That was my best "r," ever!

Aidan and I are at the library, in my first attempt to work on homework away from family distractions. At home, a 10-minute assignment can take up to two hours, as Aidan wafts away on various tangents.

We are beginning with a blank two-sided form containing 4 French verbs to be conjugated into présent and passé composé tenses. Usually, his verb sheet comes home, partially-completed, with a few jottings in the margins. I'm hoping we'll have time to get through more than just this sheet in the 45 minutes I've set aside for spending in the library.

Three minutes in, and he's completed all the présent forms for "respecter," and the first two forms of passé composé. At "Il a respecté," he stops and, in a loud whisper, remarks, "Whoa! That was my best "r" ever! Look, Mom! Have you ever seen such a beautiful "r?" And he was off ... into the land of forming the perfect printed letter. I've been encouraging him to print, up-to-down, rather than his habitual down-to-up. Now, it's more common for him to begin letter formation from the top, but he still writes, "i," starting from the bottom line.

He showed me how he likes to draw d's and b's, starting with a straight line, then he forms a precise intersection of the line and the partial circle, to complete the letter. I have to admit, it's a really nice-looking "d." Then, he showed me how the perfect "z" actually has a smaller top horizontal line than the bottom, and it needs to have a perfectly diagonal line joining them. He explained, if he were teaching kids to print this letter, he might show them that they could print an "N," then turn it on its side to become a "z." But he pointed out that some kids might get tricked into drawing an "n" (in lower-case) by mistake, and when they turn that letter to its side, it will look nothing like a "z!"

For the letter, "s," he likes to draw a smaller curve for the top, with a bigger curve on the bottom. And again, there's no disputing his carefully drawn, "s," is nothing short of perfect.

He circles his best work, individual letters on the page, and speculates if Mme. ever wonders about all his "scribbling."

Next, he proceeds to circle all the lower-case u's that were pre-printed on the page, and points out that they're not right. They don't have the vertical line that comes down on the right side. I hadn't noticed this detail before, but explained to Aidan that it's only a different font. He asked, "What's a font?" and a feeling of dread welled up inside me as I imagined yet another tangent to veer us away from the verb conjugation. I gave him a quick answer that it's just a "style of lettering," and encouraged him to get back to conjugating "heurter," verb #2.

So, despite my repeated efforts to bring him back to writing out his verbs, we've managed to be here nearly an hour and only completed two "ER" verbs. They're all "ER" verbs this week. Nothing special or irregular.

Bewildering as this may be, this is all we've completed tonight. About 15 minutes ago, he stopped altogether and stared forward. His body slumped into his chair, and he told me he just wants to look for a book. I offered to look for one for him, if he tells me what he has in mind, and he said, "I don't know what I want, yet. I won't know until I see it."

The Fortune Cookie

Last week, on hot lunch day, Aidan had a Wok Box of "Dragon Chicken" and rice. It came with two fortune cookies.

Aidan loves fortune cookies - more the fortunes than the cookies.

He was particularly surprised by one of the fortunes, which read, "You will soon gain something you have always desired."

Grinning widely, he enthused to me after school, "Wow! How could that be possible? If it's something I've always desired, it must be my Mom!!"

**That's my boy!!**

And we have a cover!

Aidan painted the cover for his children's picture book version of Shipwreck, by Gordon Korman. Only 16 more paintings and pages of text to go!

He sure likes to work with the paints and the different sizes of paintbrushes. He decided to name the paintbrushes, "Focus," "Steady," "Get Ready," and "Painter." He's working with a special watercolour paper and a semi-moist watercolour set from Russia.

Now, he's working on his dedications. ;)

Never say, "Never"

So Aidan inquired, this evening, as he was working on an art project ... "Do you think we might be able to buy a house in San Francisco, someday?"

I answered that it's possible ...

Austin chimed in, "We could never afford that!"

I casually said, "Never say never."

And Aidan fell into song in a show tunes style: "Never say never, whatever you do..." He says it came from the movie, "An American Tale."

Spelling to a beat

The other day, I noticed that Aidan had misspelled "parce que" in one of his sentences completed in class.

We drove to Ron Andrews Rec Centre to pick up Austin from his Bronze Medallion course. Aidan brought his sidekick with him - his trusty basketball. He was hoping to have a few minutes to practice with me, before Austin came out of the pool.

As I was parking the car in the parking lot beside an empty space, I asked Aidan to spell "parce que." He started with P-A-R-C, then paused. He added an "S" to the end. I told him there's no "S" in "parce que." Then, I asked him what he could do to the "C" to make it sound like an "S." He suggested an accent, and I agreed that was one way, but there are no accents in "parce que," either.

By this time, Aidan had hopped out of the car and began to dribble. I asked him to tell me the name of his basketball team, and he said, "the Celtics." Then, he said, "Oh! I need to add an "S." Then I asked him to listen to the sounds in the name, "Celtics," and he could distinguish the hard "C" before the "S." So, I asked if he knew how to spell, "Celtics," and he said he didn't. So I spelled, C-E-L-T-I-C-S and asked him if he knew, now, what letter could follow the "C" to make it sound like an "S." He answered, "E."

And through this entire conversation, he was dribbling the ball. I asked him to spell, "parce que," again. He started, P-A-R and paused. He picked up the ball and held it. He said, "C," then paused again. This happened several times, where I could only get him to spell P-A-R, then stop. He and I both noticed the rhythm of the ball at the same time, and I suggested that he say a letter for each bounce, and he said, P-A-R-C, then picked up the ball and held it. Again, I asked him to say a letter with each bounce, and he said, P-A-R-C-E, picked up the ball, and bounced, Q-U-E.

The dribbling has helped him to keep going, rather than pausing partway through a word.

Brainstorming novel study

Aidan's teacher read the first book (Shipwreck) in the Island trilogy by Gordon Korman, to the class, in English (Aidan's in grade 4 French Immersion). Now that the novel is finished, the students have a choice of project to complete and hand in.

Aidan has chosen to rewrite the story for children. He will create a picture book which will be 15-20 pages in length. Aidan brought home a stapled set of 8 papers for him to use for his rough draft. There are 21 segments, containing space for a sketch and lines to write the Event, Who's in the picture?, What's in the picture?, and What is written on the page?

Aidan has had this package of papers for 2 days, he had drawn two rough, small pencil sketches and answered the Who and What questions for the first segment. At this rate, he'll have hardly begun by the time the assignment is due!

It's clear that Aidan is very enthusiastic about this project and has some big ideas. He's just having difficulty getting started. He seems to get overwhelmed by his thoughts and ends up not really getting anything recorded.

I decided to try a brainstorming session with him. I pulled out three sets of coloured sticky notes and brought them to the dining room table. We began by writing out the names of all the characters. I gave Aidan his own Sharpie pen so he could write out some brainstorming ideas, but he immediately started writing one of the sentences he wanted to include in his picture book. I let him finish the sentence, then I explained that we will save that step for later. For now, we would be simply jotting down quick ideas to help us organise our thoughts.

So I resolved to do all the writing, while Aidan brainstormed ideas. I asked him to tell me about the events in the story that really made him able to see them happening in his mind. He eagerly interjected and said, "I really could, you know! It was just like I was there while everything was happening." And so, we were off and running. The first event Aidan mentioned was the fire. Eventually, we ended up with a list of 15+ events that he could use for writing his story.

We stuck each event sticky note on the wall, then proceeded to put them into order. Here they are:
1. Plane
2. See the boat for the first time
3. Lyssa got seasick
4. Storm
5. Water flooding the cabin
6. Capt. Cascadden fell overboard
7. Mr. Radford abandoned ship
8. Will cooled the engine by using a towel
9. Explosion! Fire!
10. Boat was sinking
11. Raft
12. Thought J.J. and Lyssa weren't alive
13. Luke realised his friends were unconscious
14. Dolphins
15. Island

To give him a bit of a kick start, I scribed for him and filled in the first three lines of each segment in his package. He told me what to write, and I scribbled it on his pages. When we reached #8, the event in which Will is cooling the engine, I told him I was a bit lost - I couldn't see how we got from Mr. Radford abandoning ship, to a hot engine. Aidan said, "Aaahhhh... yes, we need to add an event ... Lyssa built the engine and got it restarted." And Aidan made a final revision on #14, correcting that it was actually only one dolphin who helped the survivors who were floating on the wreckage of the Phoenix.

Aidan is hooked on this trilogy and has been reading book #2 on his own. Luckily, as we were unpacking, I had discovered an unopened trilogy that Nana had given either Austin or Iain years ago. It was a duplicate of books we already had, so remained unopened until this week. Since our other copies are waiting for us to pick them up in Seattle (Austin read this series while we were sailing in the Caribbean), I'm happy these were ready at hand when Aidan wanted to read them.

It looks like he's going to be another Gordon Korman fan, too. We'll have to dig out our collection and make a few trips to the library to keep him in books!

Hair cut

Aidan has been almost constantly brushing aside his "bangs," and it's becoming a bit of a habit, perhaps even a distraction.

We finally decided to take the time to cut his hair this evening.

We dug out the old, corroded clippers and tried to turn them on. No luck. I pulled out the clipper oil from the kit and it was empty. So, figuring I had nothing to lose, I dropped a bit of olive oil on the blades and, presto! it worked.

Aidan wanted to keep a bit of length on his "bangs," but I'm not a hairstylist, so my haircutting skills are limited. We went with a #6 all over, and I tapered the back with a #3.

Aidan said he was worried that he might not look very smart after getting a buzz cut. After all, his head would seem so much smaller! Then, he hesitated as he looked in the mirror and said, "No, my head is still pretty big." It is a Cove head, so such largeness can't be helped.

The trifling things that concern this boy, crack me up sometimes.

Petit grenouille

We spent Saturday and part of Sunday at my parent's acreage in Aldergrove. It was time to prepare the gardens for winter and bring in the final harvest.

Aidan took the job of digging up carrots, which were well embedded in the hard earth. He also helped a bit with the corn and squash.

On Sunday morning, Papa dug up a few potatoes and I broke off some broccoli. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a little speck of green bounce along the dirt between the broccoli and the rhubarb. It was a tiny tree frog, only about 2 cm long. Aidan captured the frog and showed him to each of us.

Nana suggested that he place the frog under a big rhubarb leaf for protection. Aidan gingerly carried the frog along the edge of the garden and slipped on one of the wooden garden frames. Aidan was so intent on keeping that frog safe, that he suppressed his natural instinct to put out his hands to break his fall. Aidan landed on his side, elbows out, cushioning the frog from the fall.

So, disaster was averted and our sweet petit grenouille (little frog) was safely placed beneath a large rhubarb leaf.