The Eight Year Old

 We signed our eight year old up for a pottery class.  Today was his second session.  When I arrived to pick him up, this is what he had created.  Pretty impressive, I would say (but then I am his mother :)  Still, I definitely think this is a beautiful pot.  He plans to glaze it blue and orange.

 I hoped to get there in time to get a picture of him working, but he was already cleaning up.  These are the wheels they use.  They have to push the bottom wheel with their feet to get it spinning, and then it spins for a really long time on its own.

 They are each responsible for cleaning up all their own gear.

 I post a lot about funny things the three year old says, but the other day I thought I'd die of laughter thanks to the eight year old.  I asked him why he had torn my perfectly good brown paper grocery bag.  He showed me the recycling symbol on the front.  It said 40% inside the symbol.  He honestly thought that meant that 40% of the bag was recyclable.  So logically, he split it apart 40-60 and planned to throw the 60% portion away.  We all had a pretty good laugh about it (him included).  I love that our kids are able to laugh at their mistakes and misunderstandings :)

 He's been working really hard at perfecting his pogo stick skills.  The first day, after about three minutes, he told me, "I should enter a pogo stick jumping contest."  I told him I thought it might be a good idea to get in a little more practice first. ;)   Not that such a contest actually exists...

 Actually though, he's gotten really good at it, and can now bounce for 5 or 6 jumps before having to step off of it.  One kid actually did a pogo stick routine for the talent show at the fair last summer.  The kids get money just for entering, so there's always quite a slew of them.  I doubt he would enter though.  He's pretty shy.

 The three year old stood in the window to watch the pogo stick jumping.  This is one of the unfortunate side effects of having the futon couch right up next to the window.  The kids use it like a ladder.

And it does look rather strange from the outside too.  But at least he could safely watch from there.