Friday, January 16, 2015
Another coder?
I introduced Grafton to the "Lightbot One Hour Coding" app, which is an educational app that teaches the basics of programming in a visual way. He picked up the programming environment quickly and with little help proceeded through Level 1. He was usually able to figure out where a bug in a given program existed and to remove and redo the undesired commands. Level 2 required use of procedures--a set of repeated commands that can be packaged into a single, reusable higher-level command. Grafton immediately recognized how to make use of this programming abstraction, and how it helped simplify and shorten the main program, which gave me great pleasure to witness. He knew exactly when it was appropriate to call the procedure from his main program. I think what made me happiest of all is that he kept at it for almost an hour and repeatedly declared "I love programming!" If this is the start of his programming education, he'll have had a two year jump on his Dad--so I look forward to seeing where this takes him.
Sunday, January 4, 2015
House Cleaning
Grafton decided the house needed to be made tidier. So he cleaned the house today. The whole house. All the rooms. Putting away anything that was sitting out, organizing, vacuuming. Floors, counters, under tables, closets. For at least two hours. He was a boy possessed. He even directed his parents to clean up their messes, "All this stuff on the counter has got to be cleared away!" The house is now spotless.
Monday, November 17, 2014
Friday, August 29, 2014
Sunday, August 24, 2014
Grafton vs Grafton
PopPop introduced Grafton to chess many weeks ago, after giving him a children's book on how the game is played. Thanks (in part) to the adventurous illustrations of Kings and Knights (etc.) throughout the book, Grafton continued to be interested in it. And he was even motivated to continue learning to play the game! We ended up playing a number of games, while I continued to teach him the rules. I was surprised at how well he learned all the chess piece moves within a few games (although the Knight still gives him occasional trouble when he's tired).
As is usually the case with Grafton, once he gains interest in a topic, it becomes a requirement that we learn more about it on the Internet. Partly because he loves to see images on the things he's interested in, but he also loves for us to read to him historical accounts of nearly anything related to the topic. At one point I had mentioned the movie "Searching for Bobby Fischer", and how it was about a boy chess prodigy. So Grafton was soon asking "Who is Bobby Fischer, Dad?" Wikipedia provided a truly in-depth account of this enigmatic man's life. We both found it interesting to read that as a young boy, Bobby didn't have many available opponents to play against and so continued to teach himself chess by playing against himself! We both found this quite interesting and talked about how difficult it must be to switch sides each move, and knowing how your opponent would think and plan his moves against "you".
As is usually the case with Grafton, once he gains interest in a topic, it becomes a requirement that we learn more about it on the Internet. Partly because he loves to see images on the things he's interested in, but he also loves for us to read to him historical accounts of nearly anything related to the topic. At one point I had mentioned the movie "Searching for Bobby Fischer", and how it was about a boy chess prodigy. So Grafton was soon asking "Who is Bobby Fischer, Dad?" Wikipedia provided a truly in-depth account of this enigmatic man's life. We both found it interesting to read that as a young boy, Bobby didn't have many available opponents to play against and so continued to teach himself chess by playing against himself! We both found this quite interesting and talked about how difficult it must be to switch sides each move, and knowing how your opponent would think and plan his moves against "you".
Well, one day while Dad was at work, he received this Google Hangout chat from Mom:
G's playing himself at chess!
That's fantastic.
Is he winning?!
Yes and losing.
Grafton says the white side has the most pieces left, but he can't predict who will win because the winner will be decided by who protects the king the best.
Check mate! White side won, black lost.
After the match, Mom told Dad that after the game was over, Grafton demonstrated a high-level of sportsmanship by shaking his own hand!
The Deep End trick really works
At the beginning of the summer, Grafton declared to us that he was going to take on the challenge of learning to swim. As the summer progressed we continued to encourage him to try, and did our best to show him how it's done. But he didn't seem all the motivated and often gave up in the pool before making much progress. We didn't want to push him too hard, knowing he'd make the effort once he was ready (this has always been Grafton's way).
A few weeks ago, and only a few days before his first day of swim lesson in Amherst, we were able to push him to give it another shot. In the shallow end of the pool he was able to take a stroke or two without his feet falling to the floor. Encouraged by this improvement, Mom suggested to Dad that he take Grafton slightly into the deep end to see if he really could keep his body afloat without touching his feet down. Holding his underarms, Dad pulled him out past the shallow end and let go. Grafton splashed and struggled, but kept his body afloat and moving forward--he was truly swimming! All of us were thrilled and Grafton was particularly proud of himself.
Over the next two weeks, Grafton made great strides in the water under professional instruction. In each of his first two classes he was promoted to the next more advanced class, reaching the Duckling level. He became comfortable with bobs and underwater blastoffs (a bob and jump). Most impressively, he became comfortable jumping into the pool and then swimming back to the wall, all under his own power and flotation. Seeing this happen, Mom and Dad shared a great sense of relief, knowing that his ability to survive a slip into the deep end of our pool would no longer destined to be tragic.
A week later, we hosted a pool party for Grafton and his friends to celebrate the end of summer and the arrival of Kindergarten. A number of his friends were already capable swimmers. They made heavy use of the diving board, splashing down into the deep end and then swimming to edge, ready for to go again. Grafton is not one to be left behind by his friends' activities. And even though we had never yet let him swim in the deep end of the pool on his own (without flotation assistance), before we even knew it he was jumping off that diving board, splashing down, and swimming right back over to the edge without fear or struggle [1]. While we knew he could do this, Mom and Dad weren't prepared to see him doing it in the deep end of the pool. But we were very glad to see it, and knew we could finally relax (a little more!) when Grafton is in the pool area with us.
[1] We did have a lifeguard on duty, otherwise we would have been watching him like a hawk!
A few weeks ago, and only a few days before his first day of swim lesson in Amherst, we were able to push him to give it another shot. In the shallow end of the pool he was able to take a stroke or two without his feet falling to the floor. Encouraged by this improvement, Mom suggested to Dad that he take Grafton slightly into the deep end to see if he really could keep his body afloat without touching his feet down. Holding his underarms, Dad pulled him out past the shallow end and let go. Grafton splashed and struggled, but kept his body afloat and moving forward--he was truly swimming! All of us were thrilled and Grafton was particularly proud of himself.
Over the next two weeks, Grafton made great strides in the water under professional instruction. In each of his first two classes he was promoted to the next more advanced class, reaching the Duckling level. He became comfortable with bobs and underwater blastoffs (a bob and jump). Most impressively, he became comfortable jumping into the pool and then swimming back to the wall, all under his own power and flotation. Seeing this happen, Mom and Dad shared a great sense of relief, knowing that his ability to survive a slip into the deep end of our pool would no longer destined to be tragic.
A week later, we hosted a pool party for Grafton and his friends to celebrate the end of summer and the arrival of Kindergarten. A number of his friends were already capable swimmers. They made heavy use of the diving board, splashing down into the deep end and then swimming to edge, ready for to go again. Grafton is not one to be left behind by his friends' activities. And even though we had never yet let him swim in the deep end of the pool on his own (without flotation assistance), before we even knew it he was jumping off that diving board, splashing down, and swimming right back over to the edge without fear or struggle [1]. While we knew he could do this, Mom and Dad weren't prepared to see him doing it in the deep end of the pool. But we were very glad to see it, and knew we could finally relax (a little more!) when Grafton is in the pool area with us.
[1] We did have a lifeguard on duty, otherwise we would have been watching him like a hawk!
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