Friday, April 29, 2011

And the Oft-Overlooked Middle Child...

My posts lately have been about Eric, Sammy, or my own ramblings.

I didn't want to neglect Daniel, so I include here a video of him reading a book he recently published at school.

(His teacher wrote a special note on his last report card about how thrilled she was with his writing skills. That's m'boy!)

I have figured out how to upload video, but I'm still working on how to edit it down to manageable clips. This video has the advantage of being already short.

I knew nothing about this until he brought it home and read it to me. I must say, he is very good at pursuing independent projects with minimal adult assistance. He is currently working on a story called "School Wars" which is up to twelve pages. (That's with huge handwriting and pictures, but still.)

What impresses me most is how he'll do a page or two, leave it for several days, and then do another page.

What concerns me most is that the content is about children taking over the school, knocking adults out with tranquilizer darts, and forcing teachers to give birth in the "pound."

When Danny finishes his latest project, I will, naturally, post a video of him reading it.

Enjoy...

7 comments:

Jon said...

Very well done, Danny. Maybe you could record some book readings for your younger siblings to listen to. Those would make a good Christmas present for Sammy and/or U.

Jon said...

Want to try reading something in Spanish or Portuguese next? Once school gets out, I can teach you a little.

Krenn said...

Huh. Most of my school conquest theories involved area denial, followed by the formation of a parlimentary student government. I think my plan included sabotaging teacher transportation, communications, and classroom locks, followed by simply ignoring any who still tried to imposed order.

I was never old enough to remember my younger sibling being born, so the issue of pregnancies never came up. I probably would have filed that under 'war crimes' though. The revolution has to be mostly peaceful, or at least deniable, or else the police would have gotten involved, and my national military wouldn't have prepared to resist in any reasonable timeframe.

In hindsight, the idea of getting a functional parlimentary government out of students was pretty silly though.

Krenn said...

that would be a fun project for danny though.... what form of student school government MIGHT work? I've considered unionizing high school students.... with a few college students as Parliamentarians, that might be doable. very little personal responsibility, and extreme negotiating power, leaving most problem solving in the hands of adults... might be doable.

Feudalism based on social cliques might be workable... although that would be very prone to breakdown if the sports clique was unified enough to consider a coup....

Did danny specify a government structure?

Carolyn said...

wow. I didn't realize that Danny is still only SIX! Really!? Are you sure he's not eight? He's so smart! And exceptionally literate!

Gail said...

Ronald -- I think Danny's mention of a teacher giving birth in captivity was inspired more by a pregnant teacher at his school than by U.

Unionizing graduate students was hard enough. I think unionizing the paying college students is crazy.

Danny has not yet specified a government structure; he's only halfway through.

I guess his story shouldn't surprise me, given all the revolution bedtime stories I've done over the years. My serial epic about the human peasants revolting against the evil Orex bandits -- kind of like the Magnificent Seven, only without guns -- filled an entire summer a few years ago.

Gail said...

Carolyn,

Danny turned seven January 25th. The book was written in (I'm guessing) December 2010, and he brought it home a few days before his birthday. Once again, my kid barely squeaks by so I have bragging rights. Kind of like Eric learning a few sight words before he turned three.