Ideas for challenging Jonathan more!

I've been meaning to get the kids involved in this blog for weeks now, and I think this is one very good idea especially for Jonathan! Each week they list several items to give your kids along with instructions on what to do, and then we get pictures and/or video and send it in. Then they show the pictures and videos a few days later. I have somewhat kept up with it and have shown it to my kids, but we haven't actually done any of the challenges yet. So I am going to make a point to do these each week. Most of the items are things we already have on hand, so it should be cheap or free and tons of fun! I'll try to post their results here each week along with a button to the blog.

Other things I have come up with today (some before) are Legos, Lego Club and possibly a Lego Mindstorms (robotics) club! He is interested in robotics, but I'm not sure if we're ready to fork out $250 that we don't really have, so we'll take it slowly and see how serious he is about it. On a similar note though he is also interested in computer programming and/or making games. He has asked about this before. He wants to make a web site (so he also wants to learn HTML) for his comic characters (he has probably 30 or so now!!!) and make some games for his site. He also is interested in making computer programs for a robot. I can teach him some basic HTML to build a web site, but I don't know very much at all about that other stuff, so I guess we'll learn together! It should be great fun!

He also really likes taking pictures and video and has always been good with a computer, so I would eventually like to get him his own camera and laptop. But Myles wants a laptop for himself first. :)

So we've got so far:

1. Legos and other similar type things (K'nex, various blocks, etc.)
2. Lego Club with the homeschool group
3. Lego Mindstorms Club (possibly)
4. computer programming
5. HTML for his own web site
6. comic books
7. photography/videography
8. Think! blog (and other similar challenges, probably random)
9. Possibly some how-to videos from the library for guitar and piano
10. I want to get him involved in a more challenging homeschool group focusing more on hands-on activities, possibly for gifted (but not necessarily tested) children.
    

So can anyone help me come up with other ideas like these that I have not thought of yet?

I've got ideas for the other kids too, but Jonathan is really needing the extra mental challenge right now, so I need to get him going on some things first. :)

Without any formal training in spelling, grammar or handwriting, Jonathan is working on his first "official" comic book. (He has written a story before, but this one is comic book form with lots of pictures and bubbles, etc.) Super-heroes are his passion in life, apparently, that and animals of all kinds (we caught a snake today, in fact). He has created over 20 super heroes and villains. Some are still being developed and some he created a couple of years ago.

So just now, Jonathan got a quick lesson in writing. Daddy was reading his comic book and just *had* to correct him. There really weren't that many errors, but he spelled two words wrong ('arownd' and 'thru'....they look right, at least!) and was hyphenating words incorrectly. We didn't mention the misspelled words. In about 2 minutes though (maybe less), he learned about syllables and hyphenating and correctly hyphenated about 5 words! He's a quick learner, especially since we didn't push it on him but waited until he was ready! Now it will stick, and he doesn't feel horrible for doing it wrong! :)