Wednesday, March 23, 2011

A Month Of Honing Life Skills

It's a little early in the month to post a monthly snapshot post I know but March has been busy so far and I strongly feel the urge to not to do anything next week so here goes.

This month, he managed to see two projects to completion. Kiddo normally doesn't complete his multitude of project ideas as I may have mentioned before. I know it's all about the process. I tell myself that a lot. But you know it's nice to see some completion once in a while. Anyway, this month, he honed some of those life skills by learning how to sell something online through Craiglist and also how to create an online survey using Survey Monkey.

The Craiglist transaction was such a fun experience. Kiddo was given a new bicycle this month as he'd very obviously outgrown the last one. He decided that he'd sell his old bike and use the money to buy a book. I showed him how Craiglist works and he researched used bike prices, typed a short description of his bike and took photos. He posted the ad and waited eagerly to see if he'd get responses. There was one slightly creepy response which we ignored but it offered a good lesson on the importance of online safety. Hubby had meanwhile sent the ad's link to colleagues who have younger kids. One of them responded with an offer. Kiddo was over the moon! He negotiated the price a bit, sealed the deal and then proceeded to create a receipt based on some samples he researched online.

Last week, he cleaned and polished the bike till it looked almost new and hubby took care of the delivery. I've already posted about how he used his earnings here.

The survey project was to gauge public response towards the MetroPCS "Ranjit and Chad" commercials on TV. Kiddo watches these commercials not out of choice but because he can't bear to miss Jeopardy at 7pm on weekdays and that's one of the spots used for these ads. In his opinion, these commercials are extremely demeaning to Indians (South Asian Indian -- I really wish someone had corrected Columbus). He finds them offensive and racist and extremely silly. Mid February, he decided to do something about it. He wanted to write to MetroPCS to ask them to stop the commercials from being aired on national TV.

We weren't sure if simply writing a letter would be useful so he decided to poll people he knows and use any supportive info he received to "beef" up his letter. I helped him brainstorm questions for the survey and he created it (quite a painless process) and we sent it out to our homeschool group and other friends. He received 107 responses!

Enthusiasm dwindled for a while to follow up on the matter and then this week, with a little ahem, "gentle" nudging, he began using the free analysis tool that Survey Monkey offers to compose his letter. He's almost done. He still feels strongly enough about it to type it himself so I am not doing much other than helping him format his information for easier reading.

Other post-worthy activities this month:

New friends at new swimming class
  
Creating a simple electromagnet from spare materials and ideas on eHow
  
Lots of improvement in typing speed and independence for projects and online classes

A quick word about the new blog look. It's Spring and I really need to see some color on this blog and in other areas of life. The old header felt too plain. Hope the new one is pleasing to your eyes! :)


6 comments:

  1. I love the new look of your blog. I think I may need to add some color to mine too.

    It sounds like selling his bike was a great learning experience for your son. I love how learning can happen in many different ways. I think people often forget that.

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  2. Good on him! As you know, following through on things is something I'm trying to work with Billy on. He tends to give up as soon as anything becomes 'too hard'.

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  3. Oh and I love the new look of your blog!

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  4. Yeaayy...glad to hear you like the look! :)

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  5. HI Suji,
    I am happy to note all the wonderful things your kiddo is doing of late. And I hope you are a bit more relaxed now? And I love your latest blog look. It is simple and beautiful. I like the clutter-free look, the one i am having a hard time with both at home and online, LOL.

    Hope the weather is sparkling with spring freshness? We miss the wild flowers, greeneries and the smell of rain here. We are in summer now and cannot wait for the monsoons:-)

    Thank you for visiting my blog and commenting there, Suji. The feedback helps. I often feel like an overly-dressed woman at a simple gathering when it comes to blog make-overs, LOL.

    -Subadra

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  6. So glad to have you visit Subadra! Thank you! We are now done with rain (I hope! After one week + of it I've had enough, rain-lover though I am) and the skies are such a beautiful blue these past 2 days. Butterflies and birds everywhere...it's a promising spring and bringing with it tons of cheerful spirits. :) Isn't it funny how much the weather affects us? Wishing you and yours a happy, healthy summer. Hope it cools down for you soon!

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