Egg Parachutes

A couple weeks ago, I agreed to man a table at the student and parent picnic for the Highly Gifted classes in our school district. My idea was egg parachutes, as the picnic was being held in a park with a large tower--about two stories in height--from which the kids could drop their chutes.

I looked online for some instructions and got a mixed bag of results. Here's the system that I came up with:

1. Cut out squares in various sizes from plastic trash bags to use as chute material. The smallest that I cut out were 10" x 10", the largest 30" x 30". Bigger chutes seem to work better from greater heights--from shorter heights they don't fill up quickly enough. Small chutes begin working quickly but don't slow the descent enough from big drops.
   
2. Buy a roll of twine and cut the strings for the chutes from the twine. I also cut these in varying lengths. For a shorter distance like our tower drop, a shorter set of strings works best--it unfolds most quickly and allows the chutes to unfurl.
3. Attach each of the strings to the corners of each chute using tape. I found that clear duct tape worked much better than masking or scotch tape.
4. Attach the other ends of the strings to paper clips.
5. Take a small Dixie cup and punch four holes around the perimeter. Snap the paper clips into the holes--this lets you change chutes or attach more than one chute to a Dixie cup. You put the egg in the Dixie Cup, which acts as a little gondola.
   

Put your eggs in small Ziploc bags! This helps cut down on the mess.

This system worked well. If I had to do it again, I would pre-assemble more of the parts--chutes of different sizes, pre-cut strings with paperclips attached--and have the kids do the taping and prep for the cups. I'd also remind my wife to bring the camera so she could take some pictures.

We went through four dozen eggs, all the duct tape and other chute materials, so I think it was a success and interesting to do.

First Day of School

Dropped the kids off for their first day of school. My daughter is in a highly gifted program where the fifth and sixth graders actually attend classes at the nearby junior high, though most of their classes are with other kids their age rather than with junior high age kids and the elementary age kids are on a different school day schedule than the older kids (sort of a compromise between a normal elementary schedule and a normal junior high schedule).

Still, this is her first year at the new school and she's somewhat nervous about it, as is my wife, who handled dropping off our daughter this morning so she could help her find her new classroom and such. I'm waiting to see what happens before I start worrying too much on this one, though I will undoubtedly worry at some point.

My son is nervous about being at school without his sister there. I've tried to remind him that this will be the first time he's ever come back to the same school with the same teacher and the same classmates (they combine 1/2nd grade classes for HG), so he should be feeling confident. But he's anxious and increasingly aware that it's hard for him to find friends to play with. This morning he said that no one understands his sense of humor.

It's one of the difficult aspects of being a parent that you have to let your kids learn some lessons and overcome some challenges for themselves while also being supportive and trying to step in when they are over their heads. During the summers everything is hectic but we have a pretty close family and a generally relaxed routine when we aren't traveling, so we support each other and understand each others' foibles. School forces everyone back out into the world and brings with it more schedules and commitments.

Postscript:
Well, both kids seem to have had a good first day at school. So I'm happy for that.

Harmonious Soul

Last week I went with my son on a field trip with his gifted 1st/2nd grade class to the Discovery Center here in Boise, Idaho. One of my favorite parts of the visit was watching each child, with the help of the teacher, use the Center's harmonograph (which looks a bit like the device seen here) to produce beautiful spiraling designs (sort of like these) on a sheet of paper.

The teacher collected all of the resulting images and posted them on the wall outside the classroom. As I was looking at them this morning I was struck by the fanciful idea that each image represented a EKG of the soul of each child. Some of the patterns turned really chaotic at the core, others were simply complex. My son's was one of the largest patterns and one of the simplest at the core, with a great deal of symmetry.

In a way, that pattern reflects how I perceive him. He has a powerful mind that runs to picking up minor obsessions for months at a time. He has a very literal way of looking at the world as many Asperger's Syndrome children seem to do. He's very trusting and he's trying very hard to understand our world with all its white lies and fables. And though it can be frustrating trying to deal with his frustrations and sorrows and tantrums each day as a parent, there's a beauty and elegance to his joy and his love and his curiosity that makes me take pause on occasion and just watch.