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.

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!!

First time blogging about unschooling

Well, Ezra has been officially an unschooler for about exactly one month. He "should" have started kindergarten after Labor Day. We've been moving into our new place all that time, and we still have a lot to do, so it's been hard to keep up with thinking about him being an unschooler. But this fall he is in a class at the Art Academy, which he started today, which is an art program where they follow the apprenticeship model. He takes drawing this term and painting next term. So far he loves it! He is illustrating a children's book. Today he got to work on a drawing of a tornado and a rocket. All month he's been talking about rockets and space shuttles, of course, and watching launches on YouTube. He found a slideshow of the Columbia disaster and developed a love of the song "On Eagle's Wings".

He has been dabbling in piano though he quit Suzuki last spring after a year of it. He had been really enthusiastic and suddenly lost interest. But yesterday Kenny played background music while Ezra made up words about space shuttles to songs, and did countdowns to music. It was actually pretty cool!

This summer he discovered that what he wants to be when he grows up is called an aerospace engineer. He heard from someone that this requires knowledge of math, so in the past week he's been quizzing me in the car about addition and multiplication. He is also always wondering how many seconds are in a million years and things like that. It drives me nuts and I tell him to call Uncle Mike and ask him.

His space shuttle drawings have become more and more elaborate. He probably drew an average of 50 a day this summer on his Doodle Pro, but lately he's switched over to mostly markers and he's filled up 2 of *my* sketchbooks completely with them. His command of markers has improved amazingly. He even draws little astronauts and he will put the fin of one shuttle in front of something in the background. I think this is very advanced.

Yesterday he re-discovered watercolors and was doing space shuttles in watercolors.

He knows quite a bit about weather because of Kenny.

What other subjects are there? I just think he is already really well-rounded. The two things I want to make sure are available to him this year are any kinds of sports/recreation and also any kind of nature observation/study/play. I also may start brining him to the Zen center, or possibly to a church. We do celebrate the generic Christian and Jewish holidays, and every year I say I am going to celebrate Sukkot and then I don't. . .

Oh, yesterday we went to an orchard and he discovered he loved picking apples, playing tetherball, and holding baby chicks. He asked 3 times to return to hold the chicks and he had a favorite which he kept kissing. I was surprised because he hasn't shown much interest in animals in a long time. He said he is excited to have chickens someday. I told him it will be his job to collect the eggs.

Oh! He has written a few books but lately he wrote one called something like "Why Rockets and Space Shuttles Are Powerful". It is quite long and very scientific. He plans to illustrate it as soon as I write it or type it all out for him.

That's all I can manage to write for today!