There's nothing more satisfying than seeing a kid's inner motivation drive him. I saw this in Zachary and Jacob, who persevered through some unusually frustrating pinewood derby engineering! Everything went wrong with Zachary's car: axles bent, wheels got lost, and the entire body split in half three different times before he finished it! He is someone who superglues his way through problems without getting discouraged, and I love him for it.
Jacob's car was too heavy, then too light, then so skinny that it had to be braced together with wire. It was rapid prototyping overdrive here for a week or so, and our kitchen counter looked like a carpenter shop!
In the end, Zachary's car was one of the fastest and won 3rd place. One of Jacob's axles gradually bent out of place during the races, making it one of the slowest: I think he got 20th place! I was just beaming that night, though, because Jacob was genuinely happy even though his race speed was disappointing. It reminded me that I can feel proud of my best efforts, even if things go awry!
Nothing went awry during his piano recital that weekend, however! He played beautifully.
The younger kids were just calm enough--but no calmer--to qualify for the feast of treats in the foyer afterwards.
The greatest treat was actually a science show we attended that night, Wonders of Physics. We have attended three of these shows, organized by the great Professor Sprott at UW. You can watch past shows on YouTube--they're basically a series of "wow" physics demonstrations that scientists of all ages love! Unlike at the piano recital, the kids eagerly sat in their seats during the entire physics show.
Afterwards we stopped at the physics museum, full of hands-on experiments
and even a photo op with Sir Newton!
Where there's science, there must also be math. The next week Jacob was honored to attend a district math competition,
and I was thrilled to chaperone! Watching those kids work out the problems with looming time limits sent my pulse soaring. Cue flashback to math competitions of my childhood! I wanted so badly to jump in during the team competition--those were my favorite portions, maybe my favorite academic activity in all of school. Is there something like this for adults?!
It turned out to be a red-letter day for Jacob. On the individual competition he won 1st in his school grade and 3rd in district! And his team won 2nd place in district! Later that night he achieved a personal best on the Math Olympiads contest. I was thrilled to see him shine that day. We all need days like that!
Michael looks ready for some academic fun, too: here he is donning the specs that transform him into "Mr. Sundrickson," the name of the teacher he created for his pretend play:
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