Loving our new Legos!

Early this summer we purchased a special set of Duplos for the older children. Lego makes sets designed specifically for classrooms under their Dacta brand, and they have many features that their square and rectangular blocks do not - they can swivel, pivot, add motors and pneumatic features and comprise a real hands-on physics classroom in a box!

And the kids love them. They are safe enough for the two year olds to use, engaging enough to keep the older kids busy for quite a while and large enough even for the toddlers to try since they are not choking hazards. Here are some pictures of our older children's creations - spaceships and hotrods.

Living Simply for the Holidays

This year the Hanukkah and Christmas holiday season snuck up so quickly!! There was a last-minute decision to postpone the holiday party to after New Years to save everyone precious moments for their family. Besides, it extends the holiday season another entire week!! : )

This season I resolved to try to live sustainably and shop local. That meant looking at labels of origin and focusing on goods made here in the USA. Sustainability is not just about saving materials, fuel, and energy but also, for me, about saving American jobs. I realize that our world is more interconnected globally than ever before, but we want our children to have jobs someday and not have to go overseas for them, don't we?

The children have been wonderful this season - well behaved, well, for toddlers, anyway! - and so curious about what the holidays are all about!! Aromas of cookie baking entice them to participate in our cooking activities and of course they love the results! I usually make several kinds of cookies for home and gifts every year. The biscotti and painted cookies seem to reappear regularly by request!

The littlest ones are talking much more than they did three months ago, and are very clear as to their preferences. We always offer choices, and even if all they do is point to their chosen meal preference, that's helping them develop a sense of ownership of the environment and an awareness that their preferences are respected.

They also love arts and crafts - we had time to make some pop-up cards of a Yule tree this week and the children were so proud of those!

Next week we are off - I was hoping to have the kitchen floor sanded but the contractor had to cancel so we'll have to postpone to the summer. There is plenty to do here at home - this will be a 'working stay-cation' for me! We are expecting the arrival of some new bathroom hardware - I'm really tired of looking at the broken handle on the vanity this past two years!

Green Holidays?

The summer has raced by, the last of autumn's leaves are in a pile by the curb, and Black Friday is just a few days away. How will we celebrate the holidays this year? With another mad dash to the mall to spend precious dollars on (to me) cop-out gift cards or imported goods quickly ditched or broken? Or with quality time spent with family, getting to the heart of the season of good cheer with open hearts and arms?

Without adopting the hubris of trying to solve the nation's deficit problem myself in one season, I resolved this year to adopt simplicity as a life style and seek that true Spirit of Light that so many cultures embrace at this time. It really bothers me that huge foreign countries own so much of our debt, not to mention where that debt came from! So to the greatest extent possible I set myself the challenge of supporting American families, American factories, and feeling some pride in keeping my dollars here at home.

While I won't give away the gifting surprises ; ) I'm pleased to say that I was successful in finding things for the kids that were made here at home, or in small countries I was happy to support. (Not to mention minimal packaging, a small environmental footprint, and/or the ability to continually repurpose or recycle.) And do you have any idea how hard it is nowadays to find American-made goods anymore? It was a wonderful adventure!

As we enter December with mindfulness of the many unmet needs of others much less fortunate than ourselves, may we embrace a simplicity of the spirit which allows us to see everything, everyone, as a Divine Gift reflected in the face of every person we meet, and act gently, and even generously, according to that Spirit.

Naptime routines

How to get four children down for nap at the same time? When it happens easily it's wonderful. : ) A tummy full of fun, nutritious food really helps; so does routine. The older children look forward to their rest period after a morning full of activity! They often set the pace and example for the younger ones. With tiny babies (all of ours are toddlers right now), the schedule follows more of their natural patterns of eat, sleep, wake, eat, sleep, wake, every hour or two. Our regular naptime for the older children is right after lunch. We clean them up, read a story, set up their naptime area, pull down all the blinds, change their diapers and put them to rest. Sometimes they rest, sometimes they play for a while. Hopefully they don't wake the other children! : ) I check the wakeful ones on occasion to see how they're doing but generally don't interact much - this is naptime, not playtime with Kathy, after all!

When all is quiet I take the opportunity to have a cup of tea, wash the lunch and breakfast dishes, tidy up, and catch up on anecdotal records and paperwork. In a few minutes it's time to get them up, change diapers, and start the learn/play cycle all over again!

Horses, horses, horses!

Today we visited Danada Equestrian Center in Naperville. We enjoyed seeing the kids in their junior high summer camp program, meeting several of their horses in the paddocks and barn (and a bonus - seeing a barn swallow pair feeding their chicks!), and watching two of their draft horses being groomed and harnessed up to pull the hayride wagon. We learned how to tell if a horse will welcome a person near them by observing their body language, and we learned about horse anatomy and breeds. We compared the kids' heights to the outlines of different breeds of horses - a fun math game! We even got to see the skeleton of Doc, one of their former draft horses, and learn about how bones are important. This outing is the concrete experience that will help them appreciate our visit to the Field Museum next week - the exhibit 'Horses' closes on the 13th and we don't want to miss it!

Fun and games

Some of the children's favorite games revolve around cooperation and a bit of friendly competition: Children Around the World, where when you land on a space that someone else is occupying, you share a token from your culture; the Birds of the National Parks game, which can be played as a memory game, or by collecting pairs as in a card game, or just matching the bird cards up to the poster and learning about them in that way. Even the two year olds enjoy it! They like to play 'Hiss', or as we call it, 'the snake game' where they match up (kind of like dominoes) two-toned pieces of snakes to make a complete one. It's a simple game, easy enough for two year olds to play. It teaches them turn-taking, colors, and counting. We also have story baskets, with a board book and little figures of animals and/or people or stuffed animals that help tell the story. It makes the story much more concrete for the little ones. They can hold and play with one of the figures while we finish telling the story, and that makes them want to revisit it over and over; it also expands the age range of interest. Right now we're working with some of the Eric Carle books in our story baskets, along with Mouse Paint!

New arrival!

This week we welcomed I, our new 15-month-old. She looks like a cherub! The other children have immediately taken to her. Grandma C is delightful! She is a professional speech pathologist and I feel grateful to benefit from her wisdom about the process of language development.

It has been a hot week so far with heat indices well over a hundred degrees, so we've played outside for an hour or so right after breakfast, then moved the party indoors. Last night's thunderstorm should give us a break in the weather - we hope to have a field trip today, and will update later on that, depending on where the children decide to go. Because of the heat, we allowed the children to watch a bit of Planet Earth and a film about horses, in preparation for our planned visit next week to the Field Museum to see 'Horses' before it closes on the 13th. Horses were a primary nexus of technology and culture for at least two thousand years before the development of the motor car; I think we've forgotten our debt to these beautiful animals and I'm looking forward to seeing the children's reactions to the exhibit. Perhaps today we will go out to Danada Farm to visit their stables!

Little Red Schoolhouse

This week we visited the Little Red Schoolhouse Nature Center in Willow Springs. The new, LEED-certified, building has such a wide variety of rich nature learning experiences, including lots of indoor room for imaginative play, doing puzzles, and reading about nature. Also, many static and live displays (the alligator snapping turtles seem to be their favorite!), and a beautiful, peaceful outdoor area, including a pond, where one can see fish, tadpoles, and (non-poisonous) water snakes, hear bullfrogs, and see snowy white egrets in their natural habitats.

There are regularly-scheduled interpretive programs and activities for all ages. (I'm going back tomorrow morning for a free landscape-painting workshop! : ))

When we go, we visit either before or after lunch, since picnicking is not allowed there. The older boys really enjoyed the exploratory play area this week, 'excavating' for dinosaurs and other plastic toys hidden in a large bin of environmentally-friendly corncob granules. The ramp going downstairs to the turtle and fish tanks is like a journey back in time, with fossils (and live plants, such as ferns and cycads which have survived from the age of fossils), interpretive labeling and displays, along with full-size wall outlines of dinosaurs so the kids can compare their size to these ancient giants. Those always elicit a "Wow!" This place is one of our very favorites to visit, year round, for our field trips.

And you know what else? The Cook County Forest Preserve owns and maintains this property. They have amazing, knowledgeable staff, some of the best in the field. (And I can say that with some authority because I have known several personally for many years. : )) The CCFPD is part of a wider coalition called Chicago Wilderness, which has sponsored regional and national Leave No Child Inside legislation, and is on the cutting edge of nature education worldwide.

Cool.

The amazing alphabet

What amazes me about people is how rich our language is, and how quickly the infant brain learns it! Right now we have four children, L (almost 4), R (2.5), A and M (almost 2), who are eager to learn the alphabet, and they are making amazing progress! Maria Montessori wrote about how the age of four was towards the end of the sensitive period for learning this, and my observations these past many years seem to corroborate this. However, some of my friends have raised their children within the Waldorf School framework, and they don't introduce the alphabet until the age of seven, preferring instead to focus on oral storytelling, handwork and visual arts. Somehow, we all get there eventually!

We combine alphabet puzzles, the Montessori sandpaper letters, art activities, flash cards, and baskets with things that all start with the same letter, to encourage children with different learning styles to explore the alphabet in different ways. I am completely amazed that my almost-2-year-old knows 20 of the alphabet letters already! So it can be done...

I think you have to be very subtle though - if I've learned anything about kids (and older!), they don't like being put on the spot unless you make it fun in some way. They get performance anxiety just like anyone else. Pressure is very counterproductive, whether it's learning the alphabet, trying a new food, or potty training. I've learned this the hard way, believe me! : )

Kids and food

Today we had Life cereal, OJ and milk for breakfast. I know, Life isn't organic, but oats are a very hardy crop and usually not knee-deep in pesticides (think of how the hardy Scots lived on oats and barley for hundreds of years without benefit of Monsanto...). I worry most about fruits, especially the thin-skinned ones like strawberries.

For lunch we had poached an organic chicken, and served dices of the chicken, along with petit pois and cocciolini pasta cooked in the chicken broth. Pears were our fruit course, afterwards. The kids loved it. They will eat pasta every day if I serve it!

We color-code the children's plates, cups and utensils. That helps me immeasurably but the children also find security in knowing where they sit and what to expect at mealtime. Food=love=security for kids. The small touches really matter! A pretty table, food attractively displayed and arranged, teaches them subtly that aesthetics matter, and that they are worth the respect these small touches afford.

I haven't thought far enough ahead today to contemplate snack yet. I always give the children choices, and rotate those choices among them so that everyone has some input about our shared meals. Since mealtime probably takes up at least a third of our time together it's a wonderful vehicle for transmitting cultural values such as politeness, cleanliness, respect, and care for the environment, not to mention care for one another.

Since time immemorial, mealtime has been the time for sharing our stories. I hope people will continue to share those stories around the dinnertable, rather than eating on TV trays as I have seen many families do. What a missed opportunity!

Our program

Why is our program special? Well, we promote a connection to the earth. Food doesn't grow on styrofoam plates - yet, anyway! There are human hands at work, important work, that many kids have grown up dissociated from. Every spring we grow some food - strawberries, broccoli, tomatoes, raspberries, even apples. And we try to purchase as much organic food as possible. The research connecting pesticides to illness is pretty conclusive.

The kids play outside for a good part of the day. We teach them the names of the birds we see, and the plants we raise, and we look for monarch butterfly eggs to nurture so they can wonder at the process of metamorphosis.

I admit it - I'm a science and math geek. Well, maybe not so advanced on the math, but I try to make those connections wherever possible. Like in music. And it's important to me that kids actively problem solve, not just be passive observers. So.... not much TV here either (unless it's program related!).

I'm also a Montessorian in spirit, if not in our entire classroom. Montessori had wonderful materials for teaching about math, reading, and nature. We use those every day.

Next time I'll talk more about our kids' activities and some of the great things they say to me.

For the Love of Children

It's never easy to give your children over to someone else while you go to work. It's a sacred trust, and a huge responsibility for both parent and caregiver. But somehow, we all believe that love, and hope, and responsibility will prevail. This little blog is designed to maintain confidentiality but also provide a window into a caregiver's day.

Our children are worth it!