Joseph loves the surprise I had waiting for him when he came home from school.
I told him to take off and put away his shoes when we got home. “Dad, why is there a Super Nintendo where my shoes go?” The setup worked to make a fun discovery.
SNES Classic Edition Read Post »
So as some of you might know I’ve been working on building a shed that I planned to insulate and use as an office. After several weekends of work it’s completed and I’ve moved my office out to it.
Here is my favorite shot which Sarah dubs it a Man-Cave:
The three monitors are great for school work or gaming. The TV is great for me or when Joseph is hanging out with me. In this case he was watching a video of someone playing Twilight Princess while I was working on stuff.
It’s also useful for storage:
Think of that as like a bunk used for storage.
There is also an area that’s going to have a future piece of foam for a couch/emergency guest overflow sleeping area.
Joseph liked hanging out there while I wrote this. I also have all my random computer parts stored nicely.
Here are a few “in progress” pictures for the project:
I used Rock Wool insulation. It’s a bit higher R value than the pink stuff and it’s wonderful to work with in comparison. It’s also fire resistant and offers so sound insulation. It’s pretty tough to hear outside of the shed.
This was after I covered the insulation with 1/4 ply wood and built my shelving. I debated using drywall but I like the wood everywhere. It’s tough to damage and I just like the look.
This was a picture after being built. The only addition being some steps and a small window AC is now connected. I have a standard door with deadbolt to help make it more secure and provide a better seal against the elements. The outside of the building matches the siding and roof of my house, which made it easy to get HOA approval.
Office Shed Completed Read Post »
So Joseph discovered Minecraft and wanted to play it. I ended up going with Minetest a free, open source near-infinite-world block sandbox game and a game engine, inspired by InfiniMiner, Minecraft, and the like. It has clients for Ubuntu, Android and several other platforms. He has loved having me go on adventures and build stuff with him. The other day we hit a bug and his character sunk a good couple hundred feet down in the game. I dug down to help rescue him and then I hit the same bug to go deeper past lava and stuff. It was pretty hilarious. I was digging what seemed like forever to get us out. I had no clue the game could go so deep. When they say near-infinite, they mean it.
Here is a picture of the castle we built and it’s surroundings. Click on the image to see the full sized version.
Minetest time with Joseph Read Post »
Joseph continually surprises us with his reading ability today head to me “Batman: Reptile Rampage.” Which is level 2 in the “I Can Read!” series but level 3 in the ATOS book level. He also read to me “Henry and Mudge and Mrs. Hopper’s House.” Which is also level 2 in the “I Can Read!” series but level 2.8 in the ATOS book level. I prefer to use AR level as a guide as I find it a better guide to compare against different books. This is pretty amazing to us because Joseph won’t enter Pre-K until next year.
Some of the things that I think have helped Joseph with his reading are:
At any rate, I thought I’d just share with others what worked with my family for encouraging my son to read. I hope this is helpful to someone else.
Joseph and reading Read Post »
