Epic Foam Explosion

Today's DIY Project - Create a Foam Explosion

Elephant Toothpaste Foam Explosion

We're doing the "Elephant Toothpaste"(kid friendly version) as demonstrated by Steve Spangler Science.

Ingredients:

• 4 oz Hydrogen Peroxide
• splash of dish soap
• desired food color (optional)
• Yeast solution (dry yeast + water)

In a disposable bottle we measured 4 oz of peroxide.  Chase then  mixed in the dish soap and food color before adding in the catalyst.  We used yeast for a kid friendly version.  Chase also wore safety glasses and this was done on our junk picnic table (it needs to be fixed).  Then, explosion!  Much more impressive than the old baking soda and vinegar volcano!  :D  This foamed up real fast and kept erupting.  He was quite impressed.

The project page has member projects and how to's for you to learn how.  Chase is posting up the video of his project now, which may take a while for it to load on DIY.org.  But here it is below:

HP Instant Ink

We've started up with HP Instant Ink to try to save money on our printing costs.  We have an HP Instant Ink compatible Printer, HP OfficeJet 3830 Series (affiliate link).  HP's program will save a lot of money on ink, since it charges per printed page, rather than amount/color of inks used.  And you get rollover pages, up to your plan amount.  We're starting off with the 300 page plan, which is normally $9.99, but we have a promo giving us a free month.  If you want a free month, you can sign up with our link - Instant Ink.  It grants us one month free and new enrollments also get the free month.  

It will send the ink before we run out, there are 3 different plans to fit your budget and you can change them any time.  $9.99 being the highest with 300 pages.  I probably won't be printing anywhere near that much, but I wanted to start with the higher plan while I have it for free.  Also, buying ink costs more than $10.  I'll write up a proper review after I've received it.  I plan to use my printer for both homeschool and professional art projects, like printing out my digital stamps and papers.  So, hopefully, I'll get some good use out of it.  The HP Connected website gives you a comprehensive record of your usage, so you can see how much you're using and adjust your plan accordingly.

Dual Challenge - DIY

This week's DIY, I have a double challenge set up for Chase.  Both of these should be pretty easy but as an extra bit of work, I want him to use the Storyboard Tool on PBS Learning Media to do the assignment portion, where he adds in his media, text, links and details with a bg and on a timeline style layout like a blog post.  It's similar to Glogster which he is already familiar with, but has a much cleaner design and an easy to use template for drag and drop and rearrangement of elements.  Actually, it's like a website builder.

I'm going to be having him use this for 'week in review' type of assignments.  Where he'll be adding what he has learned through out the week to his storyboard.  So I want him to practice with it so he is prepared.  I'll have to make one as well so he has an example to work from.  Do our own, homeschool so far story.

Real Math

I have gestational diabetes and have to keep track of my blood sugar levels.  Chase is, of course, aware of this, so it is something he can feel more a part of helping me keep myself in my goals.  I've created an assignment with my real data in it for him to plot on a graph, and calculate my averages and use reason to determine if my numbers are improving or getting worse or staying the same.

This assignment is still marked Private, as it does have more personal information in it.  But I wanted to share it here as it may be useful to others to either create their own lesson plan based off of it by customizing it, or do something similar with their own data that their student(s) can track.

I think real world information is more effective than random numbers from some questionnaire.  This is something he sees me checking every day.  I poke my fingers 4 times a day and send my numbers to my doctor every week.  So, he knows it is important and we have discussed carb counts of food and what is in my allowance and what foods still spike my numbers even though they are in my allowance.  So, he can help me be aware that my numbers are not as good as they were a month ago, closer to when I first started tracking.  I think I've been doing this for about 2 1/2 months now.  I have been slipping lately and allowing myself to get out of the range and eat foods I know will spike it.  Tonight, I had a banana mashed with peanut butter as my fruit side.  Bananas are really high, but since I had a low main course, I thought it would be okay.  Nope, it rocketed my numbers to 140.

So, here are my numbers and my graphs.  Check out the lesson "Blood Sugar Graph" on PBS Learning Media.  I think it is under the CCSS Math 4.MD.B - Represent and interpret data.

Top Hat Dude Storyboard

Overall, today was a great day of school.  He got a little behind on worksheets, but made up for it by doing his 'homework' (finishing anything he didn't complete before he is allowed on the computer) and doing an excellent job with everything else.

We did the PBS Learning Media lesson I made on the Pledge of Allegiance.  He followed directions and wrote down his notes and vocabulary and made his own conclusions at the end.  I'm pretty happy with how that lesson went and he liked using the website.  Found it easy to use and likes it more than other sites we've tried.

So, I used their Lesson tool to create an assignment for his DIY.org challenge for the week.  I chose storyboarding as his topic, as it falls in line with his school project.  He will need to know how to storyboard as he plans out his game.  It will also help him take notes and visualize the D&D sessions.

I had him do a practice storyboard for fun.  He made this little day in the life of type of story for one of his stick men characters, "Top Hat Dude".  Yes, that is his name and he is rather dapper.  He is a hero sporting a rather fancy top hat and has no super powers, just a good guy.  Without further ado...

Top Hat Dude by Chase C. 2016

These aren't posted on the website yet, but will be soon.  This is under the 'animation' category, though it is also under 'filmmaking'.  There seemed to be more things he is planning to do for his project under the animation challenges.  Perhaps he can animate his scenes next week.  :D

Tomorrow's agenda is some epic Bill Nye in the morning and D&D in the afternoon.  I have some flats to color for Kevin's inks and need to upload all my plans to PBS Learning Media before school starts.  I was up too late working on it last night.  :B

Character Portrait - Kai by Chase

Kai - Human Fighter

After computer lab and worksheets in the morning, we got to do a much more fun art class in the afternoon.  Chase got to design his character portrait for D&D.  We demonstrated how to use a stencil template that Kevin had made to speed up character sketches.  Then we measured out proportions of where all the facial features would be.  Kevin drew a few variances of character design using the same template.

My cell phone cannot handle the lighting.

Kevin demonstrating different characteristics added to same template.  The template was made from a plastic container, he cut it, ironed, cut out forms, sanded it smooth.  Originally from a peppermints bucket.

So, we had Chase start with some preliminary sketches until he was happy with his character.  Then he redrew that using the template, and inked it.  He's not really into coloring much, but we'll get him a program on his computer so he can color digitally if he likes.  

Five Day Lunch Plan!

I saw a brilliant idea to take the argument out of lunch.  Every day it is, "What do you want for lunch?" "What do we have?"  *list every item in the house* "I don't want that!"...  It gets so frustrating to make him pick a lunch and eat it too.  So, the solution?  Let's see if this works.  This is our first trial of it.

If I can find the link again, I'll share the original idea. (cannot find original blog, searched my history all the way to the 9th and it is just too much)  But it's pretty simple.  Chase will have a grocery budget, which he will plan his meals for school days for breakfast and lunches.  It must meet all the food group requirements and be within his week's budget.

He has made his list, and I must say, I'm pretty impressed by it.  He even has a dessert for the week, a pre-made cake!  lols!

We're a bit behind schedule for school today.  He took to long getting ready so lost his computer privileges for after school.  So, that sets his tone for the day.  Wah wah wah...  :B  Well, he cooperated writing his list after a bit of prodding.  Then, took too long with his busy work.  Now, he's taking an eon to have his lunch...  Sigh.

The afternoon plan was to do his RPG Maker VX Ace tutorial for the school project.  But it looks like we may not have time for it.  It was going to be some computer time for him as part of school.  Maybe tomorrow will see better behavior.  We have no time to dilly dally.  I have an ultrasound around 11 and he has to be all the ball for getting ready.  And Kevin wants to do gym class with him afterwards.  I suggested at the park.  We'll see how that goes.

*Update*  Ultrasound in the AM went very well.

Chase had just a half day's lessons, Gym class and daily worksheets.  He had reading time while he waited with Kevin at the Doctor's office.

But Wednesday, I've got a full lesson plan readied for him and made another for Thursday!  Wednesday will be an ELA assignment on Peacocks using this lesson plan shared on PBS Learning Media.

Using the same tool, I created my own lesson on the Pledge of Allegiance.  It even includes a crossword puzzle that was generated using their puzzle tool.  My lesson isn't shared publicly, when I'm ready to do that with materials that meet all community guidelines, I will share the public links here.  From there, teachers can "quick assign" to get a student link to track the answers and assign to their own students.  As I'm still learning these tools, I'm not ready to make public lessons.

D&D School Has Begun!

The first day of D&D homeschool sessions has begun.  The hardest part, character creation.  Chase's character is a human fighter named Kai.  We started with character rolls, using 4 six-sided dice and taking away the lowest.  The other three numbers are added up for your Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence and Wisdom stats.  Looking at the Player's Handbook, we check the recommended builds for Fighter class, Strength and Constitution being the most important traits.  Chase chose to put his highest roll into Constitution to give his character more fortitude in combat.

Each roll is given a modifier, for example +3 on the roll of 17 for Constitution checks.

He did all the math himself.  Adding and modifying, customizing his character.  Moving on, we have Inventory after rolling for gold.  Our DM gave us some basic items to start with, but we bought the rest of our items, weapons and armor with our currency.  The Player's Handbook has a guide for the cost of each item.  Some items are only silver or copper, so the conversion works like this:  1 gp = 10 sp, and 1 sp = 10 cp.  Chase only bought his weapons and armor, but I spent nearly every coin my rogue had on adventuring trinkets to fill her pack.

Choosing skills and feats is the most time consuming part.  For this sets your character's abilities and will affect game play as we go on our adventures.  All told, the complete character creation process and a little bit of intro narration to place us in our setting, this took approximately 3 hours.  And he wasn't bored for a single second of it.  He sat in rapt attention as he did basic math, came up with creative stories for his character's personality and background and had quite a lot of writing to do.  He hates writing, but this was not something he hated at all.

Besides his character sheet, he also has a notebook, where he will be keeping track of his numbers, writing in notes about our adventures and adding background story for himself and other characters we encounter.  We're going to use his notes when we work on his school project, to build his own Role Playing Game (RPG) via RPG Maker VX Ace.  The story and characters from our D&D sessions will be featured in our game.

Not sure how long this will take us or how much we can finish, but perhaps we'll release the game for free at the end of it.  We'll be following tutorials to begin with.  RPG Maker Web has enough posted to give us about 11 weeks worth of lessons.  He can also earn badges for his progress via DIY.org, they have several categories for game design, character creation, and table top gaming.

I may make resources for this game engine, releasing content for others to use.  He may be doing a lot of the pixel art characters, but I may work on portraits and tile sets.  He should have no difficulty with the character sprites.  He really enjoys that style of art and can do it with most basic programs.  I think we have GIMP 2 on his computer, which he can use to work on this.  Any support for this project is appreciated.  I will be releasing content here and exclusives on Patreon.  Some resources may be released in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

We didn't unroll the map yet, that will be revealed next Friday.  Kevin made the map via Pyromancers, and simplified the textures for ease on our printer.  He had to use a program to do poster printing so the pieces would print actual size as our game mat.  Each square in the grid is 1"x1".  Then, he added texture with a crayon and I helped taping map pages together.

He made the cover for his notebook.  And he'll be adding pages in the Table of Contents as we go, just like all his other subject interactive journals.  Hopefully, his handwriting will improve.  It is pretty rough and we struggle getting him to write in proper case with legible spacing.  He loathes writing, though he loves to read.

This summer, he read the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy after having read The Hobbit.  Currently, he is reading the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy 'trilogy'.  I think he just started book 3.  I believe I own all 5 books, 4 are in a collection along with the short story Young Zaphod Plays it Safe.  His reading is on a high school level, but his maturity is on a juvenile level.  So, finding appropriate books is becoming a challenge.  Suggestions are always welcomed.  Our limits are on sexually mature content and darker themes.  A bit of violence is okay, but not too graphic or cruel.

For our upcoming art class, we will work on character portraits.  We plan to also select and paint miniatures.  Kevin plans to make tokens, which he may release on Roll20's marketplace.  So, there will be a lot of focus around gaming day this year.  Kevin isn't currently working, so we can maintain this for a while.  Plans will need to be adjusted once he does get a job and the baby is born.  For now, there will be plenty of motivation to keep school interesting.  Besides being cool, it is something we are all doing together.

I don't think we will be streaming game play.  One, our camera isn't very good and our lighting is awful.  The whole ceiling fixture doesn't work.  Secondly, Twitch has rules about underage persons appearing in a stream.  Even though I think there would be plenty of interest in D&D homeschooling, I agree that children should not be on that site.  We could use YouTube, but for the same reasons, moderation, etc...  Finally, there is Skype for the Classroom, however, we kinda hate Skype and it's a terrible program.

Homeschool DIY

This year, I want to focus more on project based learning.  Found a great website, DIY.org that gave us a head start on that goal!  Chase is super enthusiastic about it, doing challenges on his free time.  We're on Day 2 of the school year and he already has 5 projects posted and is about to upload another.

Yesterday, for our first back to school day, we created gelli printed covers for his new notebooks.  I had him create his own foam roller stamp texture tool and demo'd how to use the gelli plate.  We bought the Student Kit which comes with 2 stencils and a brayer.

Gelli Arts Student Kit

I had a few different types of paper for him to try and Kevin's old craft paints.  He chose his colors and began rolling.

The project ran a little long as he had 5 notebooks to make.  Next time, we'll have to do something a bit smaller.  He started getting bored after the first hour!  hahaha, poor guy.  Art is boring!  So, he liked the change of pace by picking his layouts and gluing them to the faces of his notebooks.  Then he got to label them all.  I used his left over gelli prints for his two pocket folders, which we're using for daily worksheets and print outs as morning busy work.  This morning, he had a great attitude and I'm feeling pretty good about this school year.

Craft paper from a package filler, mini watercolor paper from his pad, and the purple stars in a printed cardstock from DCWV.  We also used tissue paper from my Spoonflower order, trying to reuse packaging.

Lunch's project was chocolate covered strawberries.  Well, they turned out to be a fail as the chocolate burned in the microwave.  But no worries, they still tasted great and the DIY site has a Chef Fails challenge!  Because we learn from our mistakes.  I think it was our bowl, actually, that thing got super hot.  But this is the first time we've used the new microwave for melting chocolate.

Today's DIY Challenge, I wanted to use up the scrap paper from the new printer, so I cut each sheet into quarters and pre-cut a cover, spine and back board for a mini note pad.  Of course there is a Bookbinding Badge to earn, found the challenge to match our project and sent him an e-mail with directions.  I did the straightening and clipping part for him and made sure his glue wasn't too bulky.  While the glue dried, we uploaded all his other projects and he did a quick Minecraft challenge.  Pixel art from blocks.  He made a Creeper house with TNT.

Here's the scratch notepad, which he is now busy filling up with doodles!

It has a target sight on it.

(for some reason, it dropped all the pictures in out of order and I really don't feel like fixing it)

Members can follow Chase's stream by adding him to their favorite creators.  All submissions, comments, etc are moderated before they go live on the site, very kid friendly/parent happy website.  So, not all of his current projects are publicly visible.

DIY/XtroyX0r

Tomorrow's project is D&D School with Daddy.  Kevin has an adventure school planned out, made a giant floor map, which he has a game mat to cover.  He's been taping all the pieces together and filling in the texture of the map with crayons.  Chase has wanted to play D&D with us since we had a small weekly online stream going last year.  So this has been in the works for a while.  Kevin has adjusted the rules a bit and simplified some numbers and attributes.  Of course, Chase already knows 3.5 pretty well, as he has read all of the Player Handbooks!  He loves strategy guides, reads them like they're stories.  He is a bit game obsessed.  

So, gaming is actually going to be a core focus of this school year.  Friday is D&D/board games.  Tuesday is game design using RPG Maker VX Ace and incorporating our D&D sessions into the story line of the game.  RPG Maker Web actually has a lot of great tutorials which we will be going through together as part of the curriculum.

Oh no, Kevin said he has no story yet, but he has a map!  hahaha, D&D is tomorrow!  lols.

Interactive Journal, Interactive Fun

Trying to take a fresh approach to school this year, one that Chase seems to enjoy.  We'll be trying to work more in his journals opposed to strictly worksheets.  Last year, it was such a struggle to get him to do his written assignments, I didn't have the energy to do the journaling.  Preparing them can be a lot of work.

Today, we worked on two journals, Math and Science.  For Math, I made a small project, Groups of Two and Groups of Three.  I drew everything to fit in the notebooks and he colored, grouped and then labeled them and glued each into the book.  Finally, I had him write an equation to represent how many groups of twos and threes there were to reinforce the multiplication concepts.

I plan to be making some TpT material out of this.  Maybe offer the pumpkins and baseballs as clipart.  I find the clipart on there to be lacking and want to flood the site with my own art.  Of course, many of my materials have sadly been lost to our external hard drive crash, which we have not yet been able to recover.  I may have to rescan some things if I managed to keep them.  Some I just used the 'hard copy' for Chase's journals last year.  Or it's been misplaced in my mess of art supplies.  I need shelves.  And drawers!  A roll cart!

For Science, we made a quick cover for the notebook, which he decorated.  I wrote in his vocabulary words: Entomologist, Arthropods, Invertebrate, Exoskeleton, and Antennae.  I'm planning a unit on insects!  He wrote in the meanings and drew a picture of an ant enlarged with a magnifying glass.  This is his field journal, so we might need to take it outside to do some investigating.  Chase is terrible at identifying bugs.  He hates them.  But any time he sees one, he shouts, "Bug!" without telling us if it's a spider or a fly or a moth, etc...

So, we've gotten internet on my art desk computer.  Yay!  So now I can upload directly from creation.  And once we upgrade a bit, then perhaps, live art sessions.  We need an adapter to switch out the current motherboard with another we have stashed in the closet.  Which will have a better power supply and perhaps even on board audio.  This computer cannot even run headphones.

Well, I need to get back to creating new TpT materials.

"Candids"

Chase loves to have me take 'candids' like in Big Nate.

"I Think I'm Starting to Like School"

Music to a homeschooling Mom's ears!  We've started a little unit on The Great Pyramids and the 7 Ancient Wonders of the World.  And Chase loved it.  I made a quickie 'Breakfast Board', where I looked up some facts about the Pyramids from DK Publishing's Eyewitness: Wonders of the World that we borrowed from the library on Tuesday.  Must say that I recommend this book, great information, colorful pictures and great to use for learning to use a reference.  It's not a huge book, so it is something he can easily look up the Index or in the Table of Contents to find the subject he wants.

After we read through it together, I had him get out his Social Studies journal where I'd added a title for the page.  I told him we were going to do doodle notes this year.  (Check out books like The Sketchnote Handbook that encourage you to turn intentional doodles into note taking)  I directed what he should draw and had him add in facts about it, then told him to go back and color the borders and fill in areas with different colors.  While he filled them in, I repeated what was written on the note so he was thinking about it.  He loved it!  (pictures shall be forthcoming)  The concept is that as you concentrate on illustrating the topic, you are programming the information into your brain further than just writing down the lines your teacher says.  The notes I had him make beside it with arrows and circling important bit, I let him write in his own words.

So, back to the term 'Breakfast Board'.  I found it via a post by Secular Homeschool on Pinterest, though the blog it shared is faith-based, it's a very good idea.  Basically, they use a poster board to fold pamphlet style and have the kids read over breakfast to review their day's assignments and to read factoids or do activities.  Since kids already like to read the cereal box so much, they will read whatever you sit in front of them at the breakfast table, great time to get some school preparedness in.

I've decided I'll be making it a bit more practical than a huge poster board.  I have several cereal boxes that I store cut up by my art table.  The ones I've not cut are perfect for this project.  I carefully open the box at the seams and trim off all the flaps.  So, now I have 4 sides, by flattening it so the two sides fold over the others like an envelope flap, I've made a pamphlet fold.  There are a few ways I can prepare my board, paper it, gesso it, cover it in decorative tape, etc...  I used a black vinyl cut off my bf has had for years from some factory that had excess vinyl rolls or something.  It's like a giant sticker.  But the best part is it actually works kind of like a dry erase board.  I have some neon markers just for this purpose.

I didn't do a very neat job of vinyling my board, it has bubbles and wrinkles and I was too lazy to try to peel it and redo.  But, I have more boxes, so if it is totally rekt, I can just make a new one!  On the back side, I had a protective sleeve that came in an order as a product sample from some school supply company.  It is a hard protective sleeve and the dry erase markers wipe right off.  So, in that, I slipped a daily page, which I write the date, our schedule and our spelling words for the week.  I'm thinking of adding pockets to the inside so I can have removable inserts that he can fill out and later add to his interactive journals.

I could make permanent attachments on the board, but I'd like to have interchangeable parts, so I can swap out the info on the board.  Having it entirely dry erase makes it more likely to get all smeared up.  One option I am thinking would be to use double sided tape or re-positional glue to add adornments.  Maybe laminating the pieces and velcroing them.  Anyways, I can make several boards and any that I just glued together, I can add new layers over.

I've considered possibly buying some metal spray paint and using my Freezer Frames as mini dry erase pockets.  They work great on a cookie sheet, but a cookie sheet doesn't stand up very well.  But I can slip in a new activity sheet or school subject for him to learn and use dry erase markers over it.  However, that may be spending too much money on these breakfast boards.  For now, I think I'll tack on some card stock pockets and slap on some print outs.  And of course, I'll be sharing whatever units I create to go with it!

Weekend Prep

Writing this using the new tablet.  It is a challenge to write like this.   Texting isn't really my thing.  I still plan to get a stylus.  But, man, this thing needs to learn its autofill a little better.  It doesn't guess the words until after I've already typed the whole thing.

I wanted to share some of the things I've worked on this weekend.  Must see how easy it is to post a blog here and share pictures....  Here goes.

Not everything I posted from the Blogger app uploaded here.  I think due to my ISP timing out.  I had gone into detail about the journals I made and there were two more pictures that didn't post.  I'll have to retry with that here, but from the computer now.  It is still hard for me to type all that on such a tiny keypad.  I am a clacky typer!  

Above is the Field Journal, which will be used for grocery and library trips and anywhere else we might go.  It is a mini journal with 3"x4" pages.  The perfect size for small print outs.  I may be making some custom ones.  I'll need to do a journal post soon.  I've made him such wonderful journals.  I got to introduce him to them all today and he is most excited about his "Wreck This Journal, Please" one.  Inspired by "Wreck This Journal", which he saw and wanted so badly, I had to make him one.

I halved a spiral notebook.  This was a long process of snipping the wire, then cutting through several pages at a time with an exacto knife.  My paper cutter would not handle such a task. and I would have had to look for the big cutter.  It might not do a nice job, since it was used on shingles.  I used a paper grocery bag for the cover and he wrote the letters which I inked in the colors of his choosing.  On the inside, I have been adding creative ways for him to begin wrecking!  I've told him he can write all over the paper bag surface.  Boy did his eyes light up!

 These pictures are all taken with our new NeuTab N7 7''.  It's great for the price.  An Android device.  A little on the slow side, but such an incentive for Chase.  He is super excited about using it.  He only needs two more hole punches on his reward tickets to earn his first scratcher ticket.  I've printed out about 30 of my scratch card designs.  I used the color ones with white bg.  The others would likely be too much for my poor printer to handle.  Those are more meant for digital layouts rather than printing pages.

Speaking of the scratch tickets, here's how I made them.  First batch I used just silver paint with the dish soap, which is really transparent and thin.  So, I added a dab of black and it covered beautifully.  Only took 2-3 coats.

Okay, first, I printed out my sheets on cardstock.  Then I cut up some white labels and wrote the prizes on each.  I Put one in each box and used packing tape to laminate.  If you laminate properly, then you should get long life out of your cards, to reuse after they've been scratched off to redo the scratch paint.

I mixed my paint, acrylic silver, a small amount of black, and a drop or two of dish soap.  Mix until fully incorporated.  You can use any color you like, I recommend metallic ones as they will be the coolest!  But for holidays, it might be fun to mix up some colorful ones.  Dry between each coat.  I used a blow drier to speed up the process.  I masked out my second batch, it made them neater, however, I had to peel the tape at an angle to not peel off the paint entirely.  The first batch, I used my JoAnn Teacher Appreciation card to straighten the sides by pressing against the edges.  Or, you can leave it just as sloppy as you painted it!  ;D

Then I cut them out and laid them out to dry overnight to ensure they don't all stick together.  The cards look great.  (why didn't I take a picture?)  They fit into an old crayon box perfectly.  I've explained the rewards system so he is eager to behave well and earn those tickets!  I can't wait for him to scratch one off as well.

Oh my, it is late!  Recap, first day of school was great.  He was super excited about the tablet and brownie party and rewards.  He loved his new journals (I'll post those up soon, they look wonderful).  He got a little bored doing worksheets and writing work (the most dreaded thing ever) but he still had a good attitude and I tried to keep him motivated.  I used ClassDojo to track his behavior on the tablet.  They have a handy app.  I'll let him edit his avatar so he can enjoy it more.

p.s. There might be something awesome happening on the 20th, but I cannot say yet.  It is a secret still.