Electrical circuits, potato clocks and that old chestnut of socialisation

A few weeks ago Cameron asked me if we could buy some supplies for learning about electrical circuits and also asked for a specific kit - a potato clock - that he wanted to try out.

The circuit things arrived first. I just bought some really basic items to begin with - crocodile clips, bulbs and holders etc. As soon as they arrived Cameron dived straight in and began experimenting. He asked some fantastic questions and had a really great time, especially with trying out different household things in the circuit to see what conducts electricity.

The potato clock kit was very interesting. It arrived whilst someone was here visiting, and I was busy talking, so Cameron dived in by himself and set it up using the picture on the front rather than reading the instructions (not sure where he gets that habit from! *whistles innocently*). It worked straight away. He then tried it with apples, and later, with little cups of lemonade. We finally got around to reading the science behind it at the end.

Cameron has been busying himself a lot these last few days, not wanting much input from me. We've had a crazily busy couple of weeks and so I arranged for there to be hardly anything on the calendar this week because I could sense that there were a lot of ideas brimming in Cameron, waiting to be realised. There has been wood work, painting, gluing, colouring, newspaper making, reading, Christmas list research and writing (and typing, editing etc), action figure play, hama beading, and playing of his favourite Wii game - My Sims - desperately trying to get to star level 5!

We spent most of the summer setting up more things to do with other people and opening our social circles a bit after an outside influence had applied some pressure. Now we've discovered that actually, we prefer to spend most of our time in our own little world (aspie trait I guess). Not that we're hidden away when we do that, we are out in the woods, the library, on the train, at museums, home education groups etc. but not in such an intense way as we had ended up last week. I think we need to find a happy medium somewhere but for now we'll just keep plodding along and find out what works (for us, not for other people's expectations) by trial and error.