Friday, August 27, 2010

Gotta Brag... Shameless Promotion of Oldest Son

After a rough couple of years (beginning with THIS), I think we finally have our Nathan back. He has come so far since his accident, and I am so proud of his newfound strength, sense of self, and maturity (or what passes for maturity in a 12 year-old boyr... LOL).

For one of his summer reading books this year, he chose The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. And, for his 7th gade English class project, they had to be booksellers promoting their chosen work. Part of the assignment was to create a visual aid for use in their presentation. After much angst and a couple of not-so-successful ideas, he hit upon the concept of building a scene from the book out of Legos, of which we have about 1,459,642 spread all over the basement playroom (mostly on the floor - OUCH!). Then, since one of the things he had wanted to do earlier was to make a movie (using his friends), he decided to then film a scene, using the Lego people as actors. Using stop-motion technique, with a Flip camera, and rudimentary iMovie editing, he came up with this:

Tom Sawyer Fence-Painting Scene



And, then, since he was having so much fun, he did another scene:

Injun Joe - Graveyard scene


And yeah - the focus isn't perfect, and there is the distracting background noise of large-family life. But I loved watching him work on this project. He had a great time. and I enjoyed watching him shine. And he *really* did glow. And, what do you think? I've got a potential film-maker, definitely a ham, and most importantly, a kid who is enjoying learning once again. ♥ I am blessed, indeed.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010