The Laws of Attraction

Today Liam announced that he was going to "learn about art, books and science today."  That was an agenda I could get behind.  He opened Brain Pop and watched a video on sculpture and then pretended to chisle a sculpture in stone.  "Do you want to go to the museum today and see some?" I asked.  "No. I'm still playing on the computer."

"I meant later.  Or would you rather make a sculpture?"

"Make one.  I want to make a sculpture of Doodle Jumper."

"OK.  I'm going to get some clay, and we can try a new way of making a sculpture."

We talked about the difference between two and three dimensions, then I let him play with his computer and have some breakfast.

Dad took him onto Grammar Trainer while I did my morning auditions (I subscribe to an online voice-casting service and usually spend an hour or two on auditions a day), then after a computer break, he got to choose what we would do next.  I decided to work on non-fiction, so I took out two sets of books; one set on the solar system and one on magnetism.  I let him choose.  If he chose the solar system, we'd work on the model he got for Christmas after we read the books.  If he chose magnetism, we'd start on the cool magnetism experiment kit - reading the information and instructions as we went along.  

Magnetism it was.  The workbook for the ScienceWiz Magnetism kit is simple to follow,  graphically engaging and punctuated with the experiments.  And it comes with all of the supplies - a real plus.  He gained context clues from the illustrations and had a blast with each exercise.  We got lost in magnets - tracking what was magnetic on a chart, then running around the house to see what was made of iron.  At last we built a little magnetic fishing kit and broke for lunch.  

I went to Michaels to get a science notebook, clay and sculpting tools.  He knows how to shape soft clay, but he's never worked on removing clay or adding on bit by bit to create a sculpture.  We ran out of time to do it today,  but Liam discovered the bag with the heavy box of clay just before bed time.  "I got a present!"  He was dissapointed that we couldn't open the clay tonight.  To be honest, I want to watch a couple of YouTube videos to remind me of how to do it.  My medium is Etch a Sketch, after all!  We'll work on sculpture tomorrow.  As I thought about teaching sculpting to Liam, this quote came to mind:
  "I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free." - Michelangelo