My 8-year old, N, has been attending "Camp Invention", a day camp, running from 9 to 3:30 each day this week. The camp literature states that it is an academic/science camp with an emphasis on math, science and history. Based on N's recaps thus far, this seems to be pretty true. He is enjoying camp. At dinner yesterday, his summary of the day's activities took almost the entire meal. The camp is a good fit for him and I think August is the perfect time.
I'm not sure if he would have been as thrilled with the experience if the camp had been in, say, June. In June, he was still shaking off the previous school year. The countdown to summer vacation was fresh in his mind. A camp that met roughly during school hours, at a school, covering school subjects would have seemed like an extension of the previous school term - a delay to summer vacation. June was meant for unstructured freedom.
But now, in August, the realization has set in that doing nothing all day can be boring. Going to camp, meeting and making friends, learning, it's all good. Even without the camp, I've noticed that by late summer, my boys start moving into school mode. I'll find them working on projects that look suspiciously like schoolwork. I suppose this shouldn't be surprising. They spend most of the year in school, doing these things. It makes sense that eventually they'd fall back to them on their own.
Yesterday, B asked if he could use the computer. This isn't so unusual. In fact, it's almost a daily occurrence. I remembered that he was playing on the computer when I got home from work. I reminded him of this fact but he explained that he didn't want to play games this time. He wanted to type up the prologue to the novel he'd been working on. By bedtime he had a couple of pages done and pleaded for a few more minutes to finish the paragraph he was working on. Another one ready for school.
2 comments:
I'd love to read B's novel when it's done! What's the basic premises?
B seems to have his fathers love of writing.
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