Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Autumnal Bounty::2


more loveliness by Orange Iron Fabrications

Well the bounty keeps coming. And I'm not talking about the bounty that Jabba the Hutt placed on Han Solo's head, either. This time the bounty is from our school's recent Harvest Festival and Michaelmas celebration. The weather was sparkling and crisp and this year's festivities involved no caramel apples from hell.

beautiful harvest market offered by the 3rd grade
our 6th grade table of baked goods
But getting back to Star Wars, which we are always getting back to around here, there is some serious fanaticism around here. It goes way beyond the conversations about "if you could have one ship from any of the movies, which one would you choose" or "which character would you be" or "who would win in a fight if _________." (For the record, my answer to that final question is always Yoda and usually I am right.)
2nd grade's activity was sauerkraut-making
scary grater thing for shredding the cabbage

Jonas has a rather ridiculous memory for detail. And he knew more about the plots of all of the movies than we did, even before he had seen them (thank you, interlibrary loan) because he had read a bunch of comic books that covered the movies and then, even better, some of what happens between and before and after the movies. Now from a literacy standpoint, this is kind of cool, because even before seeing the movies he was building up some pretty interesting connections between the complex plot lines and time lines.

Yesterday afternoon, in the car, he was marveling that Chancellor Palpatine (hey, check me out I got the spelling right!) could have set himself up so well to become Supreme Chancellor by vote. This led into a discussion about politics in general. That to me, it wasn't so surprising because I imagine he had been hard at work forming alliances with the senators.
two kraut-pounders hard at work
Which then led to Jonas suggesting that really, what he would like is a block of study on Star Wars (blocks last 3-4 weeks, typically). I think he would have to teach it, frankly.

Me: And just imagine the parents' surprise to find pages of diagrams of various important ships, beautiful colored-pencil drawings of important characters, and essays on the relative merits of the tactics used by various rebel and empire forces, sandwiched between your lovely geometric constructions and geology drawings!

We had a good chuckle.

At one point during his monologue, when I was just murmuring my assent, he said "You couldn't care less about this, could you?" And I answered with honesty: "You're absolutely right. But I love hearing you talk about it and I love listening to your thought process."
May the Force be with you.

4 comments:

  1. Frankly, my friend, I'm overwhelmed...by the bounty that is harvest time celebrated and by your amazing young man. I've never had any interest in Star Wars, but that it has provoked such careful thought and consideration in one quite young, well, that just blows me away.

    xo...Ana

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  2. Call me old fashioned, but the Millenium Falcon is my starship of choice. It may be a little rustic, but it's got it where it counts, cargo smuggling holds and all.

    May the force be with you, too.

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  3. Iris, what are the colorful blocks in the wooden box?

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  4. Two thoughts: how did we miss the harvest festival? and what a great mom!

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