Rocket Man

The Kiddo wants rocket feet like Iron Man. I thought about it and thought about it and just couldn’t wrap my mind around how to make something to strap to his legs/feet that would look great and not get thrashed. So I scrapped the idea and went with jet packs, one for him and one for his friend.

Cheap and easy, all you need are two 2L soda bottles (we don’t drink soda so it forever to get four empty ones), some shiny silver poster board, and red and yellow crape paper streamers. That, tape, and some glue - - - - voila rocket packs!!

I used elastic to make arm bands, problem is I can’t get the stuff to stick permanently to the silver paper, the glue sticks to the elastic but slides off the paper, and tape peals off… the Kiddo can still play in it but it requires constant fixing. I’m spending a few days thinking hard on a solution, if I cut the bottom off the bottle I could staple it but then it would lose a bit of it’s solid feel. Ideas?

Grading

Every school morning when I drop the Kiddo off at school I stand around and wait until he goes INTO the classroom. I like to be sure he’s safely in his teachers hands before I go home, it’s the only way I can avoid worrying about him while he’s there. Usually there are a couple other moms that wait with me. The other day one of the mothers mentioned that she had a problem with our kids teacher, she said that she doesn’t think it’s okay that Mrs. H actually grads the kids with a letter and percentage grade.

She turned to me and said “of course you probably don’t really care because your Kiddo is so smart and doesn’t have problems spelling or reading.”

First thing I wanted to say is… I beg to differ

He HAS been doing very well with his spelling tests, 100% up until last week. That’s when he bombed big time. Bonus words in the wrong spot, and one wrong word in the ‘real list’. The missed points on the sentence (non capital first word and no period) are a bit my fault I think, I had NO idea she graded on stuff like that so I hadn’t been drilling him on it.

Second thing I wanted to say is… if first grade is to “early” to grade kids work, when is it the right time? I am of the opinion that grading like this is fine. I feel like it gives me direction on what to work with him on. It’s hard because he doesn’t always focus and will lose points on things that he KNOWS but I feel like it’s a lesson he needs to learn; you don’t get to slide past just because you know it, you also have to do the work correctly and prove that you know it.

What do you think??

girl .... friends

There is the Kiddo, in the middle with his brown shirt and kaki pants. Right behind him in a pink dress is his friend Brooklyn. Every morning she runs up to him to say hi, then she stands next to him in line and talks to him until they go in. This morning she put her arm around his shoulder and ran her fingers through his hair. I think she has a little crush…

The funny part about all this is that the Kiddo doesn’t have a clue, he chats with her or not, he’ll turn to talk to the other kids, he’ll stand there oblivious playing with his backpack strap (like today in this picture). He’s just a kid with way more important things to do .. I’m glad he’s easy going enough to take it in stride, her feelings don’t get hurt and he happily figures he just has one more extra needy touchy feely friend.

Rainbows

The start of school has been pretty cool for the Kiddo. These past two weeks they’ve had “color days” where they all get to wear a specific color each day.

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The greatest thing about it is that so far the Kiddo has had a shirt for every single day. The kids also get to take an object of that color for each day, he’s gets to show his toy to the class and then take it out to play with during recess. Fun!

The ghost cape is coming right alone, I’ve got the thing sewn together but still need to figure out what type of clasp to use. I’m thinking the easiest thing is if I do a magnetic closure (I’ve got a few magnet buttons on hand from last year). After that it’s a matter of making the utility belt and figuring out if I make a black body suit or if I just buy him jeans and a black shirt (which he could wear for the rest of the year).

spirited

The Kiddo has really been into superhero’s lately, the Avengers, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, pretty much every superhero I can think of has been in one of those groups at some point or other. Between that and Transformers his reading lately has been filled with fights to save humanity.

Considering all of that it really came as no surprise when I asked him what he wanted to be for Halloween and he said he wanted to be a superhero. He wanted to be Iron Man, or maybe Wolverine, or maybe… Finally I stopped him and asked why he didn’t just be his own superhero. He gave me an odd look, but I explained that if he had his own superhero team (he does, he calls them the Naturals and has recruited most of his extended family along with a few friends) then he should probably pick his “own” power and name.

He thought about that for a few minutes, and then decided he would be Ghost Man. His power is to turn invisible so that the bad guys can’t seem him or hurt him. He also throws ghost bombs (of course) because you have to have weapons in order to beat the baddies.

So I have no idea what the final costume will look like, I do know it will have a cape though, and the cape will be covered in spirits.

I’ve got the fabric already and hopefully I can get the cape done quickly, I’m starting now so I will be sure to have plenty of time to work on it around my classes. I am thinking that the body suit will just be a blank turtle neck and black sweats, then I can add a little bit of design to them and not spend to much time working on it, we’ll see. Somewhere along the way I also have to figure out a superhero utility belt, with a ghost buckle.