Julie Bogart

Thanks for everyone's comments to help with my son. I really appreciated Julie's comment
that is something is essential, he will learn it. Smack! (That's me smnacking my forehead.)

Since we began talking on thie list an amazing thing happened. My older son is a huge
Tolkien fan and I suggested to him that he make a map with his own world in it. (He was
asking for some creativity suggestions for summer.) We had spent a bunch of time with a
globe and maps and flags last year due to their interest in countries/continents (spawned
by Survivor, of all things).

Anyway, the three younger kids (including my 10 yo) jumped on the idea and have been
drawing and creating for days now. My 10 yo who "hates to write"? Well, he's drawn his
own map of an island chain, has labeled all the islands, designed flags for each island,
created gods to rule the islands, has drawn a page of swords and is now drawing the ships
for his navy. I'm in shock. This is all in the last three days. He even wants the TV off and is
preferring this work to playing Star Craft on the computer. He has done so much on
computer gaming that he has inside all these stories and names and conflicts to pour out
in his own way and suddenly being given a way to do it has caught his attention.

My favorite moment: he wrote the word "aguelar" (name of an island he made up) and said,
"Look at my perfect letter 'a'." And it was perfect.

Anyway, I've been so busy helping them find resources for their projects (all three are
keeping notebooks to design their "worlds") I haven't had time to thank you all for your
help.

Funny how quickly despair can turn to hope.

Thanks again,
Julie B