He Thinks He's A Tiger

My husband and I found quite a sight when we woke up this morning...

...I've since then re-hidden all the Sharpies.

He promises me he only wants to be a tiger until the day after tomorrow...

Mail from...Oklahoma

I've talked a lot about creating lessons from the random things my kids sometimes happen to be interested in.  (see motorcycle sidecar racing and underwater worlds for examples).  This week we put a little twist on that theme-this time it was something random that I happened to be interested in.

It started while I was reading  Into the West: The Story of It's People.  The book's not that great, but it did talk a little bit about the Oklahoma Land Grab and that piqued my interest.

I found some great information on the Oklahoma Historical Society website and this clip from the movie "Far and Away."  (I ended up checking this movie out at our library-not for the kids, of course-and really enjoyed watching it.)

Source: youtube.com via Michelle on Pinterest

After talking about the Native Americans in Oklahoma, and a little bit about homesteading, I helped my boys participate in their own land grab.  They had to decide what to take with them...

Clothes, toys, books, and snacks.

I wanted them to think carefully about what they'd need in the wilderness, but when I turned around they'd emptied their entire dressers into their sleds and filled their shoes with nuts.  It was a good time to just smile and let them be.

Next they had to think about their mode of transportation...one sled has a string on it, so that worked perfectly.  We had to transfer supplies from the second sled into something a little more manageable...

I put 6 land "markers" in the yard...

...and then it was a race to see who could collect the most "land"...

My teenage neighbor came out at about the time as this video and looked at us very strangely.  It's like he's never seen kids running around with sleds and coolers full of clothes and snacks before...

My kids loved the running around part of this lesson, 

and it was so rewarding to share with them something that was intriguing to me.  

What was the last spontaneous lesson

 you and your kids shared?

You thought I forgot, didn't you?

The Oklahoma state bird is the Scissor-tailed Fly Catcher.

I'll bet you've never seen one of those!

You Want to Know What?

Today's Teaching Your Children Joy focus is on asking and answering questions.  Specifically, listening and being available for all the questions your child is going to ask you throughout the day.

When I'm doing this, paying attention that is, I'm really really good at answering Beck and Peyton's questions.  That's how we ended up studying and learning about motorcycle sidecar racing.  I like to take their questions and interest-of-the-day and find activities and learning opportunities.  The days when I'm not doing it-when I'm preoccupied with cleaning (or shopping or the radio or the computer or a book or just myself) are always the days when I let myself be annoyed and the kids get bored, having taken my cues perfectly.

I'm trying harder each day to listen to the questions my kids are asking me.  Step into my world today:

"Mama, how are seals and walruses the same?"  
"Where do they live?"
 "Can I go see them?" 
 "And what about polar bears?" 
 "Why do they swim in cold water?" 
 "Can't they swim in warm water?"
"Do hospitals use red and white?" 
"So, then, that helicopter is going to the hospital?"
"Can I have strawberries?" 
"Can I have the mango things in the freezer?" 
 "Can I have a banana?" 
"Can I have a graham cracker?"
"When is Daddy coming home?" 
"Does he know I miss him?"


And finally,

"What are capers?"  I needed them for a recipe, but then decided not to buy them when I saw the price.  Two aisles further through the store Beck was picking up everything at eye level asking, "Is this capers?"  After explaining that he was holding jalapenos or salsa or tuna fish, I realized I needed to take him back to the aisle with capers and introduce them to him.

It was inconvenient.  I was a little annoyed.  But it was an important moment where I could choose to be a grumpy lady shopping with a boy or I could be my son's mom, teaching him something he wanted to know. We're having capers tonight for dinner.

What questions did you answer for your kids today?

1st of the Mental Joys: Interest & Curiosity

I'm here!  

Wow, what a struggle it has been to get re-motivated after the holidays!

Over Christmas break, Beck and I finished up the Earth chapter of Teaching Your Children Joy.  That also finished up the focus on Physical Joys.  We're moving now into the Mental Joys, beginning with Interest and Curiosity.

Kids are, of course, incredibly curious about the world around them.  The activities in this chapter help us to continue encouraging that in them, but also to teach them that they have the ability to magnify their interest and curiosity into creative and intelligent activities and accomplishments.

It has me reflecting back to the first focus my kids and I worked on with this blog: Spontaneity.    Today's activity helped me do that as well.  Here is the activity, and then how it's worked for me...

Watch your kids from afar.  What are they watching?  Watch that.  

Resist the urge to pull them out of their world.

First off, I'm 100% guilty of the latter part.  Over and over I will be aware that Beck is creating some imaginary story with the toys he is playing with, but I see a dirty sock on the floor beside him and insist that he pick it up.  Or he and Peyton will finally be playing together nicely, but I'm getting antsy and decide to load them in the car for a pointless day of errands or shopping to satisfy my own need for mind-numbing.  I interrupt their world of fun and creativity with my impatience and boredom.  

Sitting back and watching was a hard hard thing but absolutely worth it!  At McDonald's I let Peyton take FOREVER eating because in between bites and chewing he was watching every single person that walked by.  He saw the lights and the paintings on the wall.  He saw what was happening outside.

I finally figured out why my bathroom is always soaking wet, too!  Beck and Peyton have discovered the sink drain also fits onto the faucet.  It cracks them up to see it spraying.

After a day of watching and observing, the activity wore off on me.  In the morning Beck and Peyton were pretending a blanket was a boat on the open sea.  I remembered we had some sea-theme stickers and so for school I pulled them out for Beck to make a picture.  While I was still watching instead of interjecting, my son became a poet...

and then an author/illustrator...

Try it and find out what you've been missing!

The Week Before Christmas

I love all the pre-k packs available online and this week we're taking a break from regular workbooks to do the Christmas pack from Living Life Intentionally.   Go check it out!

I have a Teaching Your Children Joy activity lined up, but right now I'm watching Beck pretend he's a doctor and his stuffed lizards are in the hospital with broken tails and are being brave to get their "pokes."  I think I'll just leave him be...

The machine that puts a cast on Baby Iguana's broken neck

Fixing Lizard's broken tail

A tough recovery for Turtle

Playing in the Sand

I took Beck and Peyton to the dinosaur museum today.  We were there for 4 hours and Beck still was certain there were bones he didn't get to see.  We crawled through caves, walked through a universe of stars, listened to  prehistoric birds and got a little dirty.  It was a great way to spend the day!

Building a triceratops

Washing the dinosaurs

Beck's dinosaur habitat

 One of this week's Teaching Your Children Joy activities is to get dirty playing in the sand.  I really wasn't looking forward to bringing the sandbox indoors, so this worked out perfectly!  Between the water and sand basin from above, and the fossil sandpits below, my boys used their imaginations to the extreme.  Beck made up a whole make-believe play where he got to be the paleontologist.

Brushing (or throwing) sand away from fossils

How cute are these boys playing together?

Paleontologist Beck working studiously

No School On the Weekends-Family Play Time

Finally, the last Teaching Your Children Joy activity focusing on the body and it's a fun one!

Family Play Time and Recreation

Come up with a way for everyone in your family to have input and initiative on family activities.

Maybe it's slips of paper in a jar.

Or a poster on the wall.

Or dry-erase markers on the refrigerator.

Or a rotating schedule every Monday evening.

Whatever it is, make sure everybody's involved and no idea is too outrageous.

Have fun together, run around together, lose your breath, and laugh together.

Now tell me, how are you going to start doing this today?

Treat Your Body Like A...Car (Preschool Comparison Activity)

It's our last week of activities for the Joy of the Body chapter in Teaching Your Children Joy.  I have to admit I'm kind of ready for this section to come to an end.  A lot of the activities were things B had done before and we both struggled to be interested with quite a few of them.  Having said that, however, today we had a lot of fun.  I got an unusual burst of motivation and creativity and came up with this...

Today's and tomorrow's activities focus on taking good care of our bodies and today we did that by comparing our bodies to a car.  Rather than just talking about it, I found images for each of the ideas written in the book.

First we looked at a clean car and a dirty car...

  

Then we compared them to a healthy body and an unhealthy body...

  

I used these outlines for the base of the poster...

    

To compare cars and the body, we looked first at what a car needs for each of the categories below, and then figured out what that would be for a human person. I had printed these images for B to glue on the appropriate side of his chart...

Good Food

A car needs gasoline, a person needs fruits and vegetables.

  

Washing the Outside

 

A car goes to a carwash, and a person takes a bath.

Washing the Inside

 

We vacuum to keep the inside of the car clean and brush our teeth to keep our mouths clean.

Keeps Things Running Well

  We take a car to the mechanic for repairs and take ourselves to a doctor when we are sick.

Rest & Sleep

The car rests in the garage at night.  Our bodies rest while we are sleeping.

B cut out the pictures, we talked about what they represented, and then he glued them on his poster (with a lot of being silly and trying to trick me by pretending to put everything on it's opposite side). 

 Most important thing? 
 To both have a fun time learning!

My Kids Think I'm Crazy

There is a scene in the movie About A Boy where Hugh Grant's character is singing onstage in front of an entire grade school, so lost in the moment that he has no idea he's completely making a fool of himself.

Click image to watch this video on YouTube

That happened to me today...

If you'll remember, a couple weeks ago I tried to get my kids and their friends to dance with me for our Teaching Your Children Joy activity and they were not having it.  Today's activity was to create a "body band" by exploring all the ways our bodies can make music.  Listening to our kid music station on Pandora, Beck, Peyton, and I were laughing while we clapped, snapped, clicked our tongues, and stomped our feet along to the beats.

Then, without knowing I was doing it, I got up off the couch and started dancing.  Not just moving my feet and shaking my bum, but full on joyful amateur ballerina dancing.  It was almost the length of an entire song before I realized the boys had become quiet and still.  They were just staring at me...confused and worried looks painted across their faces.

I bowed out quickly.  Because I'm not a dancer, and yet there I'd been lost in the moment and learning my own lesson that we can find joy in the unexpected abilities of our bodies.  

Education Mirroring Life

We did do a full school session today-math, letters, cut and paste; the first time this week...but then Beck asked if we could learn about motorcycle sidecars for school.  Resisting all my natural instincts to squash his joy and excitement, I cautiously said yes and then got to work figuring out how this lesson would come together.

You see, he got this new toy at our local thrift store today.   We made an agreement that he could have it if he didn't "be mean to Peyton" the whole time we were there.  He was the quietest boy he's ever been!  As soon as we'd paid for it, the whole story changed; his imagination for sidecars has not taken a moment's break!

For the lesson we talked a little bit about how the sidecar changes a solo motorcycle.  For example, 3 wheels instead of 2 and easier to balance but harder to steer.  Find a lot of great information here.

We loved these unique sidecars...

After looking around online, I discovered the sport of Motorcycle Sidecar Racing.  Absolutely insane!  Yet the first thing Beck told his dad about it was that our whole family was going to get motorcycle sidecars and then do motorcycle sidecar racing!!!

The great news is the sidecar race circuit comes to our local racetrack.  The bad news is we just missed the races and won't be able to see them here for another year.  Beck says that will be plenty of time to practice.  I guess I hope I get to be the driver...

Today's Teaching Your Children Joy activity:

Create an obstacle course and practice balancing, climbing, & flexibility

Veering Away From the Lesson

I never want to be that blogger who portrays life as one peachy world where everything goes as planned and nothing ever goes awry.  And to give you a perfect example of that, I'll tell you that today's Teaching Your Children Joy activity was met with absolutely no enthusiasm by my boys or the friends they had over.  None.  At all.

We were supposed to listen to different styles of music and encourage expressive dancing and movement based on what we were hearing.  I found the CD channels on my tv and gathered them all in to our small living room.  They pretended to care for about the first 15 seconds.  Then they were all bumping into each other and complaining that the song was boring.  Beck insisted he could be a car that was dancing and started running all over "vroom-ing" loudly.  He knocked Peyton over.  Peyton started crying.  The younger of our two friends disappeared into the bedroom to find more toys.  The older friend stood staring at me like I was crazy.

Today nobody in my house wanted to be dancing.  This is what they did want to be doing...

 

And so that is what we did.