The Week Begins

I can't believe that I don't have any pictures for today. I'm not feeling particularly witty either, so this post may be a big fat let-down.

This morning we worked on STAR testing prep. Only Airon and Soren have to take them. Spencer is off the hook for one more year--thank goodness! Nothing sucks the love of learning out of a kid like a state standardized test. The good news is that we hit nearly all of the standards simply by living full and active lives. Very little book work was required. There are a few things we will go over in the next few weeks. All-in-all I'm pleased with the kids' education this year. It's only the second year of all three homeschooling. It has been an adjustment.

This afternoon we drove Airon's robot science fair project to be entered in the county-wide science fair. He did a bit of retooling since he could not leave Lefty, the robotic arm on display in the mall. He wrote a nice paragraph about robots, and we took some pictures of him using his robotic arm. One photo even depicted a great sword fight between "man" and machine. As we walked in he said,

"I wonder what the participant ribbon will look like?"

I told him I had no idea, but I bet it was going to be pretty neat. We wandered amongst the projects. Some of them were incredible. Airon took his time looking carefully at many of them. He said a little nervously,

"Is this the kind of thing where they judge you and people get prizes?"

I explained to him that yes, there would be judges looking at all the entries and determining a winner. He got very quiet for a minute. Then he said softly,

I'm probably not going to win, but I hope the judges like mine...

I had to give him a hug right then and there. I assured him that they would absolutely like it. How could they not? He is such a young man one moment, and little boy the next, both on the way greatness someday.