~fusion~

Herod couldn't get near the place

The fusion of families, of people we love, of all my folks (4 in total) and his folks (they're still married to each other!), of friends who come and go unexpectedly as well as those who last, the fusion of a staunch traditionalist and his tradition-less wife, the fusion of food and many hands, and finally of plastic and Waldorf and technology and wood.

The fusion of cowboys, knights, Indians, the Queen's guard, and WWII soldiers.

The fusion of the Force (old and new movies) with the lovely Star Money candle tableau.

Does our philosophy about technology for children change now that it is infiltrating our lives a bit more, with certain 12 year-olds who now have certain devices, gifted by certain relatives? Nope.

How about plastic toys? Yes, we have them alongside our wooden ones, and they are frequently integrated by our children in their play. How else could you build a ramp for the 20+ year old matchbox cars that have survived the years of Demolition Derby, enacted in this very hallway? (Well, OK they're not plastic, are they, if they lasted this long; they are the good, old school metal variety.)

Many hands made light work of the Lego White House model.

So. Fusion. And compromise and integration and limits and boundaries. And flannel pajamas warmed up by the woodstove.

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.