#2

What has Jack been up to lately?  Well, I failed to mention over the summer that he participated in a little basketball camp at the rec center, and he loved it; Cub Scouts is now back in full swing with the school year underway; and Jack continues to progress on the piano, in spite of occasionally protesting practice time.  And lessons.  (Though his teacher's recent assignment for him to pick out "Hedwig's Theme" by ear has him pretty excited.  He got about half of it in the first two days after his lesson.)

About a month ago, Jack participated in a Stake Children's Choir for Stake Conference, singing "I Love to See the Temple," "He Sent His Son/I'm Trying to be Like Jesus" medley, and "I Am a Child of God."  This required attending a few rehearsals in the weeks leading up to Stake Conference, which Jack wasn't always excited about, but it was worth it and he really enjoyed the experience.

Jack has the distinction of challenging me in a different way than the other kids.  He often asks me hard questions.  Recently he wanted to know, "When did The Flash join The Avengers?" and "Is there a wizarding school in America?"  He wonders about which mythological creature would win if two such animals were to fight each other.  He wants to know how things are made; why things happen; and what would happen if - ?  He is probably the most curious of our children.

Harry Potter is still the series du jour in our house, and Jack is now reading the fourth book.  He can tell you all about events that occur in later books, though.  Yes, I'm afraid Jack is guilty of the unpardonable crime of skimming the other books in the series to find out what happens.  (I guess it goes back to his curious nature?)  We love him anyway.

Jack doesn't only appreciate reading literature, though.  He has become a prolific author, too.  In fact, lately he's been working on a fanfic about Harry's grandson, titled James Potter and the Womping Willow.  He's been painstakingly typing this on the computer, one hunted-and-pecked letter at a time, but sometimes Cat or I do some typing for him to speed things up a bit.

Jack's creativity is definitely one of his strengths, and in addition to writing, he uses drawing, role play, and other creative outlets.  He also becomes very passionate about specific topics, and will focus on one thing for a while before moving on to something new.  He's gone through phases of obsession with Transformers/Rescue Bots; dinosaurs/dinosaur-ish things such as Dinotrux, Dinosaur King, and Switch & Go Dinos; sharks and other sea creatures; Pokemon and his own versions of it; "Who Would Win?" match-ups; "I Survived" stories; and the aforementioned Harry Potter.  He's made countless books, drawings, and trading cards themed on these topics.

Jack, perusing his collection of hand-written and illustrated books.

Jack drew these dinosaurs using the book pictured.

1 - A collection of cover drawings for a natural disaster series Jack planned
2 - A sea creature drawing
3 - Pokemon

We used a drawing book to create these renditions of Iron Man.
After watching me draw the one on the left, Jack drew the one on the right.
(He also colored my drawing for me.)

All the things in Jack's mind, at the beginning of Fourth Grade.
Notice his entire head is a Poké Ball.

When Jack heard about our friend's 3D printer, he was obsessed with the idea of literally printing his own toys.  We found some free plans online, which we sent to our friend.  Jack paid $5 for the printing material, and was ecstatic when he got his own little Pikachu, fresh off the printer.

One final tidbit to share: Jack is lucky enough to be in a cool class where the teacher has a tradition of teaching her students The Table Clap, a very involved cheer that requires the whole group to work together, and learn the cheer bit by bit until it's ready to perform.  They shared what they learned in front of the whole school, a few weeks into the year.  (Special thanks to Cat, who was my camerawoman for the video.)