These Beautiful Words

I'm about to copy my 13yo son's words to The Lego Group. He typed the note yesterday. Ordinarily I would print it out "as is" and then type it with the corrected spelling and grammar, then mail both to the Lego Group. This time however, he wanted to post it to Lego's FB page. Privacy concerns abounded in my mind but I knew this was important to him, so I let him post. I realize now that almost no one will see his post because of the strict privacy settings I put in place; I decided to copy it here so more people could see it. (more being all 20 of you lol) Without further ado, I give you his note:

hay Lego i have built for years and the thing that keeps me going is that how much time and work you put in every brick and the one thing i'd like to do with my life is to be like you all of you from the .c.e.o. to a janitor cleaning the floor you make more than 1000 smile's a day now that's a job i'd like. even the workers that work at home there helping make that smile two a lot of the time when you see a kid holding a Lego set you can see a smile on his/hers face. that's a smile that means some thing its not all about the money Lego make's its the fans that count its the fans that keeps Lego coming with what they do. its what you do that makes my world go round its what you do that will make smiles keep coming so for what you do thank you. it's not about the money its the sole.

These words are his and his alone. These words come from the heart and mind of a child that so many dismiss as unable to express such thoughts because of his "challenges". These beautiful words are always inside him and have shown me yet again the the value of patience.

Lego Movie Premiere at Home!

Well, sort of.

Our favorite Lego guy was at it again. The official Lego movie theater set was a bit out of our price range, so Z designed his own. Love this boy.

the boy and his creation

The star "Emmet" with "Good Cop/Bad Cop" behind him

Add caption

et

spotlight :)

spotlight ON

keeping the crazy fans away from the store

Update:
The Lego company commented on Zach's creation!

Some Quick but Thorough Homeschool Resources

Some are free, all are very low priced, enjoy! 

Currclick--Curriculum and Classes in a Click (disclaimer--yes, I am an affiliate  ) this "little, quick" lapbook is loaded with some pretty thorough info for just 50 cents! Browse around currclick for so many other free and/or low priced resources.

Grammar: Conjunctions Quick Lapbook!

LEGO homeschool! Oodles of lesson plans and more for every grade and subject --lots of really cool ideas and all FREE!

Enchanted Learning Curriculum Material Online -- Over 35,000 Web Pages and over 1,000,000 subscriptions!   Always free to use, although I do pay once a year to subscribe to get even easier printables. I think this is probably the best yet most forgotten about educational resource! Just about anything and everything you might need is there.

Homeschool Share--because many minds make light work! Yet another that I forget about! So many absolutely free lapbooks and notebooks and unit studies.

Confessions of a Homeschooler--many free printables available. 

Amazing Handwriting Worksheet Maker--this one is free and works beautifully!

LEGO Lapbook!!

We finished another lapbook, finally!! Zach was reluctant at first, he feels like he knows all there is to know about Legos and there was no reason to do actual, gasp--ASSIGNMENTS! Once I got him to really look at the ideas for this fantastic lapbook from Walking by the Way and we spoke a little more about the great thinkers who are quoted in this project, we got to creating! Most elements are from Walking by the Way, I will notate the things that we got on our own. We found the awesome Lego stickers at Joann's, and ovbiously we used our own pictures of Zachary's personal creations throughout. :)

The cover. Zachary created the collage on the computer!

Inside the first side, and the "map" opened.

Side flap open (the flap with the map), mini books open
There were 4 words but we lost one!
The picture all the way to the right is one of many firehouses he created.

The blue "Mission and Vision" flip flap book (important to Zach to have this in his Lapbook)

Top left & right: middle flap flipped over and Lego Fun facts fanned open
Bottom left: Famous Thinkers Quotes (cover) and Minifig Timeline minibook
Bottom right: blue flap flipped open and mini-fig timeline open, that was Zach's idea,
we used readwritethink.org to build a custom time-line!
The photos here are 2 different HUGE Lego ships Zach built.

Famous Thinkers Quotes Copywork

Under the Famous Thinkers Quotes "book", and the Lego Math minibooks

                                       

Picture of Z's Ectomobile, above the Lego Graph

                                 

Lego Math Minibooks open

Back Cover Lego Timeline from http://www.lego.com/

Lego City FIRE!!

Okay, so this took hours and hours to photograph and then put to a movie. There must be an easier way to make a better product! Please watch with kindness for the video chick (c'est moi) and know that is very new territory. Maybe Z will be getting a stop/action production set for his 13th birthday....it'd make my life easier!  He started talking about how we can make the next video. UMMM, yea, mama's fried, gonna need at least a day before we start that again. And maybe a tripod lol.

We love Homeschooling!

Ah, the blissful sounds of children doing their schoolwork as mother prepares lunch. Youngest child espousing and demonstrating his newest international knowledge.

Yea, whatever. M wants to know what's the big deal if she only missed by "a hundred cents." D decides to make that second sandwich, after the first one made up of a pound of fabulously processed deli turkey didn't fill him up, rather than finish his math work. Z tells me all about the newest techniques he learned from Lego "Ninjago" tv episodes, then goes out to the living room (where studious D and M are sprawled out on furniture pretending to concentrate on math) to demonstrate. I look up in time to see what resembles the Tazmanian Devil tornado with Zachary sound effects spinning around the living room-then CRASH, THUNK, THUD, OUCH, BAM, CRASH, OUCH! Really, I did try not to laugh as I asked him if he was okay, I tried very very very hard. It is D and M's fault, they were laughing first, rotten kids. I got out to truly make sure that Z was alright, especially after noticing just how many things fell off the entertainment center--he replied "NO!" I asked him what hurts, he gave back a sarcastic "my BODY". Seriously Zach, you should've just added in the "DUH." So there I was, desparately trying to comfort the child but my body convulsions from laughing so hard just about knocked him back down. Dylan's description to Zach of what happened sent me over the edge into tear producing hysterics--especially because it was so accurate: "it all started with Zach going 'wooooooooo, NINJAGO, aaaaahhhhh'....he started spinning out of control, not watching where he was going, stepped on his lethal Ninjago Legos, fell over into the entertainment center, knocked over the sewing kit, fell onto the floor, there was a silent 3 seconds before he rolled over groaning, knocked into the entertainment center causing an avalanche of (you guessed it...) his stuff on the entertainment center that shouldn't be there like HIS Lego pen, HIS Lego army dude, and last but not least the candleholders...."

I went into the kitchen, after wiping away my tears, and finally started to stop laughing. Dylan asked me to make him a sandwich. I lamented that I don't understand why we can't be a "typical functioning homeschooling family." Dylan's reply was "Ms. Osmun--that's what I call the lunchlady--will you make me a sandwich?" Oh good LORD. No, I didn't make him one. Mallory kept shouting "BE QUIET I'M TRYING TO DO MY MATH!" (from the kid that wants the margin of error in math to be + or - 100....) Things settled down at that point-Dylan made his disgusting sandwich, Mallory stopped complaining, and Zachary was recouperating from the Lego induced injuries**(see Tim Hawkins link at bottom of this post!), so I sat at the computer to check my email. Well, you can not imagine the horror that came next: Z asked if he was good and ate all his lunch (a nutritionally microwaved piece of Ellio's pizza thankyouverymuch), could he do his math, too? I told him I thought that was very rude; unfortunately he took me seriously at first, nothing a smile and hug couldn't fix.

Our next lesson was about compassion and health. Dylan started talking about how sick he was, and vomit, and about how usually he's the last one sick and ends up having to take care of everyone else. Mallory complained about how lately she and Dylan are sick at the same time, and it's always a competition, and he always runs a bigger fever or throws up and it's not fair! Dylan kept talking about taking care of everyone, and talked about the time that Zach woke up in the middle of the night, and sat at the edge of the bathroom saying he was going to throw up. Dylan kept saying "come on Zach, come here Zach, come in the bathroom Zach, get to the toilet Zach...HURRY Zach..ZACH--ugh..." I don't think I should tell you what he got hit with from Zachary. Zach answered, "Dylan, I love you so much that when I start throwing up, I want you to be right there next to me."

Last statement to be quoted is Zach's absolutely perfect, sumsitallup words: "I love homeschooling at our house!"

**Tim Hawkins hilarious take on the dangers of Lego's