Reaching for the Stars

For a long time my son took a break from his K'Nex.  As in, he's gone at least 3 months without making anything significant.  He was more interested in programming a computer, which is his ultimate goal in life, so I guess I can't blame him.

For whatever reason, a few days ago he got the bug again and he decided to build a tower and our 7.5ft tall ceilings weren't high enough for him.  So what did he do?  He devised a pulley system to help lift his tower in our front yard.

Getting the pulley ready

Attaching the pulley to the tower

After some trial and error, the first tower iteration is up.

It was a great idea and probably would have worked.   However we found that the first design kept popping apart as it was lifted, so it was strengthened.  At that point, it was strong enough that we could just tip it up and it did fine.

Doesn't it look cool?

The tower was so tall however, that he needed to include tensioned wire (aka yarn) to help hold it upright.  That worked like a charm which was really good since it stayed up overnight and it was a little windy that night.

Looks even cooler from inside.

So how did it come down?  By cutting "wires" till it fell.

BUT, I am a homeschool mom, so before we cut it down I used it as a teaching opportunity.  I had my son measure one section of each layer of the tower (there were two layers) and then use multiplication to help determine how tall each layer was.  Then we added the height of the layers together.  Then we used division to take it from inches to feet.  Then we took that number and compared it to something we knew the height of (Daddy is 6' tall so we used him).  When the math came out that it was 5 Daddy's tall we knew the math was wrong.  So we tried again.  After doing the math a second time we came up with 12.5 ft (or about 2 Daddy's tall).  THAT however was reasonable.

After that, my son decided to count how many pieces he used to make the tower.  So after taking it apart he first weighed all the pieces together.  It was about 6 pounds.  Then he counted them as he put them away (using an abacus he bought at Ikea a while back).  He came up with the astounding figure of 1150 pieces.

That's a lot of K'nex!

All I know is, he had a great time building it, but he also learned from it as well.  He learned:

• How to make things more stable.  
• How to make a pulley.
• And he got to practice all kinds of math including addition, multiplication, division, conversions, and a bit of word problem solving.

And this folks is why I like to homeschool.  There is no better teacher than learning while doing something you enjoy.  It makes it more real and I think it "sticks" better.

Doubting Thomas

Why do I doubt my son?  After all these years you would think I would have learned that when he puts his mind to something he's going to get it done.

On Saturday we went to a birthday party and one of the gifts was a gyroscope.  It was no surprise that my son thought it was "awesome!"  He immediately told everyone in the area who was listening that he was going to make one out of K'Nex.  Of course I shrugged it off and said something like, I don't think it's possible but you can certainly try.

Yesterday, he created this....

I admit it's not exactly a gyroscope but it is definitely more than I was expecting him to be able to do.  Oh, and he's already destroyed that one and is working on a bigger and better one.

We've Got Skills

Any of my regular readers know that my son is a fa.na.tic when it comes to K'Nex.  He is constantly making something new out of K'Nex.  For Christmas he received something like 40 lbs of K'Nex (he already had 15 lbs or so).  The thinking behind this was that he would have more pieces to make bigger things.

He's been able to do that, and so much more!  At one point we had the following things assembled and sitting in our sun-room (I have decided to let him have this area so that I can have my sanity in the rest of the house):  a 4ft tall functioning crane, a roller coaster, a robot, an AK-47 riffle, an oil tanker, a crank shaft, a model pick-up truck, an AK-47, and a Janeson's mechanism.  And he still had pieces left to make more things!  Can you say mission accomplished.  Now all he wants (and Jon too) is more roller coaster track so they can make something bigger.

The roller coaster

The AK-47 he made (robot behind him)

Anyone who knows me well, knows that I like to be organized.  I am the person who packs lunches for field trips the night before and who likes to have a spot for everything.  I am a list person.  And my list's often have sub-lists.  :-)  My kid's toys are no exception to my desire for organization.  So how do we deal with all the K'Nex?  We found storage containers at yard sales and have found the most logical way to sort the K'Nex based on the way my son builds. 

Sorted by size and or functionality.

When there are no creations completed, most of these drawers are full.

Considering my son is not as dedicated to organization as I am (he is a boy who is just shy of 8, so what can I expect really), we have a system worked out to help accomplish the sorting.  After he no longer wants to keep a creation together, he puts it into a rather tall wicker basket.  This includes small pieces that found their way on the floor as he was building.  After the basket gets full, or if he finds he's running low on certain size pieces, we then go through the basket together and put the pieces away.  Luckily my daughter thinks it's great fun to spend time with Mommy cleaning, so she gets in on the act too.

This cycle repeats itself about every week.  A couple days ago we took apart almost all of his recent creations and he made a tower that he had to assemble outside because it was too tall for our 10 foot ceiling.  I'm guessing we'll be sorting again in a few days.  All I know is that without this system, I'd go crazy!

This is so tall we have to worry about wind knocking it down.