A Film-Maker in the Making

School has started -- the public and the home varieties. The youngest and I have been focusing on science for a week or so. Matter . . . solids, liquids, gases . . . atoms and molecules . . . all that fun stuff. Once again, about half of the "experiments" I tried to do with her didn't work. I don't know what's wrong with me. I keep telling you, I'm a reasonably intelligent woman....

Fortunately, I am intelligent enough to work with my strengths -- and her strengths. One of her assignments was to write a short sketch illustrating one of the principles we were talking about. I gave her a little guidance coming up with a concept, but then she ran with it. It's about a bunch of teenaged water molecules at a dance. One mean girl tries to separate a couple dancing on the dance floor (they're holding hands, but moving fluidly, like a liquid) by turning up the heat in the room (which makes them spread out like in a gas) and then blasting them with cold air (so they bunch up in the center of the floor, like a solid, with her enemy now "attached" to the nerd instead of the cute guy). Pretty cute. And sprinkled with her characteristic wit.

She invited five of her friends over today (3 public-schooled, 2 homeschooled) to film her work. Wow. That was exhausting. I told my daughter that we needed to work harder to keep her script short next time -- six pages took a while. Well, OK, no, it only took a couple hours which isn't really that bad. It just felt like a long time. I mean, this is a really good group of kids, but they are kids. They all enjoy each other, which just means they are that much louder and more energetic when they're together. I was glad they had a good time, but by the time we were done filming and driving everyone home, I was plumb tuckered out.

They all asked for copies of the DVD. And they asked if they could do it again sometime. So, I guess we will. I had already figured we'd be doing more of this kind of thing this year, seeing how this seems to be my daughter's learning style (as noted in an earlier post). I'll just have to get good and rested up the night before. Because, as I also noted before, performing is not MY learning style....