Learning, growing, building, inventing

This weekend we spent some time in St. Louis with friends but the kids had begged to go to the Science Center so we made sure to squeeze in a few hours there. Watching them marvel at the wonders of the world, the laws of science and the miracles of God's creation was thrilling as a mom. It was another reminder of what a gift it is that God has allowed me to home school my children and get to watch the learning and transforming taking place. It has been fun to learn right alongside of them. This little visit did get me thinking though of the recent passions they have had around the house and I know that at least the grandparents love to see things like this :) so here are a few.

This was our project on this cold Sunday afternoon. A K'nex roller coaster that actually works. As you can imagine, the kids were enthralled despite that the age range is a bit older than they are. With some help from mom we put it together (the last 2 days we just made things from our imaginations with the set) and each had a part (even Isabel who helped sort and pile the pieces). They plan to keep it up and running for awhile but we'll see, these boys of mine love to invent new things.

As for building, this set of Lego's was given to us a couple weeks ago by some friends. This was actually a 2 day project and when all was said and done, we didn't even have all the pieces. That didn't keep the boys from enjoying this model of the U.S.S. Kitty Hawk aircraft carrier. I love to listen to their imaginations as they play.


This final photo is the best one yet. We recently rented the movie "Meet the Robinsons", which we love for many reasons. My favorite one is the beautiful adoption message woven through the story. The kids however, think it is so cool for all the INVENTIONS! The boys found these old video games in the basement and proceeded to dismantle them to create their own time travel machines. The sweet thing was watching them tape the wires and pieces to various electronics in the house (after promising me each time they would not take apart anything that still works) including the tape player, RC jeep and battery charger. They were truly surprised when their inventions did not work (Louis in the movie used toasters and such and travelled through time!). We talked alot about perseverance and how the great inventors like Edison and Franklin had thousands of failed attempts before success came. They just worked harder. To cement the inventing passion even more, we picked up the video "Jimmy Neutron" from the library a few days later (not as impressive in Mom's book) and the boys' brains were on fire. There is no end to their vivid imaginations and when they make it big someday with one of their ideas, you heard about them here first!