so overwhelmed by all the ones I already know!

Books and Foreign Language

Ezra doesn't just like to launch toy rockets. He also likes to write stories about them. For his friend Bridger's birthday last week he wrote (dictated and illustrated) a book called "Bridger Rides the Space Shuttle Endeavour". He had also just finished a book called "Why Rockets and Space Shuttles are Powerful," and this week he is working on his "Rocky the Rocket" book, which has been gestating for many months. This book is going to show page after page of different ways that Rocky explodes. I can hardly wait! Rocky is very cute. He is blue and has eyes on each side of his point. He looks like a muppet.

Also tangental to Ezra's love of launches is his interest in understanding the shuttle launch language of India and Russia. He loves to imitate the Indian accent and wants to learn to do countdowns in Russian. He also knows a countdown in French.

Interestingly, his brother who is just a little over two years old, cannot count forward but can only count backward. He does it like this: TEN NINE EIGHT SEVEN SIX FIVE THREE TWO ONE LIF-OFF!!

India's First Rocket Launch!

Today was an exciting day at our house even though we have not left the house all day! India launched their first moon-bound rocket today and Ezra found pix of it on the internet and drew it all day long. I must say it is one of the more attractive rockets, and the launchpad towers look really nice in a drawing.

Now Ezra has just discovered sticking Halloween paraphrenalia in windows. First he drew a ghost, a witch, a pumpkin, and a V2 bomber to give to Tammy, who works in the apartment's office downstairs. She wants help decorating for Halloween on Friday. Then he realized he could draw things that I cut out and then we will tape them to the windows. He is very inspired, and suddenly drawing some things besides rockets!

Oh, and he's also making us Obama signs to hang in the window.