Pinewood Derby

Michael just completed his last pinewood derby.  He designed the car himself and helped cut it and did all the sanding. Joe worked on the weights and wheels for him.  They both did the painting. Michael just wanted a simple design, but it worked out well for him, because he got 2nd place!

 Ready to race:

 He was very happy with his 2nd place outcome.  They raced each car 4 times, 2 times on each of two different tracks.  One track was noticeably faster than the others.  The difference in scores between the top three cars was in the hundreths of a second range.

Good job Michael!  And here's to two years off before we "get" to do pinewood derby again!

Nate's Fieldtrip

In kindergarten, Nate has been learning about farm animals, so for his kindergarten field trip, he went to Old MacDonald's farm.  Surprisingly, while we were there, no one sang the song.  At the farm, there were a lot of pens around the perimeter where the children could go in and pet and feed the animals.

 There were also ponies that the kids could ride. The line looked long, but it went really fast.  These were the boys in Nate's group.  His class has 13 boys and 8 girls, so the boy groups were bigger.

 One of their favorite things to do at the farm was climb on this huge pile of dirt.  Silly that they would go on a field trip to find dirt, but they are boys, and it is fun for them.

 Nate kept climbing up this jungle gym then jumping down.  I was glad he didn't break anything.

 Mrs. Powell's whole class. 

 

Brazilian Jiu Jitsu

 Ever since Nate was little, we thought he would be good at Brazilian jiu jitsu (BJJ).  He is aggressive, he loves to wrestle, he likes to cling to you, he loves to jump on you and he has a high tolerance for pain.  In January, I finally decided it was time to do something about it and sign him up for BJJ.  There is a nearby gym that Adam, Michael and Joe took lessons at a few years ago, so we just went there to sign them up again.  Nate took to it immediately.  He is in a small class, with small kids and they learn one new thing a lesson.  They spend a fair amount of time warming up and playing a game at the end, but all of the warming up and the games are teaching them maneuvers that will be useful in actual sparring matches.

Not very long into it, and Nate got his first stripe.  In BJJ at our gym, they mark progression by putting stripes on their belt and when they get the right number of stripes, then they can change belts.  BJJ is not a sport that you can progress quickly through, it would take at least 15 years of hard work in order to become a black belt. 

 After Nate had been going for a week, we asked Michael if he would want to do BJJ.  We had already talked about signing him up for tennis to do with Adam, and he thought he would do that.  He came to one of Nate's lessons and thought it would be fun, so we signed him up for a 2 week trial.  At the end of the two weeks, he thought it was fun and decided it was something he would like to try.  He is in a much fuller class, with a lot of kids who have been doing it for a long time.  It is challenging for him to wrestle because he is not used to wrestling and he is not an aggressive kids.  Nevertheless, he is doing great.  He has already earned one stripe.

Just yesterday, Nate earned another stripe!  He needed that because already he isn't sure when it is time to go that he wants to go.  I think it is just him, though.

At home, we have pulled out our old wrestling mats and put them down in the game room again.  Hopefully the kids will enjoy this sport for many years and we can get good use out of them. 

Nate's holey head

So far, Nate is proving to be our bravest kid.  When he figured out that this tooth was loose, he worked on it for a few days, then decided he wanted it out.  He couldn't do it himself, so I tried.  I couldn't do it either, but he really wanted it out, so he let me pull really hard on it until it finally came out.  Brave boy!