Learning Through Play

Recently, a few moms decided that our community could use a nice children's museum. They acquired some space for it downtown, and with the help of donations and many hardworking volunteers, the partially completed museum is now opened four days a week, as they raise funds to finish the remaining exhibits.

On Thursday, while Becca attended her princess ballet camp, I took Hannah and Ben across the street to the museum. We decided to become charter members, partially because we would love to have Hannah's birthday party there in the fall, but mostly because I want to support such a worthwhile effort to improve our community for families.

The kids had a blast! After walking through the museum first, to see all the exhibits, both kids started out in the gardening section. Two large raised boxes, filled with shredded rubber "dirt," plastic gardening tools, flower pots, and plastic flowers provided a fun place to dig and play without the mess of real dirt. Hannah loved this section the most and spent quite a bit of time there.

Ben's favorite section was, of course, the musical pipes. Once he figured out how to make music by hitting the ends of the pipes with the foam paddles, he enthusiastically composed his own music, hitting higher on the pipes for rhythm and hitting the ends for musical notes. He jumped back and forth from end to end, moving to the beat of the music in his head.

Both kids enjoyed grocery shopping in the little market. I smiled as they loaded their carts with fruits and veggies and other healthy choices, with only an occasional treat. Maybe they are learning something from our food choices?

The laughed together as Ben scanned Hannah's carrot as he pretended to ring up her purchases.

Both kids also enjoyed the baby doctor section, though Hannah got into it more than Ben did.

Ben preferred turning all of the dials to playing with the dolls.

Finally, the kids finished out their time in the vet exhibit. Ben played with the real stethoscopes, while Hannah doctored the various animals. She posed happily with the snake, which she has learned to love since we began reading Harry Potter this year. I think she wishes she could speak "parseltongue."

We had a wonderful time at the museum, and I had to drag them away when the time came to pick up Becca. I am sure we will return many times throughout the year, especially on those dreary days when we cannot be outside. I love that it is located less than ten minutes from our house, and we can visit it any time we want, without needing to plan ahead. I am thrilled to have such a fun place in our community!

Crazy Creativity

Hannah is a writer and an illustrator. She cannot seem to help herself. Each day she comes home from school with her arms full of pictures and books she has created, and many afternoons and weekends, she continues creating even while she is at home.

She makes her own coloring books to doodle in after school. In her room, she has a lovely journal, containing the details of many days' activities and experiences, complete with drawings to illustrate the writing, and stickers as souvenirs from doctor appointments or other adventures. Earlier this week, she wrote and illustrated a how-to book about making a butterfly kite that really "flys."

"Fun Craft
By: Hannah"

"What you need
Roll of String
Sicciors (scissors)
Markers
Hole Punch
Stickers
Sheet of Paper
Decorate"

"Fun Butterfly
Roll of Tape
Pencill
Crayons
it Flys"

"What you do
take
the paper
cut this shape ->
cut this shape too ->
use tape to tape
them together
Draw smile with Pecill use
stickers and
crayons to Decorate"

"then Hole punch
the botom
tie string to
Hole.
now you
Got one"

"on windy
Days it flys"

"yay"

She even incorporates her writing and designing into her play. Recently, she celebrated the birthday of one of her stuffed animals. She wrote songs for the party, decorated presents, and even made a countdown until the big day. Another time, she decided to put on a show, based on the movie Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. She created tickets for each family member with our names and the name of the show on them. She also designed a sign/advertisement for the show:

"Hannahs
open
theater
Free evry night
cloudy
with a
chanch of meatballs"

She never performed the show, but she seems to enjoy preparing for such events at least as much as actually performing. At times, I marvel to myself over the projects she undertakes. Some of them, such as her show, remind me of my school assignments from late elementary school. Yet, she plans and completes them because she delights in the process.

I love Hannah's crazy creativity, the passion that drives her to fill each day with writing and drawing and designing. I hope, as we homeschool next year, that I can provide an environment in which her creativity will flourish, growing deeper with each new idea she learns. I also hope that her love of writing continues to grow even as she begins to grasp grammar and spelling and rules of good writing. Honestly, I suspect that the written word entices her heart as it does my own, and I smile as I remember another little girl who used to scribble imaginative stories in a spiral notebook many years ago. In fact, I think I still have that notebook somewhere...

Craft Time

Although Hannah spends more time "crafting," Ben also enjoys cutting and gluing and making fun creations. For Christmas this year, my parents bought him a wonderful craft set, perfect for a little boy who loves cars and trucks. It contains supplies and instructions for making colorful cardboard models of an ice cream truck, a school bus, and a race car.

For his first project, Ben happily chose the ice cream truck, which did not surprise me at all. For quite a while last year, he told me that he wanted to be an ice cream truck driver when he grew up, and the three kids played "ice cream truck" together all summer long. Ben usually pretended to be the ice cream truck, walking around humming the truck's distinctive song and doling out pretend ice cream to his sisters in exchange for imaginary dollars. So, I knew he would love this craft!

After I assembled the cardboard pieces, Ben followed my instructions, gluing the various materials in the correct places.

Becca enjoyed watching the process, though she was a bit sad that she could not "help." She alternated between hovering over Ben and popping a piece of bubble wrap that I gave her to keep her little hands busy.

Ben did his best to be patient with Becca and even explained some of what he was doing.

For the finishing touch, he put round stickers all over the truck to add to its colorful, whimsical design.


He was so proud of the finished project! He excitedly showed Hannah and Josh when they returned home after school and work.

Because all of the kids are now interested in crafts, we knew we needed a better place to do them. Josh had a wonderful idea for this, once we took down our Christmas tree. Instead of returning the furniture to its previous location, we set up a folding table with a vinyl tablecloth in the living room. Now the kids can cut, glue, and color to their hearts' content without taking over the entire house! However, we soon will need an entire room dedicated to storing hundreds of paper snowflakes, heart chains, paper scraps, handmade cards, and toilet paper roll creations...

Gifts for Growth

All three kids received many wonderful presents this year for Christmas. A few gifts, however, have captured their creativity and curiosity as they encourage them to develop their minds.

Ben's favorite gift this year is a Snap Circuit set, which allows him to build circuits that perform various functions. So far, he and Josh have built light switches, a musical doorbell, a radio transmitter that acts as a microphone, a "helicopter" launcher, and many others. Ben has learned how to create his own circuits as well. Yesterday, I heard a buzzing sound as he was playing and, concerned, I asked him what he was doing. "I accidentally bypassed the switch," he explained. "I'll fix it." He also surprised me by asking if I had seen the CV capacitor he needed. I had to tell him that I did not even know what a capacitor was!

Hannah has two gifts that she enjoys very much. We gave her a tub of craft supplies - tissue paper, streamers, stickers, feathers, rick-rack, doilies, googly eyes, pom poms, paper, pipe cleaners, and more. Additionally, we gave her a large roll of tape and a bag full of toilet paper rolls I had been saving. She has been cutting and gluing and taping and creating constantly since Christmas morning!

Well, almost constantly... Grandma and PopPop gave her the best gift this year. It is a kit with plastic dinosaur bones encased in stones. Using a chisel and a hammer, she has to chip away at the stones until she can extract all of the bones. When she finishes, she can assemble a complete model of a t-rex skeleton.

Unfortunately, we discovered that the stones fly all over the house when she chisels them, so she has to work on it outside. Grandma stood outside with her in the cold for hours yesterday as Hannah slowly and carefully tapped the tiny rocks off of the bones.

She has revealed a few bones so far, but I think this will be a long term project rather than a short term activity. Though she felt quite disappointed when she discovered that the bones are plastic and not real dinosaur bones, she still loves to work on it, practicing to become a paleontologist someday.

I love giving the kids gifts that encourage their minds and their creativity to grow. They focus so intensely, exploring and learning and experimenting, that I can almost see their little brains working. They each have such individual interests and aptitudes, and I enjoy watching them develop and grow as they get older. I wonder what they will be and how they will continue in their passions when they are adults. For now, though, I am glad to know that these gifts for growth are not only my favorites for them, but their favorites as well.

How Stuff Works: Heaters 101

I discovered another benefit of having a husband who loves to fix things and take everything apart. The kids learn some interesting lessons about how appliances and household items work.

On Monday, after Josh fixed the heater (it was an igniter, not an ignition coil, I think), he brought all of the kids downstairs into the basement, removed the cover from the side of the heater, and asked me to turn up the heat. Then, keeping them at a safe distance, he explained to them exactly how the furnace worked as they watched.

This morning, the kids were running around and playing a game.

Hannah: "Oh, the igniter is broken! Quick! We have have to fix it!"
Ben: " OK, now turn the heat on. See - the igniter is glowing orange. Sssssssss... here comes the gas! Whoosh! Now the pipes are blowing blue fire. Yay! It's fixed!"

Josh and I just laughed.

Outer Space

Have I mentioned how much Hannah loves the Magic Tree House book series? We purchased books 1-28 for Christmas, and she is about halfway finished with them. She has enjoyed all of them so far, but she fell in love with Midnight on the Moon.

For a couple weeks, I constantly heard thumps and bangs coming from her room. When I opened the door, she would be wearing her "moon suit" - a zip-up jacket vest, a Disney princess hat, Strawberry Shortcake slippers, and fancy white gloves.

"What are you doing?" I would ask as she leaped from her bed. "Going to the moon!" she would yell.

One day, she said to Josh, "I need to go potty."

"Then go," he told her.

"I can't," she explained, "I have to go to the moon first." Oh, of course...

In light of this obsession, I was thrilled to find a number of worksheets about Space and our Solar System on the Time For Kids website. I decided to print out one worksheet just for Hannah, but also a couple for both Hannah and Ben to try. I knew Ben would need help reading the questions and writing some of the answers, but he amazed me at how well he did.

Hannah's pages:


Ben's pages:


Hannah's page about Pluto:

Reading, Reading, Reading!

Hannah just loves to read. She reads through a book passionately and then searches for more. Many of her books are like good friends. She comes back to them again and again, reading them until she could recite the story from memory.

I should have suspected that she would be like this. After all, she had memorized the entire "Hungry Caterpillar," word for word, before she reached her second birthday. Moreover, I was an avid reader, too. In early elementary school, I discovered the Nancy Drew series and read them one by one until I had finished my mom's entire collection.

I remember reading "The Wind in the Willows" over the course of about an hour when I was a kid, and my mom did not believe me when I told her I had finished the book. She began flipping through the pages and asking me questions about the story. I answered every one!

Recently, the same situation occurred with me and Hannah. I purchased her the first book in the Magic Treehouse series, and she read it, cover to cover, in an hour and a half. I started quizzing her about the plot and the different chapters, and she could answer all of my questions! She has since read and enjoyed two more books in the series. Actually, she reads whatever she can get her hands on for several hours every day.

I am thrilled at her love for books! I know the feeling of infatuation when reading a good story, a quickening of the pulse when I open the book to read and a sadness when I must put the book away for a time. I know the heartache of finishing a well-loved story and wishing that it didn't have to end, that I could enter the story and continue to interact with the "friends" I had grown to love. In fact, part of me secretly enjoys the opportunity to reread my favorite childhood stories with her. I almost feel as if I am returning home after a long absence and finding that, indeed, nothing has changed! Can I confess that I am looking forward to having an excuse to read Nancy Drew again?

I am glad to pass that passion on to my daughter, who is like me in so many ways. I hope that I can continue to cultivate her appreciation for the written word, and that she will carry it with her into adulthood. Maybe someday, if she has a family, she will one day reopen these books and remember the familiar delight of being a carefree, imaginative, five-year-old child.