Homeschool Activities

Gardening Experiment Success

~ shelli ~ 4 Comments

{Growing Pinto Beans In a Jar}

Remember the pinto beans my son sprouted in a jar?  Well, we planted a few of the sprouts in our garden, and a couple of them have been growing well and are giving us beans!  Unfortunately, they have caterpillars eating the leaves right now, so that means we’ll have to learn a lot more about organic gardening in the future.  But I’m tickled pink that we got something to grow!  My six-year-old is very happy too!

UPDATE: I just found these instructions on how to harvest pinto beans!

Homeschool Science Classes at the Sandy Creek Nature Center in Athens, Georgia

~ shelli ~ 14 Comments

I have already written about my five-year-old’s favorite knee-high naturalist class at the Sandy Creek Nature Center in Athens, GA. Now it’s time to write about the other awesome classes they have that are just for homeschoolers!  We’ve been taking the Homeschool Science classes this past year, and we intend to keep taking them as long as we can.  I can’t sing the praises of the staff and volunteers at the nature center enough. They are a wonderful group of people who truly care about educating children.

Homeschool Science classes are once a month and last for two hours each.  There are two separate classes – one class for ages 5-9 and another for ages 10-15.  They are very reasonably priced (at this time: $4 per class for Athens-Clarke County residents and $6 per class for non-residents) and you can sign up for just one or all of them.  Parents accompany the students and many younger siblings tag along too.  Everyone I have encountered there has been easy-going yet eager to learn and help the kids.  Surprisingly, my two-year-old wasn’t too much trouble for me when I brought him along:

Every class begins with indoor instruction/activities and then everyone goes outside for a hike and other activity.  Classes are usually divided into two or more groups, depending on the size, and then they rotate the activities.  Quite a few people enroll in these classes!  

In our last class, we learned about fish, and the whole class got to go fishing! (Complete with safety instructions too.)  Another group went to another area and used small nets to catch critters in the pond.  Then the groups changed places.  The staff and volunteers always make sure that all the kids get to participate and receive any help they might need.  Parents also help as needed.  (I wish I had my camera when my son was fishing for the first time! The photos you see on this page were taken during two other classes.)

If you are a newbie to these kind of classes and have small children, you might find that a two-hour class is quite long!  At least, I felt that way the first couple of times.  I was quite tired at the end.  For some reason, it feels a little easier for me now.  Maybe that’s because I’m physically and mentally prepared.  I make these recommendations for you:

  • Wear comfortable shoes that can get dirty. Most classes include a hike in the woods. Strollers are not accessible.
  • Pay attention to weather and wear appropriate clothing. They WILL GO OUTSIDE EVEN ON COLD, RAINY DAYS.
  • Bring snacks/water, but nothing difficult to carry.  Students don’t eat during the class, but I’ve noticed several kids are ready to eat right after class.  My five-year-old doesn’t need to eat, but I usually have to give my two-year-old a snack, if he’s with us.  I keep water in the car for the drive home.
  • I wear a small backpack so that my arms and hands are free.  This makes my life easier all the time – not just during this class!  But I do recommend it for the class.
  • You may want to leave your toddlers at home with a babysitter the first time so that you can see how the class goes, but don’t worry if you need to bring them with you.

Please share where you live and your favorite classes available to homeschoolers.

January / February Activities with Small Children

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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:

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?

December & Christmas Activities with Small Children

~ shelli ~ 1 Comment
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.

November & Thanksgiving Activities With Small Children

~ shelli ~ 3 Comments

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?

A Kindergarten Child-Led Project: Seeds, Plants, Gardening

~ shelli ~ 12 Comments

Available Now! …

1st Grade E-book COVER jpegThe Everyday Homeschooler’s Guide to Teaching First Grade is a simple guide to homeschooling 1st grade. But it’s also much more. I recommend it for any parent who has a child between the ages of 4-8. “First Grade” is merely a guide. Not an absolute.

This guide will help you figure out your family’s unique priorities, and it’ll show you how to make homeschooling your child easier. Learn how to set up a learning environment that honors your child’s questions and creativity. Soon you will become a family of life-long learners.

Click here to learn more. Thanks so much to my readers for inspiring me to write this. I hope it helps.

 

Now back to my original post… 🙂

***

The five-year-old grew two pumpkins by himself. I’m a proud mama.

Most kindergarten curriculums include a study of how seeds grow into plants.  I did not have to do anything to entice my son into learning about seeds.  He is obsessed with them.  Whenever he gets a chance, he’ll pull seeds off trees or plants – at church, at a park, grandma’s house or our yard – and he puts them in his pocket, telling me he wants to plant them as soon as possible.  He has done this so many times that I almost want to pull my hair out, but I don’t.  I just smile and say, “Okay.”  Sometimes I have helped him plant the seeds, but usually I just let him plant them wherever he wants, hoping knowing he might forget about them.  Since I’m a “green pinky” gardener, I usually know that the seeds he has won’t grow under the conditions in which he plants them in, but that’s not the point.  The point is to just let him have fun planting his seeds.

But I have assisted him in planting seeds under conditions that I knew hoped would grow.  Earlier this summer, we planted tomatoes, and to my surprise, he was very eager to take care of them. Since I have my hands full with two boys, I didn’t plan to plant much else, but he insisted that we plant pumpkins.  So we did.  Or I should say he did.  He planted those pumpkins, and he took care of them all summer.  He watered them every night!  I think it was quite late summer before he finally started to let his little brother do the watering, but he was still eager enough most evenings.  (He lasted longer than me.  Usually by mid-August, I’ve had enough of gardening.)  I was very proud of him.


Since plants are an interest of his, I have used the opportunity to teach him more about seeds, plants and gardening.  This has been over a long period of time.  As I wrote about in “Learning Is Like a Chain Link Fence,” I believe the best learning comes from doing and studying something at our leisure, over time, and when we need to learn about it for a purpose.  I’ll continue to teach my son about planting, seeds and gardening in the future.  This is an easy subject for me since I enjoy gardening myself.

Here’s a list of additional projects and resources that I’ve used to teach him about seeds and plants.  And you can scroll down to see our pictures.

  • I found a “Plant: Life Cycle” Poster (see photo above) for less than $3 at a nearby teacher supply store. Though my son and I enjoy making our own educational posters, I have no problem spending a few bucks every now and then. (Actually, the price was probably the same as making one of our own.)
  • We have read and added the books How a Seed Grows by Helene J. Jordan and From Seed to Plant by Allan Fowler to our home library.
  • Using this Martha Stewart tutorial, we tried to sprout some beans in jars.  We successfully sprouted some pinto beans, and one of them is still growing in our garden! Photos and more information below.
  • At my son’s request, we have tried several times to plant seeds from the fruits or vegetables that we eat and cook with in the kitchen.  I don’t think we’ve gotten any of those to grow yet.
  • Other than this, I have let my boys play in the garden, tend the garden and plant anything they want.  If it doesn’t grow, it’s just another lesson.

Nothing teaches a child about Earth’s bounty better than gardening.

My boys have been participating in gardening and growing plants since they were babies.

We’ve also taken advantage of local farms, and I plan to visit more as the boys get older.  We went strawberry picking last spring.

Our seed sprouting project:

Our seed sprouting project had a lot of false starts.  Thinking I could remember back to my kindergarten days, I thought we could just throw some seeds in a jar of water and watch them sprout.  Ahem….This didn’t work.  Then I tried Martha Stewart’s Garden in a Jar project.  The black beans didn’t sprout at all but that may be because they were old beans from my pantry.  The lima beans and pintos (which I bought new) started to sprout, but the limas stopped sprouting and got moldy, so I threw them out (too much water?)  The pintos were a success!

This method is simple:  Lightly wet a paper towel and put it in the bottom of a jar, place the dried beans on top of the towel and then cover the jar.  I used regular dried beans that you can buy at the grocery store.  You may need to mist the beans periodically, if the towel dries out.

Pinto bean success!  My son planted these sprouts in our garden, and one of them is still growing. I doubt it’ll make it through the winter, though. Yet that is a lesson in itself, no?


At my son’s request, we have tried planting some other things.  This lettuce was a success.  We also planted some in our garden,and though I’ve had a lot of success with lettuce over the years, I’m sorry to say that crop didn’t grow.

What kinds of things have your kids done to learn about seeds, plants and gardening?

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The Benefits of Storytelling

~ shelli ~ 14 Comments

The National Storytelling Network says that “storytelling is essential to education: neuroscience is demonstrating that the human brain organizes, retains, and accesses information most effectively in narrative form.”  Click here to read what else they say.

I’ve been spending the last few weeks thinking and writing about storytelling because I value the importance of storytelling for my children and community.  I’m wrapping up my series on storytelling by brainstorming several reasons why storytelling is so valuable for children and adults.  Below is my list in no particular order.  I hope you might contribute to my list by adding your thoughts in the comments section.

Storytelling is beneficial because:

  • Stories both entertain and impart wisdom.
  • I can teach my children in an unique way that they will want to listen and remember.
  • Storytelling ignites the imagination.
  • It fosters listening and comprehension skills.
  • It teaches speaking skills.  Shortly after beginning to make up stories for my five-year-old, he wanted to make up stories to tell me!
  • Storytelling is part of our language arts, which is a vital part of any person’s education!
  • Stories help people understand their place in the world.  For children, stories can help them understand who they are and the world they live in.
  • It’s relaxing.  A stress-reducer!
  • Storytelling provides valuable one-on-one time with the teller and listener(s).  Telling stories to children is an expression of love.
  • Similarly, storytelling connects people and communities.  It’s a positive form of communication that fosters compassion and understanding.
  • Stories preserve cultures, beliefs and values and shares those cultures, beliefs and values with the rest of the world.

Note: To find more resources on how to start telling stories to your children, see my Storytelling Page.

I’d like to dedicate my column and these blog posts on storytelling to the friend who inspired me to tell stories: J.J. Reneaux.  I think of her so often.

What do you think?  Please add your thoughts about storytelling in the comments section.

Two Stories I Made Up For My Five-Year-Old — to Show That YOU Can Do It Too!

~ shelli ~ 13 Comments

NOTE: You can now find me on Patreon. Follow me there for more information on homeschooling, project-based homeschooling and more.

***

This is the third in my series of posts about storytelling for children by their parents.  The first post was a review of the book Tell Me A Story by Chase Collins.  The second post was “How I Use Storytelling to Enrich the Lives of My Children.”  In that post, I warned you that I might get brave enough to share one of my stories with you! Well, guess what?  I’m giving you two!

With these stories I would like to illustrate something that Chase Collins taught me in her book.  When you are thinking “what the heck am I going to tell a story about?” she suggests that you look at what is going on with your child at that moment.  Did they do something special that day?  Is there something that they are into?  When we were on vacation in Chicago this summer, my son took his first subway ride, so I told him a story about some children riding on a subway and meeting a subway monster (not a scary monster)!  Right now my son is into snakes, so you can guess that many of my recent stories have snakes in them.

She also said that if you can get your child to give you an idea, then go with that!  Sometimes my son says, “Just tell me a story,” and I know he doesn’t want to contribute an idea.  But lately he has been saying, “Can you tell me a story about Jack and Piper?  And it could be about how Jack goes walking to the river and finds a rainbow snake who is lost?”  (That was my son’s prompt tonight!)

The following story is one I told last month before my boy’s birthdays, and while I usually forget my stories by the next day, this one stuck with me because I was kind of proud of it.  But I don’t always tell good stories!  Usually I start one and then struggle to come to a conclusion.  After telling this tale, I later I realized it has a similar theme to a book that I’ve read to my son….but I promise I am not plagiarizing!  My story is very different, yet perhaps I subconsciously got something out of that storybook.  I think this is okay when making up stories for kids.  We are not telling these stories to sell them.  It’s a one-time love offering to our children.  Get your ideas anywhere!  It doesn’t have to be original or told with perfect diction.  If it’s a bad story, don’t worry.  You’ll forget it and tell another one the next day.

The beginning paragraph is how I usually start out my “Jack and Piper” stories.  My main character is Jack, but since I told this story right before my son’s birthday, it seemed better to make Piper the main character in this one.

Once upon a time there was a little boy named Jack who lived in a forest in a log house, and he had a big garden full of vegetables and flowers.  And he also had a friend named Piper who was a troll with big feet and shaggy hair, and he lived down the path in a tree.  Piper couldn’t talk, but he had no problem communicating with his friend Jack.  

Well, tomorrow was going to be Jack’s birthday, and Piper was at home thinking about what to get for his friend.  That morning he walked outside his treehouse and noticed how beautiful the first morning light was glowing through the trees.  Oh, it would be wonderful to get Jack something as beautiful as that morning light, he thought.  Later, he was walking along the river, and he noticed how good the morning air smelled.  He breathed deep and sighed.  It would be wonderful to get Jack something that smelled as good as the morning air.  Then he walked up a small hill to one of his favorite places.  There, he sat in the grass and watched the sunrise while he ate some warm bread for breakfast.  Oh, he thought, I would love to get something that Jack would love as much as I love this morning sunrise!  

Piper sat there all day feeling kind of blue because he couldn’t think of anything he could give to Jack.  He didn’t have any money to buy anything, and he wasn’t very good at making things.  He went to bed feeling sad, but he woke up early in the morning, determined to be the first person to wish Jack a happy birthday!  He warmed up some bread in the oven and though he still felt bad about not having a present for Jack’s birthday, he knew it would be worse to not wish Jack happy birthday at all.  So he went to Jack’s house early.  It was barely light, and Piper snickered because he knew his friend liked to sleep late.  He would wake him up and be the first person to say “Happy Birthday!”  

When Piper got to Jack’s house, he knocked on the door, and a very groggy Jack answered it.  “Aw, Piper!” Jack whined.  “You woke me up!”  Piper clapped and jumped up and down.  “You want to wish me happy birthday?” Jack asked.  Piper nodded and held up the warm bread.  “Okay,” Jack said, “Just a minute.”  It didn’t take long for Jack to get dressed, and very soon the two friends were walking along the river.  “Wow,” Jack said, “It’s a beautiful morning. Smell that fresh air!”  The first light was easing its way through the branches.  The fog was gently lifting off the water.  Soon they were on top of the hill where Piper liked to eat his breakfast.  They ate the bread and watched the sunrise together.  

“I haven’t been up to see the sunrise in such a long time,” Jack said.  “I forgot how amazing it is! Thank you, Piper!”  

When Jack said that, Piper became very happy!  Suddenly he realized that he did give Jack something as beautiful as the morning light, that smelled as good as the morning air, and something that he loved as much as the sunrise!  

Currently, for a several nights in a row, my son keeps asking me to tell him a story about Jack and Piper AND an animal that gets lost.  I have no idea why he chooses this theme.  We did not have any occurrence when he got lost, and to my knowledge he has not watched a television show with this theme, but maybe he did.  Who knows?  For whatever reason, I believe it is important to him, so I am indulging him with stories about an animal getting lost and Jack and Piper helping the animal get home.  For the first couple of stories, I just had Jack and Piper help the critter home, but then I wised up.  I used the opportunity to tell my son what he could do to find his way home, if he got lost.  So in my third story, I had Jack instruct the animal to remember what landmarks he passed on his way down the river.  They followed them back up the river, and helped him find his way.  In the fourth story, which I’ll share below, I gave the advice we always hear:  If you get lost, stay put!  (Tonight I told a similar story, and I’m starting to think I need to encourage him to think of a new theme.)

Another note before I share the story:  As I mentioned before, my son usually tells me what kind of animal gets lost.  For the story below, he pointed to a snake on his “Snakes of Georgia” poster that he has on the wall next to his bed.  The snake he pointed to was a Yellow Rat Snake.  (Yes, you know you love your child when you let him have a poster full of snake photos and are willing to tell him a story about a Yellow Rat Snake!)  Here it is:

One morning Jack decided to take a walk down by the river.  When he got there, he sat down on a rock and enjoyed watching the river, listening to the gurgling sound of the water.  Suddenly he saw a baby yellow rat snake slithering by on the path very fast!  

“Little snake!” he said.  “Where are you going so fast?”  

“I’m looking for my mother!” the little snake said.  “I’m lost!” 

“Oh no!” Jack said.  “I’ll help you!  I’m very experienced at helping lost animals.”   (At this point my son asks me where Piper is, so I have to go get him.)  “But first we need to go get my friend Piper.  He’ll help us.”

Relieved, the baby snake went along to Piper’s house.  When Jack told Piper that the snake needed help finding his mother, Piper nodded and came along.

“First,” said Jack, “We’ll go back to where I found you.”  Soon they were at the place where Jack was sitting that morning.  “Now, Little Snake, where were you when you lost your mother?”

“Not far from here,” said the snake.  “Over there!”  He looked in the direction of a big boulder that was sitting on the bank of the river.   “My mommy took my sister and I out to find food, and she found me a cricket.  Then she went off with my sister to find her some food.  And I was so busy eating that I didn’t notice that they were gone!”  The little snake cried.  He wanted his mama.

“Ah,” said Jack.  “You know what?  I bet your mama isn’t far off.  The best thing to do when you’re lost is to stay right where you are.  Let’s go back to the boulder and wait.  I bet your mama will find us!”

“Okay,” said the little snake.  So Jack, Piper and the snake sat down by the big rock and waited.  The snake was still worried, but he was glad he had Jack and Piper to be with him. 

After a few minutes, the little snake’s mama and his sister came around a big tree that was close by.  “Mama!” the little snake cried.  “I thought I lost you!”

“I’m sorry you were scared,” said Mama.  “I was right over there with your sister.”

Jack and Piper were very happy that they were able to help the little snake.  They waved good-bye and watched as the snake family slithered down the trail.  Then they went back to Piper’s house and played together for the rest of the day.

Okay, so it won’t win any awards, but it made a 5-year-old very happy.  I hope you’re inspired to tell stories to your child.  If I can do it, you can do it!  Just let your imagination go wild!

***

Note: To find more resources on how to start telling stories to your children, see my Storytelling Page.

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How I Use Storytelling to Enrich the Lives of My Children

~ shelli ~ 12 Comments

In my last post I reviewed the book Tell Me a Story: Creating Bedtime Tales Your Children Will Dream On by Chase Collins, and I spoke a little about her reasons and strategy for making up your own tales.  In this post, I want to share my experience in telling stories to my son.

Telling stories has always been a passion of mine.  I used to write fiction, though I wasn’t very good at it or at least not good enough to get published.  Oral storytelling is also a passion, especially since I met the late J.J. Reneaux.  I can’t wait until my boys are old enough to go to the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesboro, TN.  I have been once, and it’s a wonderful experience.

But it took reading Tell Me a Story to get me started on making up tales for my own children.  Since I am a busy mama and often exhausted, I had felt like most of my creative juices were used up, but Chase’s book is inspiring.  When I read it, I began wishing I had someone like her to tell me stories!  She knows how to bolster confidence.  If you want to do anything creative and think you can’t do it, you might want to read the first part of this book.

It also frees my creative side to know that I’m telling stories to a five-year-old who will be happy with anything I come up with.  I don’t have to tell publishable stories or stories that adults or even other kids might like. I just have to tell something!  My child is thrilled that I’m taking time to tell him a story that is just for him.

As Collins suggests, I think about what happened to my son that day or what he’s interested in at the time, and I incorporate those things in the stories.  Even though it’s only been a few weeks since I finished the book, I have told dozens of stories to my son.  Many of them had different characters and were in different settings, but then I came up with Jack and Piper.  Jack is a little boy who lives in the forest in a log house with a large garden full of vegetables and flowers.  Piper is a troll with big feet and shaggy hair that lives down the path in a tree, and he’s Jack’s good friend.  Piper doesn’t talk, but Jack and Piper have no trouble communicating.

My son seems to love Jack and Piper because he’s been requesting a story about them every night.  He’s starting to tell me who they meet in the woods too.  I adore my son’s input because I know his creative juices are flowing, and he’s starting to see all the possibilities….

Best of all, he told me his first story the other night!  His story was very similar to some of my stories, but he put in his own character and changed the setting. I was so proud.

A few observations about my storytelling since I read Tell Me a Story:

  • When necessary, I have tried to come up with stories that might give my son a message I want him to hear.  This is something Collins talks about in her book, and I love the opportunity to teach my son in a fun way instead of hitting him over the head with a lecture.  Once I told a story about a little girl who babysat a very naughty puppy.  The puppy chewed up her favorite toy and wouldn’t do anything she needed him to do.  I hoped that on some subconscious level, my son might start to understand why there are times I need him to obey, be calm and not so difficult.
  • In my last post I shared Chase Collin’s “nitty-gritty story structure,” which she claimed, if followed, was an easy and full-proof way of coming up with a good tale on the spur of the moment.  Well, it’s not as easy as she makes it sound, but it definitely helps.  I have created some decent stories using this structure.  But then other times it’s so hard.  I can come up with a journey and a threat, but figuring out a hero-inspired way out can be tricky!  Luckily my son doesn’t mind my lame endings.  However, I have found that I enjoy telling stories more if I just let go of the structure and tell, which brings me to my next point…
  • Sometimes my stories are more like a “slice of life.”  Just a simple moment, a walk in the woods, what the hero encountered, what the hero liked and didn’t like, and then he went home.  After telling a few of these, I realized they relaxed me tremendously, my son enjoyed them, and I think they impart a great wisdom: to notice life, our surroundings, feelings and to appreciate nature.  And sometimes after telling these stories, I would think back and realize that it did indeed follow the nitty-gritty story structure after all!  Just in a very subtle way.
  • Finally, I have observed how happy storytelling makes me.  Take away the pressure to create a good story and simply speak about what you love, where you would like to be, what you’d like to be doing and with the kind of people you love, and you create a beautiful fantasy that both you and your child can dream on and keep with you throughout your day.  And then, of course, you might start to notice how your life parallels the lives of your characters…

Please come back again because in my next post, I might get brave and share one of my stories!

***

Note: To find more resources on how to start telling stories to your children, see my Storytelling Page.


Our Summer Vacation Part 4: The Kohl Children’s Museum in Greater Chicago

~ shelli ~ 4 Comments

I promise this is the last post about our summer vacation!

When we decided to check out the Kohl Children’s Museum, we knew absolutely nothing about it, but when I called their telephone number, the recording told me that it is one of the Top 10 Children’s Museums in the Country.  I can see why!  It’s a beautiful place and far surpasses the INK museum, which we have here in Gainesville – not that I’m dogging INK.  I love it too, and I’m very happy to have it near us.  But the Kohl museum – Wow.  The water room BY ITSELF was worth the effort of going.  Just look at it…

The Kohl Children’s Museum is the ultimate place to play make-believe, and it had similar exhibits to the INK museum, such as a grocery store, vet clinic, diner, and music room, but it had a lot more science in it too.  My kids are still young, so they liked the hands-on exhibits such as the water room, sandbox, music room, microscopes, etc.  I have to say that this museum is beautiful too.  Aesthetically pleasing in every way.  I loved the colors and quotes on the walls.

I wish I could show you more photos, but it was pretty crowded that day, so it was hard to keep other kids out of the frame.

Speaking of crowded, someone there told us we were lucky because it was NOT crowded that day.  What?!  My husband and I said we’d hate to go when it WAS crowded.

Part of the museum we missed, so if we ever go back, we might have to visit again.

There were cool places to explore outside too…

The Kohl Children’s Museum is a definite MUST SEE if you have young kids and visit Chicago.