Neat Project

Here is a neat project that one of the kids built this week on his own. We were watching 'Building Big Bridges', a great film out of an original set of architecture videos hosted by David MacCaulay, and Keith decided that he would make a bridge of his own in his Grandfather's workshop out of junk:). He used wood, pins, ropes, nails, and pushpins, and when it was finished he tested the stability of it by pointing a large fan towards it and blasting the thing over a long period of time with ever increasingly high rates of speed. Neat, huh!?

This wonderful son of mine is one of those classic spatial learners who roam the halls of public schools everywhere that no one ever knows what to do with, LOL. He is brilliant when it comes to building things, dissecting the inner workings of machines, and deciphering how the world works in general, but he loathes anything having to do with reading, writing, textbooks, worksheets, or organized learning. When it comes to paperwork I have to be honest and say that he is just plain not interested. He is his own investigator and taskmaster, and it is fascinating to see how easily he puts things together, performs the necessary calculations in his head, and engages in advanced problem solving on a regular basis when there is no doubt whatever that a child like this would have been slapped into Special Ed. in a heartbeat in the public school. He is learning the skills that he will need to survive in the future, but since his main (natural) interests are spatial, everything will always take a back seat to them somehow. It shouldn't be surprising, because that is what talent really is when it comes down to it. We depend on individual strength to supply us with every innovation we have in society. Where would we be if no one could lead us out of mediocrity with an independent, novel solution? Where would we be if talent never surfaced at all because it was overlooked in the name of 'well-roundedness' in a stuffy classroom? Interesting things to think about, particularly when you have a 'lopsided' kid of your own:).

Anyhow, this is a fun example of a classic project out of classic "junk" materials in a basement. Who needs building sets when you've got a packrat for a Grandpa??:-)

Btw, the 'Building Big' Series is a wonderful set of films that unfortunately is not available in DVD right now:(. Since we were wearing out the titles in the library every month I decided to look on Amazon to see if I could find them there, and to my surprise I was able to get the complete set (in video, used of course), for $1.95-$2.99 each! Well, I nailed those suckers down one by one, and now we have the complete set sitting on our bookshelf for everyday use. The 5 titles in the series include:

Building Big--Skyscrapers

Building Big--Domes

Building Big--Bridges

Building Big--Tunnels

Building Big--Dams

Have a great weekend!

Anonymom:)