Camp Creek Blog

Construction of the Jedi temple has not quite begun. The research period is in full swing, which involves a lot of stop-action watching of the second trilogy.

In the meantime, a small box was added to Jack's birthday LEGO set, the Hoth base, to enhance it to his standards. (Empire Strikes Back is my favorite Star Wars movie. All we need now is an AT-AT.) There is also going to be some painting of the old corkboard he's using as the ground -- white, for snow, of course.

Soon the temple will begin to be built for real. So much debating about what will make the best elevator, etc.

One great thing about homemade constructions — Jedi temples, car garages, dollhouses, etc. — is that there is no guilt when you dispose of them when they are no longer played with. Also, they are, of course, the ultimate green choice — don't buy new, don't buy at all! Make something out of recycled materials, which can later be recycled again when you are finished.

Most important, there is an entire creative research, materials choice, construction, and decoration that the kids get to do. It becomes art, craft, and science project in one. (Have you ever made a garage door? an elevator? a rotating helipad? Simple machines, baby.)

You may remember the great Martha Stewart Kids article about making a car wash and garage out of things from around the house. (Why did they cancel that magazine again? Best magazine ever. I saw an entire set for sale on Ebay not long ago. Too rich for my blood, but boy would I love to get a hold of the issues I missed.) I have tried in vain to find it on Martha's website; it was in the MSK winter/spring 2003 issue.

Elisabeth Dunker of Fine Little Day has a fantastic flickr set of the wonderful dollhouses she and her daughter made. They are wonderful, and they remind me of a classier version of Phoebe's dollhouse on Friends.

I want to make one of those for myself.

Dutch of Sweet Juniper made his daughter a quick, inexpensive, modern-style dollhouse that I lurv.

Of course, another great thing about the homemade dollhouse/garage/Jedi temple is that you don't have to worry about those pricey dollhouse dolls and accessories. You can use what you already have on hand -- action figures, Hotwheels, Polly Pockets. Start with the people to choose your scale.

Of course, anyone who owns a dollhouse will tell you that it is inevitably overtaken by unusually large and/or small friends anyway. The Hamburglar living in the back bedroom, Strawberry Shortcake hanging out in the kitchen, not to mention plastic dinosaurs and teeny plastic jungle animals lurking around the back door.

Then there's this groovy modern plexi dollhouse from Better Homes & Gardens Gifts to Make Yourself in 1972. Love the fireplace, baby.

Not as futuristic as a Jedi temple, but still plenty cool.

Finally, our friends Pete and Tom made this amazing Dalek city. Super cool, isn't it? Show that to any medium-size child and the ideas should start popping.

“We learn more by looking for the answer to a question and not finding it than we do from learning the answer itself.” — Lloyd Alexander

“To trust children we must first learn to trust ourselves ... and most of us were taught as children that we could not be trusted.” — John Holt

“The key is curiosity, and it is curiosity, not answers that we model. As we seek to know more about a child, we demonstrate the acts of observing, listening, questioning and wondering. When we are curious about a child's words and our responses to those words, the child feels respected. The child is respected. ‘What are the ideas that I have that are so interesting to the teacher? I must be somebody with good ideas.’” — Vivian Paley

Our wonderful friend Emily gave the boys this fantastic book this weekend: Bird Songs: 250 North American Birds in Song. It's a wonderful addition to their bird books, and the boys absolutely love it.

Jack returned to his bird sculpture this week, but set his armature aside and, using the new book as his reference photo, made a beautiful mostly two-dimensional wire sculpture instead. Running outside to find a stick for a perch was an exciting part of the process.

Tomorrow, he says he's going to engineer a wire harness to hold the bird on its perch.

Of course, the label has fallen off the wire he used, but it is an ordinary spool of wire purchased at the hardware store, thin enough to be bendy, thick enough to be strong and hold its shape. It cuts with ordinary snub-nosed kid scissors. And the only tool he used, other than his own two hands, was a pair of jewelry pliers made to curl wire (no cutters!), and he didn't need those; they were just fun to use.

My ten-year-old has taken our lessons to heart. He is the architect of his own learning. He can learn about anything that interests him. We will provide him with whatever help he requests. (Emphasis on requests.)

If you have ever known a child who reacts to your suggesting a book by saying, automatically, without even thinking about it, "No thanks", you are familiar with this child.

If you have ever suggested to a child an activity that simply reeks of excitement and fun, only to be met with a casual, "Yeah, I don't think so, no thanks," you are familiar with this child.

Now that he is ten, things have improved. I can suggest a book without his immediately saying no. He is reading, and immensely enjoying, Kon-Tiki right now on my recommendation. He is pretty confident now that I won't force him to read a book he doesn't want to read.

Although he still has his doubts.

When he went through a stage of intense interest in Flickr, I pulled out a big pile of Time/Life Photography Series books that I bought years ago at a library sale.

He got very excited about a story about Joseph Pulitzer and how he was the first publisher to include sensationalistic photographs in his newspaper. (This was in the volume "Photojournalism" — these books were published in 1971, btw.) He was talking a mile a minute and gesturing and laughing. Before he told me the story, however, he paused to say significantly, "I wasn't reading about how cameras work or anything. It wasn't about that." It was like he was saying, "I know why you gave me these books — I'm onto you — and I didn't do what you wanted."

The directions he took his interest in — starting with Flickr — were places I couldn't have predicted. We talked about art — what is art, what's not. We talked about how pictures tell a story — or don't accurately reflect the truth. We talked about geography and places we want to visit.

I eventually realized that to him, Flickr was a toy, and he was playing with it. He was looking it up and down and all around and figuring out what it could do. He was running around the room with it making zooming noises like it was an airplane, then he was walking it across the floor and laughing. He was turning it inside out. He was in discovery mode. He was in the zone — the flow state — calm, relaxed, completely plugged in, energetic, and focused.

Anything I did that made it seem like I was dictating what he should do would make him stop in his tracks. It would break the spell.

Over time, I've become better at how I make my offers of assistance — emphasizing it's only a suggestion, and he can take it or leave it as he wishes. And he has become better at considering my offers, not always rejecting them out of hand.

The biggest lesson has been mine. I realized that I can't predict where he is headed. It is entirely his own direction, plotted out according to his needs, his interests, his goals. And I don't want to get in the way of that, so I need to hang back and make sure I'm supporting him, but not tripping him up by trying to anticipate where he wants to go. He'll let me know where he wants to go.