Seen and Heard....

This year, due to learning issues with #2 son Jonathan, I have switched part of his curriculum to Five in A Row. We used Before Five in a Row with the kids for pre-school, and Five in a Row for Kindergarten and First Grade with the older boys, but have gotten away from it as they got older. However, last year I did almost every subject with Jon using a different curriculum in an effort to determine what was going to work the best...you know, before all my hair turned gray, and then I pulled it all out. :)

So, after last year's "great curriculum experiment", Jon and I determined that he enjoyed reading something and then answering questions and doing projects based on that reading. Re-enter the Five in a Row curriculum! Since he is older now, he is doing the Beyond Five in a Row version which entails reading two fiction novels and two non-fiction books over the semester and doing applied math, science, geography, history, and writing assignments based on those books. (Just for those who are curious, all of the children use Alpha Omega's Switched on Schoolhouse for Language Arts and Bible, Madeleine and Benji also use it for History/Geography and Science. And they all use Math-U-See as well.)

Last week Jon had an assignment based on the 2nd chapter of "The Boxcar Children". In the chapter, the children happen upon a water fountain with 3 levels; the top level was for people to drink from, the middle for horses, and the lower for dogs. In the lesson, he also learned that Kansas City is known as "The City of Fountains" and we studied pictures of all the famous Kansas City Fountains.

His assignment was to then design a fountain that would provide water for people, horses, and dogs, and yet be decorative...somewhat like the Kansas City Fountains, thus mixing function with art.

I gave him the choice of building a fountain out of Lego's, sculpting one out of clay, or just drawing his fountain on paper. He chose drawing...because it's faster...and less work...ahem.

Anyway, the point of all this seemingly useless information is to tell you that when Jon brought his fountain design to me, I noticed that it had 4 levels rather than the required 3. I was curious as it isn't really like Jon to do any more than what is required...if that, but I chose to remain quiet on the issue, and simply ask him to tell me about his design.

This is what he said,

"The top has a cupid, and his hiney is facing the front. (he is a boy after all)
The bottom pool is for the dogs.
The second one is for the horses.
And the people drink... from...the...top... (about this time, he realized that his fountain had 4 levels rather than 3)
Oh, and THAT one up there is for people on horses!"

Bwah-ha-ha-ha!

You can never accuse my boy of non-creativity...nor of the not being able to think on his feet! :)