Happy Easter and Happy Spring.
February 21, 2013
Story: Lego Boy
Since I don’t have a column to share with you this week, I thought I would share one of the silly stories I made up for my son one night during our nightly storytelling ritual. If you want to start a storytelling ritual with your children, please see The Storytelling Advocate for a list of resources.
Storytelling tip: Pick something that your children are interested in, and make it the main character or setting for a story. This story was inspired by my boys’ nascent interest in building, especially with Legos. In it, I also tried to touch on something that my son had been dealing with recently: his frustrations when he couldn’t do something the way he wanted to. I wanted him to know that set-backs are part of building and creating, and part of life!
Lego Boy by Shelli Bond Pabis
Once there was a little Lego boy who lived in a big, Lego city. The city was built by two brothers, and it was sitting up on a table in their room where they always left it.
At night, while the brothers slept, Lego boy would wake up and explore his city and play with his Lego cat.
“I think,” the Lego boy said to his cat, “I could build this city even better!” And he went about rearranging the Lego pieces. He built himself a nice, cozy room for him and his cat to sleep in during the day.
But that night when he woke up, two walls of his room were gone, and he had to put them all back. He also built himself a bed and a chair for him and his cat.
The next night, he was happy to wake up and find that his room was just like he had left it, but there was another place in the city – his other favorite place – that was gone! It was the park where he liked to go with this cat, sit on a bench and look out the window at the moon.
So that night he worked hard to remove all the blocks that had been put right in the middle of his park, and he found the flowers and put them back. He built a bench, and he and his cat had just enough time to sit there awhile and watch the sunrise out of the window before the two little boys woke up.
The next night was Lego boy’s happiest night because when he woke up, he found that nothing had been changed in Lego city. The two little boys must have been busy doing other things that day. So Lego boy and Lego cat sat on the bench in the park and gazed at the moon all night. Just as the sun was rising, they hurried back to their room and went to sleep.
When they woke up that night, however, Lego Boy was heartbroken to see that his room was gone. Everything had been changed! “It’s going to take me all night to fix it again!”
He was very frustrated. “There must be something I can do. Something I haven’t thought of before.”
Lego Boy thought and thought and then realized he would have to go on a journey. He’d search outside the city. He and Lego cat left the city and walked to the edge of the table. He looked out into the room. The two brothers were sleeping peacefully in their beds. He also saw a shelf across the room. On it there were paints, paint brushes, paper, scissors, and…..the answer to his dreams! GLUE!
With the help of Lego Cat, Lego Boy made it across the room, climbed the shelf and got the glue. When they pushed it off the shelf, it made a soft thud on the carpet, and one of the boys turned over in his sleep! Lego Boy and Lego Cat held their breath! Luckily, the boys didn’t wake up.
When they got back to Lego City, Lego Boy collected the pieces he needed to build his walls again, but this time, as he was building them, he poured glue between the pieces. It oozed out as he snapped the pieces together, and he smiled in satisfaction.
It took him all night to build his room again, and right at sunrise, he couldn’t even make it back to his bed! He fell right to sleep on his doorway!
The next day, the little boys were busy doing other things and didn’t notice the glue bottle sitting inside Lego City. But their mother came into their room that afternoon to put laundry away. She noticed it, and she frowned as she tried to pull Lego Boy’s walls apart – they wouldn’t budge.
She called the boys into their room and showed them the glue. “You need to take care of your toys!” She scolded them. “I’m not buying you new Legos if you are going to glue them all together!”
“We didn’t glue them together,” the boys cried. But, of course, the mother didn’t believe them.
When Lego Boy woke up that night, he didn’t know anything about the scolding that the two boys got. He was just very happy to see that the walls to his room were still there, and, in fact, while Lego City got changed around quite a bit over the years, his room always stayed right where he glued it.
***
I apologize in advance if this gives your children the idea to glue their Legos together. 
Remember: Please respect copyright laws. While I’m happy for any parent or teacher to borrow this story, I hope no one is stealing it for other purposes. Don’t plagiarize.
December 25, 2012
Merry Christmas and My Gift to You
Merry Christmas. Wherever you are, or whatever you are celebrating today, I hope you are warm, healthy, and well-loved.
And now is as good of a time as any to start what I hope will be a new tradition on this blog….my sharing stories with you. I’ve been thinking about it for awhile, and I don’t know if you will care to read the stories I tell my son in the evenings, but every once in a while I happen to tell a good one - not a perfect story or publishable story but a story that I like - and I’m hoping that by sharing a few with you, you might be encouraged to tell stories to your own children. Unfortunately, it’s not the same when I write them down as when I tell them off the top of my head. Clearly I am editing and polishing as I write, adding a detail that makes more sense, or eliminating the pauses, the “oh wait…I forgot to say,” and the “uuuummmms.” And I never remember it exactly as I told it even though I try to type it right after the telling.
I told the story below to my six-year-old the night before Christmas Eve, and I surprised myself with it because it came so effortlessly, although I had no idea how it would end when I started it! That doesn’t always happen!
You don’t have to tell a perfect story to your children. You are not trying to get published. Anything you have to say, anything you make up that is for them and only them will be treasured by your children. And the more you tell, the better you’ll get at it. I hope you’ll start a ritual tonight. If you want, borrow my story or part of it. Whatever you do, trust yourself that you know how to tell stories.
A Christmas Story by Shelli Bond Pabis
Once upon a time there were some children who lived with an old man and woman. The children weren’t siblings, and they didn’t have any parents, which is why the old man and woman were taking care of them.
Christmas was coming, and the old man and woman didn’t have much money. The children each had something they were wishing for though.
The first little girl wanted a doll she had seen in a store window. It was a fabulous doll with shiny, blond hair, blue eyes and a beautiful dress. She wanted it more than anything in the world.
The little boy was hoping to get a book he had seen in a shop. It was a book of adventure stories! He loved adventure stories, and he wanted to read all the stories in this big book.
The last little girl wanted a puppy more than anything else. Unfortunately, the old man and woman didn’t have enough money to buy a puppy, and they had even less time to take care of one!
When Christmas arrived, the children were excited and had great hopes that morning! The first little girl found one package under the tree, but when she opened it, she didn’t find a doll. Instead, there was some pretty cloth and blue yarn. Blue was her favorite color. She was very disappointed, but she was a good little girl, so all she said was “thank you.”
The little boy noticed there was something in his stocking! It felt like a book! But when he reached inside, he found a crisp new notebook, and nice new pen. He was very disappointed, but he was a good little boy, so all he said was “thank you.”
The last little girl found her present under the tree. It was a little box, so she knew a puppy wasn’t inside. She very disappointed, and when she opened it, she found it was full of seeds! Seeds?! But she was a good little girl, so all she said was “thank you.”
The boy took his pen and notebook to his room and stashed them under his bed, and then he forgot about them and went outside to play. The little girl with the seeds took them to her room and placed them on her dresser because there wasn’t much she could do with seeds in the winter.
The old woman told the first little girl that they would make her a new dress with the pretty cloth because the little girl really needed a new dress. Together they worked on it in the evenings, and girl learned a lot about sewing. When it was finished, she did love the new dress, especially since her old one was looking very drab. There was some cloth left over, and the old woman said perhaps they could also make something else.
“There’s not enough cloth here for another dress,” the little girl said.
“But there’s enough for a doll’s dress,” the old woman said.
The little girl’s eyes brightened, and together the old woman and she worked on making a doll! They used the leftover cloth and yarn and some scraps from the old’s woman’s sewing basket. When they were finished, the little girl thought this doll was even better than the one she had seen in the store window! She was very happy!
Meanwhile, the little boy had been playing and pretending outside in the snow! He came up with all kinds of adventures, and sometimes he played with some neighbor boys down the road. One night after a full day and some grand adventures, he went to his room to rest, and he saw something poking out from under his bed. It was the notebook and pen.
‘I should write down what I did today,’ he thought. So he did. He wrote all about the adventure, and it was fun! Then he began to write down all the adventure stories that he came up with in his head. By the time spring came, he had filled his notebook, and when he read it over, he thought his stories were quite good! He let his friends read the stories, and they laughed and had fun remembering their adventures that winter. The boy was very happy, and he continued to write stories and share them for the rest of his life!
Finally when the frost had past, the last little girl took her seeds to the back of the yard and found a sunny place to plant them. She didn’t know what they were, and she wondered what they would grow into, so she took good care of them. She watered them, weeded the bed and fertilized them. They grew into tall bright pink and red flowers! They were quite beautiful, and she was proud that she had managed to grow them!
There was a farm next door with some animals, and that spring, the farm dog had a litter of puppies. When they got big enough, one of the puppies started to explore the yard, and he saw something bright red and pink that he wanted to investigate! When he found the flowers, he also found the little girl, and she was delighted with the puppy. He licked her face, and she carried him to the old man and woman.
“I think our neighbor’s dog just had some puppies. Let’s go see if this puppy belongs to him.” They put the puppy in a little cart and walked over to the next farm.
Sure enough, the puppy belonged to the farmer who could clearly see that the little girl was already in love the dog.
“I was going to take this litter of puppies to town to see if I could sell them, but it looks like this one has already found a home.”
“Really?” the little girl asked.
“If you can prove to me that you can take good care of him, I’ll let you have him.”
“I’ll take good care of him! I promise,” she said.
The old man agreed. He told the farmer how the little girl had planted her seeds, watered and tended them and helped them grow. “I think she’ll make a good mother to this little puppy.”
“In that case, he’s yours,” said the farmer.
The little girl was very happy!
Tell me some of your favorite Christmas tales!
December 6, 2012
Letters to Santa
{Addresses for Santa Claus to receive a reply}
This column was printed in the Barrow Journal on December 5, 2012.
I’ve created a tradition of having my six-year-old write a letter to Santa every November, and he loves doing this. He definitely wants Santa to know what he’s wishing for.
My son doesn’t know it, but I use the opportunity to let him practice his handwriting and learn about letter writing. Usually I let him dictate what he wants to say, and I write it down, and then I have him copy it in his handwriting, or either I call out how to spell the words like I did with the one above. I also have him watch me address the envelope and fill in a return address.
I addressed our letter simply to “Santa Claus, North Pole,” and the year before last, I stealthily stashed a postage stamp into the envelope without my son noticing. We got a reply back from Santa before Christmas that year, and since I remembered to do it again this year, I hope we get another reply.
I haven’t tried it, but according to The Christmas Almanac (published 2003 by Welcome Books), you can guarantee a response by secretly enclosing your own “reply from Santa” and sending it to Santa c/o Det. 2, 11th WS, Eilson AFB, Alaska, 99702. Elves working for the Air Force Weather Squadron will turn the mail around so that your child receives the reply. Be sure to send your letter before Dec. 10th in order to get a reply back before Christmas.
The Christmas Almanac also gives an alternate address, and you’re supposed to receive an authentic North Pole postmark if you send a self-address stamped envelope to Postmaster, Attn: Steve Cornelius, North Pole Branch U.S. Post Office, 325 Santa Claus Lane, North Pole, Alaska 99705-9998.
In “Letters to Santa full of chuckles, but also tears” on TODAY via NBCNEWS.com, I read that the U.S. Postal Service receives hundreds of thousands of letters to Santa each year, with increases during tough economic times.
The article describes the research done by Carole Slotterback, a psychology professor who wrote the book, “The Psychology of Santa.” She analyzed approximately 1,200 letters sent to Santa between 1998 and 2003.
“From the humorous to the heart-wrenching, children’s wish lists to Santa reveal that children aren’t as toy-centric as parents think,” the article states.
This doesn’t surprise me. Children can be amazingly selfless when they want to be, especially when they have dealt with hardship in their life. I’d wager that children who are a little selfish actually have a good life at home with parents who love them unconditionally.
Slotterback said that one child asked to be an elf, another said “NO CLOTHES,” and another asked for a mom. What did my child ask for? A rocket. Then he was concerned because he couldn’t think of anything else to ask for. Yep. That’s a child who has a good life.
The article also said that children weren’t always as polite as they should be. “You’d think if you were asking for a lot of presents, you would throw in a ‘please’ or a ‘thank you,’” she said.
Uh oh. I opened my photo program and looked at the picture I took of my son’s letter. Ah, shucks! I forgot to have him write, “thank you.” Oh well. (I did tell him it was polite to start a letter wishing a person well.) I guess even mamas need a reminder to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ sometimes.
***
Do you let your children write letters to Santa Claus? Do you do Santa Claus at your house? I know many parents don’t like to lie to their children about Santa, and I tend to agree, but after much thought, I have decided to let my children believe in Santa Claus. It’s a treasured memory of mine from my childhood, and I feel no resentment toward my parents for lying to me about it. In fact, I think I’d be angry with my parents now, if they had not done it! What is your take on this debate?
November 22, 2012
Happy Thanksgiving
{Thanksgiving Wreath}
Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends!
We’re having a cozy Thanksgiving at home this year, and the only true activity we did besides cooking, eating, and reading our Thanksgiving books was make this autumn wreath out of cotton, natural items from our yard and natural items that my son’s cousin sent him last year from his yard in Colorado (a very cool X-mas present)! My son arranged these on some cardboard I cut in shape of a wreath and glued them down himself with a hot glue gun. (This idea and the cotton was courtesy of Dotty at the William Harris Homestead - thanks, Dotty!)
For more autumn and Thanksgiving activities to do with young children, you can read the post I wrote last year: November & Thanksgiving Activities With Small Children. If you have any activities you want to share, feel free to post a link in the comments section.
Whether you celebrate Thanksgiving or not, I want you to know how thankful I am that you have taken the time to read my blog. I hope you are warm, safe, loved and happy.
November 12, 2012
Creating New Family Traditions
Note: This column first appeared in the Barrow Journal on Wednesday, November 23, 2011 (you can view it online here), and shortly after, appeared on my blog. I’m re-posting it now because we’re entering the holiday season again, which can be stressful for many, including me. It’s important to think about what you want for your family at this season, and I hope this inspires you. Please leave me a comment and tell me about your favorite family traditions.
There’s a time when old traditions need to die, a time for new traditions, and a time when old traditions can be reborn with new meaning.
In years past, I have always felt a little lonely during the holidays. I wished I had a big, happy family that didn’t live so far apart, so we could all come together and eat a lot of food, play games, and exchange stories.
My husband and I are usually invited to a relative’s home each Thanksgiving, and we’ve always gone, but this year I did an uncomfortable thing and turned down the invitation. It’s because I began to think about what kind of memories I want to create for my two boys.
Except for my dad and step-mom, we rarely see our Georgia relatives during the year, so for my boys, it would almost be like visiting a stranger’s house on the holiday. What do I really want for them? I want them to remember the holidays in their childhood home with their loved ones.
So this year we’re going to have a cozy Thanksgiving at home, and we’ll make a big meal (big to us, that is), and we’ll start the tradition of stating what we’re thankful for at the dinner table.
This time of year has got me thinking about family traditions in general too. A few years ago, I had a conversation with my brother (who is also starting his family) about how we need to create our own family traditions, especially since so many of our traditions were blurred by divorce and moving from state to state.
Shortly after having that conversation, my brother and sister-in-law sent me some books about creating family traditions as a Christmas gift. The Book of New Family Traditions by Meg Cox and Together Creating Family Traditions by Rondi Hillstrom Davis and Janell Sewall Oakes are beautiful books that have given me many good ideas.
Yet I’m aware that the best traditions spring forth spontaneously. I have to be careful about stating, “Here is a new tradition we are going to start…” What if I’m the only one on board that boat? Traditions need to be something the whole family enjoys.
We all have traditions whether we realize it or not. Religions give us many of our traditions. My family follows the Christian traditions of observing Christmas and Easter, and we’ll continue to do so. Traditions can also be unique to each family.
In The New Book of Family Traditions, I read about a family that every month during the full moon, they go outside and roast marshmallows in the moonlight. By coincidence, my family took a moonlit walk the other night. We showed our son where Jupiter was and looked for constellations. It was so much fun, I’m wondering if I could make that happen every month. (Or almost every month?)
Traditions can be simple daily exercises. Some people say grace before mealtimes; others enjoy a slow cup of coffee in the mornings (that’s me). Come to think of it, I have already started the ritual of telling my five-year-old a story every night. Even if I feel uninspired and tell him a boring tale, he seems to love it, and I know that somehow this is imparting my love and beliefs to him.
And this is what traditions do at their best: They give a family or community a reason to come together and share their love and commonality with each other. This in turn gives an individual a sense of belonging. I want my boys to feel that being part of this family is important. When life gets tough I want them to have a place to come to and feel loved.
This is why we’ll have Thanksgiving and Christmas at home from now on, and I’ll be looking for ways to expand our old traditions, making them more meaningful to us. I’ll also be thinking about new traditions I can add throughout the year.
What are your traditions? Old or new? I would love to hear what your family does because it may give me ideas for my own. Please leave me a comment. And in the future, I’ll write about what kinds of traditions we have started or renewed.
You can view all my posts regarding seasonal traditions (which I’m still working on) here: Traditions / Rituals / Holidays
October 31, 2012
Happy Halloween
Pumpkin with a Brain. For instructions, click here.
Note: This column is printed in the October 31, 2012 edition of the Barrow Journal.
Once a couple creates a family, they realize that family life is full of harrowing moments and howls in the dark. Little monsters — ahem — Lovable little monsters invade their lives…
This will be my sixth Halloween with children, and in that time it’s become my favorite holiday. The fact that it’s also my birthday might play a part in that too, but really, it doesn’t have the stress that comes with Christmas or Thanksgiving. Stress shouldn’t come with any holiday, but unfortunately it does. Halloween…it’s just fun.
The weather is beautiful. I love autumn temperatures, changing leaves and the opportunity to make soup. We can get outside frequently, do some gardening and pull out the hiking boots.
Costumes are fun, though sometimes a challenge. At one-year-old, my sons were both too young to protest the pumpkin costume I made them wear. As they get older, they are more opinionated. At two, my eldest liked the Peter Pan costume I picked for him, but I knew better than to try to put anything over his head.
At three, he had his “not interested in Halloween” year. The decorations in the stores scared him, and my husband ended up treating him to McDonalds on the night of Halloween while I stayed home to greet the trick or treaters.
Last year my three-year-old also went through that phase, and he wanted nothing to do with trick or treating or a costume. I don’t know which way he’ll go this year, but I haven’t bothered to buy him a costume. I can’t get him to wear long sleeves let alone a costume (and coincidently his brother dislikes short sleeves – go figure.)
My six-year-old is all into Halloween costumes now, and this year he made it easy on us by not having any pre-conceived idea of what he wanted to be. He just wanted to go to the store and look. We were there quite a while and almost came home empty-handed. Why do costume makers think all little boys want to be super heroes? My son is not into super heroes at all.
Finally I spotted something we had overlooked, and my son grabbed it right away – an extraterrestrial! It’s a green costume with three-fingered gloves and a mask with big, black eyes. The torso has a faint outline of the internal organs of this alien. Simple, yet very cool looking.
All children should be encouraged to play make-believe, and I consider Halloween a celebration of that. As with any holiday or ritual, each new family has to create their own traditions and meanings. Sometimes we keep old traditions, tweak them, or change them altogether. For me, Halloween is for the children. It’s a chance for them to be whatever they want and continue the play as they step out into the community.
It’s also fun for me because I get to watch how excited they are, and I get to accompany them on their journey around the neighborhood – a good excuse to get out and say hello to the neighbors too. The candy is another story, especially since I end up eating so much of it, but that’s a small price to pay for a day of play.
Here’s wishing you a safe and happy Halloween.
September 29, 2012
Native American Day
Yesterday was Native American Day, and since my son has shown interest in learning about Native Americans in the past, I thought he would enjoy commemorating the day. These are just a few easy things I was able to do without much planning.
(We have checked out library books on Native Americans in the past, so I didn’t feel the need to do it again. If you are interested, however, there’s a wonderful series that starts each title with “If you lived with…” They are for older children, but my six-year-old enjoyed listening to me read parts of those books.)
- We read a book from our own library, The Very First Americans. We’ve read it several times, and it’s a great starter book for understanding who the Native Americans are.
- I had my son watch this very short video on National Geographic.
- We did this totem pole craft that you can see in the photo. My son loved it, and he’s very proud of his creation! You can get the easy instructions and template here.
This is my son’s story he made up for his totem pole: The eagle at the top is protecting a lake from the two monsters (just below him). The two faces on the bottom help the eagle protect the lake and keep the monsters from stealing all the water from the animals! Well, he told it much better, but you get the drift!
There were also some cool events happening at some Georgia State Parks today, but we’ve been so busy, I needed a day at home! I also think it’ll be easier to attend things like that when my three-year-old gets a little older.
What are your plans this weekend?
August 25, 2012
Happy Birthday Six-year-old
a little wet after playing in the fountain at the Chicago Botanical Garden
Note: This column was printed in the Barrow Journal on August 22, 2012.
In a few days TODAY the “five-year-old” becomes the “six-year-old.” In a flash he has grown taller, more able-bodied, and smarter. And if those first two sentences sound familiar, that means you read my column last week. (Thanks!) Yes, my two boys birthdays are one week apart.
I didn’t plan it, and when I first learned it would be this way, I was a little disappointed. Would it be birthday overload, I wondered? Fortunately, it hasn’t been a problem at all, and it’s actually been convenient. For one thing, my younger son was able to inherit a lot of his older brother’s clothes – they were weather appropriate.
It’s fun to have them close together because it makes for a joyful time of year. Having them right before September makes a nice end to the summer and mark of a new school year.
The first year we had a dual birthday party, but ever since, we’ve had a low-key, family celebration for each on their respective special days. I don’t want them to feel like they have to share their day, and it is not much problem since I only have to decorate once and leave it up for a week!
This is the first year I’m having a bigger party for the six-year-old. Six seems like a good age, and I couldn’t resist letting him have a party at the Sandy Creek Nature Center in Athens, Georgia. They do a 45-minute program of our choice, and of course, we picked “snakes,” which is his current passion. He can’t wait.
Speaking of the Nature Center, I give the staff there credit for helping my five-year-old blossom this past year. This time last year we began taking their various classes (some for homeschoolers and others not), and he started off a bit reluctant and shy.
But nature and animals are his passion, and seeing them up close, especially snakes, opened him up. Whenever the class took him on a hike through the woods, he would stay right next to the instructor, wanting to see and hear everything she had to say. Now at the end of the year, he doesn’t even need me anymore. He willingly participated in their summer camps and had a blast.
I can’t thank “Miss Sarah” enough. On one of those first days of the knee-high naturalist class, my son asked her about the rattlesnake that he didn’t see in the center anymore. She explained he was feeling poorly, so the staff moved him to the inner offices. But she brought my son and I back there to see him, and she spent twenty minutes with my son, answering his four-year-old questions about the snake.
Over the year, I have watched my son become confident and outspoken in the classes. Outside of those classes, we have made friends in the homeschooling community, and when he meets them, he runs off to play. Like I said, he doesn’t need mama anymore.
Five-years-old has been a truly wonderful age. No more temper tantrums, no more clinging, but plenty of hugs, questions, and an expanding mind that is soaking up all the new things his world has to offer. I’d be lying if I said it was always easy with him. He has his whiny moments, and he can battle with is younger brother at any moment, but at five-going-on-six, he’s easy to reason with and explain things too.
He is usually helpful, kind and his imagination knows no bounds. Just today he showed me a “habitat” he made inside his Frisbee for a toy ant. He filled it with soft dirt, grass and moss. When I see him walking or sitting in our yard by himself, I’m happy that he has the free time to develop his creativity.
It must be this age that so many veteran parents tout as the opportunity to relive our childhoods, though I’m quite sure my son is teaching me more about the world than I ever learned growing up. I can barely wait to see how he’ll blossom this coming year and what wondrous things he’ll invent and learn.
August 18, 2012
Happy Birthday Three-year-old
Note: This column was printed in the Barrow Journal on August 16, 2012.
In a few days TODAY the “two-year-old” becomes the “three-year-old!” In a flash he has grown taller, more able-bodied, and smarter. When my eldest was this age, I thought this must be the cutest and most frustrating age of young children. My youngest is not disproving that theory.
It’s been wonderful to see two boys grow. They are alike in many ways, but they are extremely different too. A year or so ago I started to read Discover Your Child’s Learning Style, and though the author stated that you probably couldn’t assess a two-year-old’s learning style yet, I had to chuckle when I read some of the characteristics of a kinesthetic or tactile learner. I could check off every single point for the two-year-old and then some.
He likes running and climbing. Though my five-year-old loves to run and climb too, the two-year-old has shown an agility unprecedented in my older child. And he seeks out every opportunity to climb whether it is on the arms of our sofas or the rails at a museum.
I have a photograph I took of my five-year-old at the Museum of Science and Industry, and the two-year-old is in the background climbing some equipment. I sent it to my family and said that is typical: an attentive five-year-old and a climbing two-year-old. At two, my five-year-old never climbed like his brother. He has always been more cautious.
The two-year-old touches everything. Everything. Children like my two-year-old are the reason someone invented hand sanitizer. My step-mother told me my father is like this. They might be somewhere you aren’t supposed to touch things, but even at seventy-six years old, my father can’t help it. So maybe my son takes after grandpa.
My youngest son is also much more affectionate than his older brother, and family members know that he’s practically attached to my hip. Sometimes he follows me around with his palms up and open, lightly feeling the soft fabric of my cotton shirt.
Another characteristic for kinesthetic learners is that they like to play in the dirt, sand, and they don’t mind getting dirty, but heck….what child doesn’t mind those things? I have noticed, however, how much the two-year-old likes to build with blocks, and how he enjoys the toy toolbox.
At two, my five-year-old loved blocks, but he didn’t want to build anything himself. Instead, he wanted to watch me build. This is more of a characteristic of a visual learner. He’ll only try things after he has watched enough and feels confident he can do it on his own.
The two-year-old just plows into building and creating on his own, but if things don’t stay in place, he’ll scream until he thinks it’s right. And this brings me to the less desirable side of this age: temper tantrums. He wants to do everything on his own, but he can’t. It’s frustrating for him and exasperating for me.
Fortunately I have been through this age once before, and I know it’ll pass. It’ll go quick too. So I’m keeping my wits about me, and I’m welcoming all the hugs I can get. Happy Birthday, my sweet, energetic boy!
And I hope you’ll subscribe to my blog in the right hand margin because in the future I’ll be trying to learn about kinesthetic learners as well as auditory and visual learners (which is my older son), and I’ll be sure to share what I find out with you! ————>
May 27, 2012
Using Storytelling and Puppet Shows in Homeschool
Note: This column was printed in the Barrow Journal on May 16, 2012.
One of the best ways to engage children in the learning process is through stories. I’ve tried to use storytelling often with my children, and now that my eldest is five, he loves to be told stories.
Though books are wonderful, there’s something special about mommy or daddy telling a story that they have made up just for him. Although my son doesn’t always want to look at a book, I’ve never had him turn down the opportunity to be told a story. I truly believe that fostering this love of stories will lead him into reading and writing on his own.
I’ve witnessed some exciting side effects of this storytelling – my son loves to tell me the stories that his daddy has told him and vice versus. Although he may exaggerate the details a little, I know that his comprehension is good, and this is something that teachers look for in elementary school.
Occasionally he wants to make up his own stories too. It’s always exciting to me to listen to him and know he’s using his creativity and learning how to structure a story. It also teaches me patience because his stories can get quite long! At bedtime it makes for a good stalling tactic, so I have to keep him in check there.
Earlier this year I wanted to make storytelling a part of our morning activities. Before I decided what to do, my son had his own idea. He got out some little finger puppets that we had, and he wanted to do a puppet show. That’s when our morning puppet shows became a ritual.
At first we just had fun with the six little finger puppets. We – the five-year-old, two-year-old and me – would each take turns hiding behind our love seat and holding up the puppets for the “audience” to see.
I’m not the best storyteller in the world, but I could take the little puppets on a walk through the forest or by the ocean, and they’d find lots of interesting things to look at. My five-year-old picked up on this theme and would repeat it during his show, but he always put a creative twist on it.
Surprisingly, my two-year-old could put on a pretty good production too. He especially liked to feature his toy dinosaurs in the puppet shows!
At some point I showed my sons some puppet shows on YouTube to give them different ideas about what puppet shows could be like. We watched a really good one that a little girl did using Eric Carle’s “The Hungry Caterpillar” story. After that, my five-year-old wanted to do it too.
That’s when we started making our own puppets. We recycle old cereal and frozen pizza boxes and cut out the shapes of the puppets. Then we decorate them with construction paper or felt or whatever we have. We glue popsicle sticks on the backs to use as handles.
We’ve done “The Hungry Caterpillar,” “The Little Red Hen,” “The Three Little Pigs,” and then we used a story that my son wrote himself (and dictated to me). It’s called “The Little Lightning That Was Afraid to Strike.” We made puppets for that too.
(Note: As you can see, much of the “artwork” – if you call it that – was done by me. My five-year-old doesn’t have the skills yet to do it on his own, and he’s quite a perfectionist, so he gets frustrated easily. I’ve decided it’s okay for me to do this work as long as he gives me input on how I should create things, watches me do it, and he also has to try to make some of the easier stuff on his own.)
Recently I experimented teaching math during a puppet show. I had two toy dinosaurs try to figure out some simple math equations, but one of them kept giving outlandish answers like 2 + 3 = 146,789. The other one would roar at him. My boys were laughing hysterically, and I knew I was on to something.
I hope to keep using puppet shows in our homeschool and use it for teaching various subjects. Like everything, it’s a slow process, and I don’t want to force it, or the boys will be turned off. If we do keep it up, I’ll reward the boys someday by taking them to the Center of Puppetry Arts, which happens to be in Atlanta!
I hope you’ll subscribe to my blog because I’ll be sure to write more about storytelling and puppet shows. Do you use storytelling or puppet shows in your homeschool? Please tell me about it! And check out my storytelling page for more information on how you can use storytelling in your homeschool. Thanks for stopping by!
March 15, 2012
Fostering a Book Time Ritual
You may also be interested in these posts:
How I’ve Taught Kindergarten Reading and Homeschooling Reading and Language Arts for Kindergarten/1st Grade
I think the most important part of an education is allowing children to develop a love of books. Through books children will learn. This is why it’s one of my main priorities, and even when we can’t follow through on the other homeschool priorities I have for them, I always find time for book time.
Making Books Accessible
My husband and I have been reading to both boys since they were about 1½, mostly at night before bed, but also during the day. When my first-born was about two years old, I cleared a low shelf in my bookcase and made that the shelf for the children’s books. This way, my son could easily look at the books whenever he wanted.
Later we converted our dining room into the “activity room,” and we bought some used bookshelves and painted them. We have accumulated quite a few children’s books through gifts from relatives each birthday and Christmas, and I am a big fan of library book sales and used books bins. Occasionally I have bought a book full price when I had a specific need.
Making books easily accessible has been key to allowing my sons to develop a natural love of them. They seek out the books just like they do toys.
I don’t think you need a lot of books to do this. I just think you need to keep them accessible. Lately I have been making good use of our local library system, and I keep a big stack of library books on a small, separate bookshelf so that I don’t lose track of them. I’ll write more about how I use the library in my next post.
The Book Time Ritual
We read books everyday right after breakfast. I call out, “Let’s do book time! Everybody pick a book!” Letting everyone pick a book (or books) is essential:
- The two-year-old gets to pick his favorite books – those same books over and over and over again. Sigh. Yet I know this is normal and healthy, and it’s creating a love of books for him.
- The five-year-old gets to pick something he’s excited about. Thankfully he is past the stage of always picking the same book. He usually picks the library books that he chose when we were at the library. He likes non-fiction. This week he wanted books about the solar system and also Native Americans.
- I get to pick 1) something different, which is key to keeping me awake and enthusiastic about book time, and 2) something educational (yet fun) that I’m trying to work on with the five-year-old. Though my son is picking really cool, educational stuff, I have some “goals” I’m working on, which I’ll talk more about in a minute.
Many of the picture books I pick can keep both of my boy’s attention, but frequently while I’m reading the two-year-old’s choices, the five-year-old gets bored and starts playing on his own. It also happens the other way around. This is okay with me. What is tricky is that the books I read to the five-year-old are longer, and the two-year-old doesn’t always go off to play nicely by himself. He makes noise or goes into the refrigerator and brings back food he wants to eat — My five-year-old and I have to endure a lot of interruptions. I simply do the best I can with this. Sometimes we put a bookmark in the longer books and go back to it later.
Meeting Educational Goals Through Book Time
I have said many times that I don’t think formal lessons are necessary at this age (my boys are 5 and 2), but through books I find that I can cover a lot of educational goals that the five-year-old would be learning if he were in Kindergarten. (Note: I wouldn’t start him in Kindergarten until this coming fall, if he were attending public school.) Curling up on the sofa with some good books is a very no-pressure way of teaching, and so far my five-year-old son is very interested in all the non-fiction books we’ve read. By seeking these out at the library, we’ve been covering these subjects this past year. (All of these subjects will eventually get their own blog post. I’ll add links as I write them.)
- The solar system: As you might imagine, there are plenty of books about the solar system and different planets at the library.
- The weather: I also found a lot of good books about the weather at the library, particularly about the water cycle, which was fun and easy for my five-year-old to understand. He also picked out books about hurricanes and tornadoes, which interested him very much.
- Math: I have pulled back on formal lessons with math, and I’m just reading math picture books to the five-year-old. There are many of them to choose from. There’s even a series about each number that includes some simple addition. My son enjoys them, and I think it’s helping him realize that math can be fun.
- Literature: This is my favorite and easiest to take care of! The library is brimming with storybooks! Any book will do! But I have taken a more intentional role with choosing which books I’ll read, and I’ve found some resources to help me. I’ll write about that in my very next post.
Please stay tuned! You can sign up for my RSS feed or sign up to receive my posts by e-mail in the right hand margin.
How do foster a love of reading in your home?
February 22, 2012
January / February Activities with Small Children
One of my goals this year was to plan a lesson / activity around each of the holidays, and I wanted to try to start some new traditions too. Unfortunately, I have not started off well in this 2012 New Year. Though I’ve done a few projects for New Year’s, Valentine’s Day, and even Groundhog Dog, I didn’t feel very prepared, and I didn’t do anything for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day or Washington’s Birthday. Oh well. I plan to do this every year, so I’ll make up for eventually. Since my boys are so young, I have probably done just enough anyway.
To help myself, I’ve just looked up and bookmarked some sites that will tell me the holidays. Here they are:
2012 American holiday schedule:
- Click here for just the Federal Holidays
- Click here for all the holidays – and even some I’ve never heard of before! (I’m not going to worry about covering all of these.)
Here’s a few visuals and notes about what I did accomplish these past two months. (I’ll repost this next year before the holidays.)
January 1, 2012 – New Year’s Day
For New Year’s, I thought it would be a good time to go over the months of the year with my five-year-old. He has already learned the days of the week on his own. I think he’s motivated because he likes to know what our plans are, and he understands that some of our routines happen on a weekly basis. He almost knows the months of the year, but not quite.
I made these calendars with the boys and laminated them, but I admit, it was more for me than for them. They had fun creating a list of their “favorites” for 2011, though. It’s a great item to put into their keepsakes box.
We put a 2012 calendar on one side and their list of favorites for 2011 on the other. I invited them to decorate the calendars, but the five-year-old wasn’t really into it. (This seems to be typical of him. I think decorating is more of a girl thing.) He did want to cut out his calendar and list and paste it to the construction paper, though. He also picked the color black – one of his favorites.
I also made this peace dove for New Year’s. Again, I thought five-year-old might enjoy making it since he likes making so many animals out of paper, but it turned out I did the creating here. And it turned out rather blah too. Oh well.
February 2, 2012 – Groundhog Day
If it wasn’t for checking the Internet on the morning of the 2nd, I would have missed Groundhog Day altogether. Athens has a pretty fun Groundhog Day celebration with Gus, the groundhog who resides at Bear Hollow Zoo. We may have been able to make it there that morning, but it was cold, and I wasn’t feeling that energetic. So, I turned to the Internet to help me.
I printed off some fun sheets to color, which you can access by clicking here. Whereas in the past my boys have not been into coloring at all, I’ve noticed that changing a bit. They had fun with these sheets, and we hung them on the bulletin board.
I told my five-year-old what the holiday was about, and we watched several videos about groundhogs and Groundhog Day on YouTube. Here’s a couple, and you’ll find many more on YouTube.
- Ground Hog Day (2012 HD) - watch a real groundhog take a peek outside his burrow. I enjoyed the music on this one.
- Groundhog Day - Get some more information about groundhogs and Groundhog Day history on this one.
It happened to be a lovely, springlike day, so we also went outside to see if we could see our shadows!!
Despite my lack of preparedness, I could tell that my five-year-old enjoyed learning and celebrating Groundhog Day. At the end of the day, I said, “I’ll have to check the newspaper to see if Gus saw his shadow today.” The five-year-old said, “I just don’t understand…..groundhogs don’t understand like people do.” He’s a smart little guy. I told him, “Yep. The groundhog has no idea what all the fuss is about. This holiday is just for fun….”
February 14, 2012 – Valentine’s Day
For Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d get an early start (unusual for me, if you can’t tell), so we started making crafts a week or two early. I made this Valentine’s mailbox, and the five-year-old helped me decorate it. I wrapped a box with some old paper that they had already drawn on. (I try to recycle whatever I can.)
The best part of preparing for Valentine’s Day was teaching my five-year-old how to make a heart: by folding a piece of paper, drawing half a heart with its center on the crease, and then cutting it out. Once he opened it up, he was so happy to discover a perfect heart!
However, he couldn’t quite draw half a heart very well, so my five-year-old was very disappointed with his first attempts. Since he can be quite a perfectionist, he usually gives up when this happens. I was pleasantly surprised to watch him keep trying this time. Soon, he mastered heart making, and once he could make some good hearts, there was no stopping him! We strung his hearts up along the doorway to our activity room and also pinned them to our bulletin board. It was really fun for me to watch him do the decorating on his own!
We’re lucky to own a few Valentine’s Day books, so we read those too:
- My First Valentine’s Day Book - This a great book for 2~3 year olds, and my 5-year-old still likes it too. It consists of simple rhymes, and there are little cards on each page that your child can take out of an envelope and read.
- The Best Thing About Valentines by Eleanor Hudson – Also for youngsters. A cute book emphasizing how we make our own Valentines and give them away.
- Valentine’s Day by Cass R. Sandak – This is a great book, but I got lucky and found it at a library sale. It has the history and customs of Valentine’s Day throughout history. It’s for older kids, so I only read my five-year-old a few pages.
We also made (and bought) some Valentines for each other. I made each of the boys a special card with their names on it and described their personalities and things they like to do. Similar to the calendar, and it’ll go into their keepsakes box.
Unfortunately, on Valentine’s Day, I was extremely sick with a bad cold and fever, so some other things I had wanted to do will have to wait until next year. :(
So please tell me, what kinds of traditions do you have during January and February? Do you celebrate these holidays and/or celebrate other holidays / traditions this time of year?
February 15, 2012
Hiking at Harris Shoals Park
Harris Shoals Park, Watkinsville, Georgia
Note: This column was printed in the Barrow Journal on February 8, 2012.
Now that the boys are getting a little older, we’re ready to hit the trails. My husband initiated a hiking ritual for our family, and at Christmas, he and I got some new boots to make it official. This has been a great winter to start hiking as a family because of the mild weather we’re having.
We love going to Ft. Yargo, but one of our goals is to explore as many parks and other wildlife areas that’s not too far away. Since the boys are still young, we have to ease them into hiking. Maybe by next year, they’ll be ready for some mountain trails!
Last week we went to Harris Shoals Park in Watkinsville. The entrance of the park is at Harris Shoals Drive, which is located on Highway 53 between Interstate 441 and VFW Drive. The small park provides a valuable green space between the interstate and the town of Watkinsville.
There’s a large playground for kids with one of the biggest and best slides around, and the park offers some shelters and BBQ pits for parties. There’s also a baseball field. We headed over to the shoals, however, because my boys love the water.
The water that flows over the shoals is Calls Creek and eventually it meets up with the Middle Oconee River. The shoals are flat rocks that have been there for thousands of years and have been eroded slowly over time. It’s a picturesque and peaceful place despite the fact that you can hear some of the traffic on the surrounding roads.
It’s easy to walk out onto the rocks and splash in the water or in the case of my boys, throw rocks into the water. My two-year-old is like a robot when he sees water. He throws rocks and little twigs in the river without even looking up to see their splash! We literally have to drag him away when it’s time to go.
The flow of the water over the shoals was slowed somewhat when a dam was built upstream for the old Watkinsville Water Treatment Plant. Take a short walk up the Harris Shoals Nature Trail, and you’ll be able to see the dam.
According to a leaflet that was provided by Christopher Adams for an Eagle Scouts Project this past fall, “The marsh area behind the dam used to be a more prominent creek until dammed up and was used to hold and treat water which was then pumped up to the city….After the water plant was abandoned, the dam area overgrew to the current marsh like condition of today.”
The area is a haven for wildlife. Up the trail a bit, we found a beaver dam, and I’m not sure if the beavers still live there, but we also found evidence of their presence at a big tree stump which looked as if it had been chewed considerably by the large teeth of a beaver.
As we were walking, we also saw many birds, including a beautiful heron, which took flight at the sound of my children’s chattering and footsteps. A marsh area like this would also be home for many fish, reptiles and amphibians. We did see some little fish in the water at a place we stopped to rest while the boys threw more rocks and twigs into the water.
My favorite part of the park is the long bridge that crosses through the marsh. I don’t think I’d want to cross that bridge in the middle of August, but right now it gives an interesting view to marshland. I bet if you sat on that bridge alone in the early morning, you could watch some wild animals too.
Next time you feel like getting out into nature, drive over to Harris Shoals Park. Bring a picnic and sit down next to the shoals, and don’t forget to pick up a few rocks to throw in the water too.
Where are your favorite places to go hiking?
December 28, 2011
Hiking 101: Getting the Family Into Nature
One of my best Christmas presents was a request from my husband that we buy ourselves some new hiking boots and begin to make hiking a priority and a ritual in this family. Yahoo! A mutual love of hiking was part of why I fell for my fella, and we used to go on day hikes in the mountains often before we had children. Though I know people who are serious hikers and strap their babies to their backs and hit the trails, that’s not us. I had a hard enough time managing breast feeding, diaper changing and all the other demands of babies and toddlers here in a comfortable house let alone out in the wild. But I’m thrilled my boys are getting older, and we can be more intentional about getting out into nature.
So we got our boots earlier this month, and we took advantage of the warm weather December decided to bring this year in Georgia. We wanted to break in our boots and start off easy by visiting some local parks and gardens. It’s a good thing we did that too because we learned that with a five and two-year-old, our “hikes” are going to be more like strolls punctuated with a lot of stops, snacking and complaining. But that’s okay. We’ll make hikers out of these boys yet.
And hiking with my boys gives the photographer in me great pleasure. They gave me plenty of time to find the light while they played by the water. You can see those photos by clicking here.
The photos here are from Ft. Yargo State Park and The State Botanical Garden of Georgia.
Getting children into nature is very important, and I consider it a goal in our homeschooling lifestyle too. For more information about getting kids and your family into nature, you might like to look at these links (which I posted in my Worthy Reads a while back):
- Together in Nature: Pathways to a Stronger, Closer Family offers a free PDF download by Children & Nature Network Connect
- Recommended Reading by the Children and Nature Network
What’s your preferred way of getting out into nature?
December 24, 2011
The Best Christmas Gifts For This Tired Mama
Lucky me: the five-year-old took over the big job of decorating the tree this year!
Note: This column appeared in the Barrow Journal on December 22, 2011.
Last week we trimmed the tree, or, actually, my five-year-old trimmed the tree. I assembled it and put the lights on, and then he put on every single ornament by himself. He got very irritated with me if I tried to put one on. He wanted to do it all by himself.
I know what you’re thinking, and you are right. It’s not the most organized tree, but it’s still quite pretty. At least with the help of a stepladder the ornaments are not clustered at the bottom of the tree.
And this is when I realized something. Things are starting to get a tad…a smidge…a little bit easier around here. My boys are five and two-years-old. They have fleeting moments of extreme independence.
Since their birthdays in August, I’ve noticed that sometimes they play happily without me. They play pretty well with each other, but sometimes they take off in different directions. I’m still shocked when my two-year-old will go upstairs by himself to play with the GeoTrax. He is actually being good. By himself!
This is the best Christmas present that this mama can get: pockets of free time. I still have plenty to do, including the dishes, laundry, and write my column, but it’s wonderful to be able to write during the day when I’m not so tired instead of late at night.
Don’t get me wrong though. These pockets of time last twenty minutes at most, and the boys still keep my hopping. They fight, the two-year-old can be so fussy, and when I get time to myself, I’m frequently interrupted.
But I’m here to tell any parent with children younger than mine that it does happen! It gets a little easier. It took five long years, but it does happen.
It could also be that I’ve been more intentional about trying to relax. I try not to spend every night at my computer, and I always end the day with a good book instead of staring at my to-do list. Once a week I’m committing myself to movie night too. This might not seem like much, but until a few weeks ago, I had not sat down to watch a movie for pleasure in years.
I found out that my husband has been doing his own thinking on how we could relax. He surprised me by saying for Christmas he wanted to get us both a new pair of hiking boots. Day hikes in the mountains were a frequent recreation of ours before we had kids, and now that the boys are a little older, he wants to start again and take the boys with us.
I jumped for joy. Though I frequently take the boys out to parks, I sorely miss going hiking. We’ll have to stick to easier trails for our young children, but it’ll be wonderful to make getting into nature with the family more of a habit.
So we got our boots, and today we did our first “hike” at Ft. Yargo. (Aren’t we lucky that we live in Barrow County and have this treasure in our backyard?) On our inaugural hike, I learned not to expect much. The boys would rather throw rocks and clamshells into the water than actually move down the trail. The two-year-old tires quickly, and they both need a good supply of snack food on hand.
But it didn’t damper my enthusiasm. It’s just the beginning for this outdoorsy family.
I hope everyone reading this has a wonderful holiday. No matter how you celebrate, I hope it’s a peaceful, happy time for you. I hope there’s someone with you to snuggle up to on the cold evenings, and I hope you get some great gifts too.
December 21, 2011
December & Christmas Activities with Small Children
These are snowflakes that we made last year for the tree. I hung them up in the entrance way of our activity room. They make a pretty decoration.
A while back I wrote about my desire to make new family traditions for my family, and December seems like a great time to do that. However, I have to admit, I have kept this December extremely simple and I’ve done nothing to intentionally start anything new. This might also be laziness on my part too. But right now with a 5 and 2 year old, it feels like an accomplishment to get our regular chores done let alone begin new projects! So I haven’t stressed. I’ve just done what I could do easily and what the boys were receptive to.
(However, part of the reason I haven’t had to do much is because my husband initiated a new goal for the family! I’ll be writing about this in an upcoming post. You can read about that here!)
So let’s see. What have we done? We have done what we’ve always done…..
- We decorated a Christmas tree. And this year, my five-year-old put all the ornaments on by himself! That was special.
- We also put a small tree in the five-year-old’s room. We’ve done this the last few years, so I think we can call it a tradition.
- This should have been written up under my “November Activities” post, but in early November, I always help my son write a letter to Santa Claus. This year I forgot to put a stamp in the envelope, but if you put a stamp in the envelope and address it to “Santa Claus, North Pole,” you’ll probably get a reply like we did last year!!
- My five-year-old and I decided to make puppets with some extra cardboard I found and popsicle sticks. We drew pictures on the cardboard, cut them out, pasted a popsicle stick on the back, and voila! a puppet! We made some for my little nephews, and then my son wanted to make some for his friends. (A proud mama moment!)
- We have been reading our Christmas books. (I keep all the seasonal books tucked away so that we can pull them out around the holidays and they seem like new.)
- Yesterday I baked one batch of oatmeal raisin cookies with the five-year-old while the two-year-old was napping, and yep, that’s the extent of my baking for the holidays.
- This week I’ll let my boys watch some Christmas specials on T.V. if they want to. We own the Charlie Brown Christmas special.
- We strung up frosted Os for the tree. We also did this last year, so maybe we can call it a tradition. Frosted Os (or some kind of generic version) are big and easy for a little one to hold and string! (That is, if he’s willing to do it.) (Also, word to the wise: do not put them low on the tree if you have a dog. Also don’t leave them on the kid’s activity table while the dogs are in the house.)
- For an easy craft, I cut out the shape of a Christmas tree out of green construction paper, and then I cut out different colored shapes such as a star and circles, squares, triangles & small rectangles to make ornaments. (My intent was to help my 2yo learn his shapes, but the craft didn’t hold his attention for very long.) I put all the shapes and bits of paper into a plastic bag with a glue stick and a few extra Christmas stickers, and I told my boys they could make a Christmas tree whenever they wanted. I wasn’t sure my five-year-old wanted to do it, but he finally asked for it today.
So that is what I have done this December. There’s also a few things I didn’t do:
A simple craft: cut out the shape of a tree and several different shapes to use as ornaments. Stickers are also fun to add.
- We didn’t decorate the outside of our house. (Except for a small wreath on the door.)
- I didn’t send Christmas cards this year. (Needed to save time and money.)
- We didn’t do a lot of baking. (Except for that one batch of oatmeal raisin cookies.)
- We didn’t drive around looking at Christmas lights. (This was a favorite tradition of mine growing up.)
- I didn’t buy a lot of presents (don’t have the money anyway), make any presents (except for the easy puppets), or invite anyone over for a Christmas get-together.
My main goal this December was to just enjoy the time with my boys, husband and keep up with our daily routine because when I don’t do that, we can all get quite frazzled. Like I said above, with a 5 and 2 year-old, it’s an accomplishment to get anything done, and routine is important to them. As their mom, I have to be ready for their mood changes (which can be swift), illnesses or whims (“I don’t want to do a craft, Mommy!”) I also want to honor daddy’s ideas for family outings while he’s home on winter break. So, not overwhelming myself with extra chores or expectations is key to making me a good mother. (At least, most of the time.)
Whether you celebrate Christmas, another holiday, or none at all, I hope this winter season is warm, happy and peaceful for you! Please leave me a comment and tell me what celebrations or activities you are participating in this December.
December 1, 2011
The Best-laid Plans of Parents with Small Children
Note: This column first appeared in the Barrow Journal on November 30, 2011.
As you know from my previous column, we were looking forward to our first Thanksgiving at home with just the four of us. No traveling. No need to power clean the house. Just a quiet, relaxing day with a turkey dinner. Unfortunately, my two-year-old woke up on the wrong side of the bed that morning. It’s typical at his age to have tantrums. He wants to be more independent, and he can’t always communicate his needs, which leads to a lot of frustration. It’s stressful being two.
However, there are some days when he’ll go from calm to tempest quicker and more frequently throughout the day. Is it the terrible twos? Teething? “Unmet needs” as the family therapist says in the parenting book that is sitting on my bedside table? If I knew what his unmet needs were, I would gladly take care of them!
I have no idea why he is like this sometimes. Unfortunately, he picked Thanksgiving to have an off day. We all have off days, don’t we? Two-year-olds are not excluded from that.
He cried and pointed to objects that he wanted and then didn’t want after I handed them to him. He slept well, I held him and played with him, yet he was unsettled all day.
Mid-morning I changed his diaper and he decided he didn’t want to wear another one. Okay, I thought, we don’t have to go anywhere; we’ll start potty training on Thanksgiving. Not what I had planned, but I’m game. Fortunately, it didn’t take long for him to find out why diapers are helpful. To clean him up, I put him in the bathtub, and his older brother stayed in the bathroom, and they played together with the water and toys for a long time. That wasn’t so bad.
After the bath, he screamed about the clothes he had to wear. Did I mention he’s refusing to wear a coat outside and has to pull his long sleeves up on his arms? Oh yes, he’s spirited. Someday that spirit will serve him well. For now, it will cause more gray hairs on his mama’s head.
Right before dinner he was upset too, crying as I helped my husband put the finishing touches on our dinner table. (A big thanks to my husband for cooking the Thanksgiving turkey.) With a child clinging to my leg, I finished the mashed potatoes.
By the time I sat down at the dinner table I was sweating, my husband was irritable, but the two-year-old was finally happy eating his meal. That’s all we were thankful for at that moment.
The day wasn’t all bad, though. In the morning my boys and I put on some finger puppet shows, and during the two-year-old’s nap, my five-year-old and I played outside in the beautiful weather, and in the evening, we watched a movie.
Later that night I was reading Falling Through Space: The Journals of Ellen Gilchrist. In one essay she wrote about spending 38 hours alone with her two grandchildren, ages 4 and 1.
She states, “I am here to report that taking care of small children is the single most exciting, complicated, difficult, creative and maddening job on all the green earth.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself, but I’m still grateful for my boys, bad days and all.
How do you deal with the unpredictability of children?
November 26, 2011
November & Thanksgiving Activities With Small Children
In an earlier post, I mentioned that I wanted to create history lessons around each holiday this year. In addition to this, I want to do general activities to celebrate each season. However, I still feel the need to keep things extremely simple with my boys. At ages 5 & 2, they just aren’t ready for big projects or crafts. When I do initiate crafts, it’s usually me doing most of the crafting, or the boys take over by making it a cutting-up-paper-into-tiny-bits session. Whether it’s their ages or that they are boys, long sit-down lessons and activities don’t work for us. (And this also goes for just the five-year-old when the two-year-old is napping too.)
So here are the simple things we did this November to celebrate autumn and Thanksgiving:
- We had a gorgeous autumn in Georgia this year, so I wanted to celebrate those beautiful leaves. We collected leaves and laminated them. Last year I tried ironing them between parchment paper, and it looked awful. I asked my sister – a first grade teacher – what she recommended. She said she just laminated the leaves. Guess what? It works great! After laminating them, I strung some up over our window and the doorway into our activity room. I tacked the others up to our bulletin board, and I labeled the leaves that I knew. (Tree identification will come when they’re older too.) (This it the laminator I purchased over a year ago – a worthwhile investment.)
- We planted bulbs. And garlic. I’ve never planted garlic before, so I’m excited to see what will happen. Planting seeds is a favorite pastime of my five-year-old, which I have written about extensively in this post.
- We read our Thanksgiving books:
- What Is Thanksgiving? by Harriet Ziefert – A sweet, lift-the-flap book about a mouse who asks his parents “What is Thanksgiving?” It’s very simple and dedicates only two lines to the history of the holiday. It’s mostly about what we do now to celebrate Thanksgiving. I would only recommend it for very young children.
- The Story of the Pilgrims by Katherine Ross – I highly recommend this book for the approximate ages 4~6 or anyone needing a beginning lesson on Thanksgiving history. It starts in England and talks about a group of people call Pilgrims and why they left, their journey in the Mayflower, their first difficult winter, the encounter with the Indians and what the Indians taught them, and it ends with the big feast. It’s simple enough for youngsters but full of interesting details.
- As we talked about Thanksgiving and what we give thanks for, I used A Child’s Book of Animal Poems and Blessings (collected by Eliza Blanchard). My boys love animals, so these poems and prayers were fun. The illustrations are beautiful. It teaches respect for animals, and it gave me a chance to talk about praying and poetry. Needless to say, this isn’t a book I will use only for this season.
- The night before Thanksgiving, I told my five-year-old a story about Jack and Piper and the big Thanksgiving feast they hosted in the forest. All the forest animals were invited, and on this day, there was no bickering or squabbles. One by one, each animal said what he was thankful for.
- Besides these simple activities, I have spent as much time outdoors as the weather permitted. We visited Ft. Yargo, the Botanical Garden, and spent lots of time in our own yard.
Maybe next year I’ll get around to baking, more crafts and more history lessons. Or maybe we’ll just spend more time outside.
What’s your favorite activities for November?
November 23, 2011
Creating New Family Traditions
There’s a time when old traditions need to die, a time for new traditions, and a time when old traditions can be reborn with new meaning.
In years past, I have always felt a little lonely during the holidays. I wished I had a big, happy family that didn’t live so far apart, so we could all come together and eat a lot of food, play games, and exchange stories.
My husband and I are usually invited to a relative’s home each Thanksgiving, and we’ve always gone, but this year I did an uncomfortable thing and turned down the invitation. It’s because I began to think about what kind of memories I want to create for my two boys.
Except for my dad and step-mom, we rarely see our Georgia relatives during the year, so for my boys, it would almost be like visiting a stranger’s house on the holiday. What do I really want for them? I want them to remember the holidays in their childhood home with their loved ones.
So this year we’re going to have a cozy Thanksgiving at home, and we’ll make a big meal (big to us, that is), and we’ll start the tradition of stating what we’re thankful for at the dinner table.
This time of year has got me thinking about family traditions in general too. A few years ago, I had a conversation with my brother (who is also starting his family) about how we need to create our own family traditions, especially since so many of our traditions were blurred by divorce and moving from state to state.
Shortly after having that conversation, my brother and sister-in-law sent me some books about creating family traditions as a Christmas gift. The Book of New Family Traditions by Meg Cox and Together Creating Family Traditions by Rondi Hillstrom Davis and Janell Sewall Oakes are beautiful books that have given me many good ideas.
Yet I’m aware that the best traditions spring forth spontaneously. I have to be careful about stating, “Here is a new tradition we are going to start…” What if I’m the only one on board that boat? Traditions need to be something the whole family enjoys.
We all have traditions whether we realize it or not. Religions give us many of our traditions. My family follows the Christian traditions of observing Christmas and Easter, and we’ll continue to do so. Traditions can also be unique to each family.
In The New Book of Family Traditions, I read about a family that every month during the full moon, they go outside and roast marshmallows in the moonlight. By coincidence, my family took a moonlit walk the other night. We showed our son where Jupiter was and looked for constellations. It was so much fun, I’m wondering if I could make that happen every month. (Or almost every month?)
Traditions can be simple daily exercises. Some people say grace before mealtimes; others enjoy a slow cup of coffee in the mornings (that’s me). Come to think of it, I have already started the ritual of telling my five-year-old a story every night. Even if I feel uninspired and tell him a boring tale, he seems to love it, and I know that somehow this is imparting my love and beliefs to him.
And this is what traditions do at their best: They give a family or community a reason to come together and share their love and commonality with each other. This in turn gives an individual a sense of belonging. I want my boys to feel that being part of this family is important. When life gets tough I want them to have a place to come to and feel loved.
This is why we’ll have Thanksgiving and Christmas at home from now on, and I’ll be looking for ways to expand our old traditions, making them more meaningful to us. I’ll also be thinking about new traditions I can add throughout the year.
What are your traditions? Old or new? I would love to hear what your family does because it may give me ideas for my own. Please leave me a comment. And in the future, I’ll write about what kinds of traditions we have started or renewed.
Note: This column was first printed in the Barrow Journal on Wednesday, November 23, 2011. You can also view it online here.
