My son has often dived far into whatever interests him at the moment. When it was Spiderman, he read everything he could get his hands on about good ol' Peter Parker and friends. He knows all the villains and all the characters. We let him watch the movie, which he watched way too many times, just as all kids do. I was happy to watch the first few times too. This lasted a little almost 2 years which is an extraordinary amount of time for a 6yo. Spiderman is a pretty normal thing to like for a little boy. He was a little intense about it, but kids can be that way. I indulged him in that obsession with books, posters, costumes, etc.
This year it has been the Titanic and the prisoners that escaped from Alcatraz. I don't think those are quite as predictable for a 6yo and it is fun to see how fascinated he is. He has read 6 or 7 books about the Titanic. He has memorized a LOT of facts, and I keep asking him to write them down. I think it would be a really great project for him to make a report on all the things he's learned about the Titanic. He's quite critical of them calling it "unsinkable" since they knew if more than 4 bulkheads filled with water then it would sink. I now know way too much about the Titanic too!
Recently, he's been reading about Frank Morris and the Anglin brothers who escaped from Alcatraz in 1962. His current book documents every one of the 14 escape attempts. There's a really cool mystery about whether or not they successfully escaped or drowned. No one knows for sure and he loves to talk about whether or no they made it. He was glued to the screen watching the classic "Escape From Alcatraz" with Clint Eastwood. We also watched the Mythbusters video about whether or not it was plausible for them to have reached Angel Island. We even visited where the Mythbusters thought they would've landed if they didn't fight the tide to get to Angel Island. When he is interested in something, we try to expand that knowledge and encourage his passion for learning.
Who knows where it will go, but it sure is fun to watch him be interested in things that are so different. It has re-ignited my passion for learning too. We talk about ideas with him all the time. It's also fun to quiz him on the obscure facts that he's rattled off at one time or another. I even learned how to download/install a Minecraft project file so he could explore a Titanic model.
Here is the rainforest joke he told me today:
Where did the Harpy Eagle go when he broke his leg?
The emergent-cy room!
(Emergent is the top layer of the rainforest and where you'd find a Harpy Eagle. Yes, he had to explain this to me.) I love this kid!
