Classroom Stuff

Our son is in first grade this year.  He's  a smart little guy.  He's so darn smart, that he will avoid extra work if it's not needed.  He can't be bothered to show off, because he already know he's smart and fun and awesome.
He IS awesome!  He is reading and writing at a level far beyond what my inner city kids were expected to achieve.  His math understanding is phenomenal- negative numbers are par for the course with him, so place value, that's kid stuff!

That said, he spends so much time focusing on new stuff, that he does the bare minimum when it comes to school work.  If you tell him you need AT LEAST 2 sentences, he writes- 2 sentences.  If you say first graders should be able to read this book- that's the most difficult book he'll read.  He'll rise to the challenge you issue...  BUT only the challenge you issue. 

I grew up competitive- I like to win.  I found out recently that this is called optimism- Apparently, because I am sometimes overly confident in my abilities, living up to my own goals is difficult, but I work my butt off to meet my own goals.  Our son though, he doesn't see the need to set his own goals yet, he's young.  He'd rather attain whatever goals are placed in front of him, as long as they are reasonable!

We're gearing up for parent teacher conference.  I never thought I would be this parent.  I am a teacher by trade, my skills, my training- this is what I do! Here I sit, drawing nearer to December, wondering.... How do I express to the teacher all that we see?  How do we show his real potential?  How do we tell her that he is probably the smartest kid in her class?  So smart that he can't be bothered with putting his work in writing?

I remember being where he was.  This was the easy stuff... the kid stuff- basic (really basic) arithmetic, simple geometry (naming shapes).  I remember knowing it so well that I didn't bother to put any effort in.  I don't want to be THAT parent, but here I sit, knowing that the only way he will put his best foot forward is if I am obnoxious enough to make the teacher see, believe and understand that he will do whatever is asked of him!

When racing go karts, we can ask that he improve by one second at a time- just one second, but one second is a lot.  One second is the difference between passing and being passed.  One second is the difference between 3rd place and dead last.  If we don't tell him he should try for third, he's happy with fourth.  The first time he came in fourth, he was ecstatic!  "I didn't realize there was a fourth place!" he said... "So we all can win!"  What a revelation for him..  What a revelation for us!  As his parents, that helped us to see, he is capable of whatever he sets his mind to.  We also saw that he will only set his mind to meeting the expectations laid out in front of him.

We have 3 weeks.  In 3 weeks, we need to be able to show his teacher that he needs to be in her most accomplished reading group.  In 3 weeks, we'll have to explain how putting him in the math group he doesn't seem ready for, or how telling him to double his work output is not only reasonable, but imperative will benefit her.

When we found out he had a teacher that was, for all intents and purposes a first year teacher, we were optomistic.  Now we need to be obnoxious instead.  He needs this.  It is our job as parents to ensure that he is pushed to do what he can, learn all he can, and see the joy in doing the best work he is capable of.  I only hope that we, his parents, can rise to meet this challenge!

A little fear is Healthy... right?

People are scary... In the computer age, you don't know your neighbors the way you used to... or that is, you have millions more neighbors... people that you've never met that know all of your secrets.  Sometimes this is great.  I've met women all over the country through online playgroups for my two kids.  We've visited with them, exchanged pen pal letters for the bigger one, and stickers for the little one.  Holiday gifts have been sent and received, some random packages that you find on your doorstep when you come home for no reason other than your friends were thinking of you.  We've supported one another through marriages, divorces, new babies and loss of babies.  The internet is a grand thing.  Its kind of fun going through customs into Canada, how long will you be staying? Just the day.  Purpose of visit? Seeing friends.  How do you know these friends?  Umm... we met on the internet.... I usually skip that answer and go with we're part of a parenting group!

So why is it, that I go to buy something on Craigslist, and find myself paralyzed with fear?  Oh, right... psychotic sickos.. that's why.  So we plan ahead.  I'm buying something for $1... it is perfectly reasonable that this woman wouldn't want to drive to meet me somewhere (cause there goes the profit margin!), so she gives me her home address.  I run it through google maps, print it out, set it on the ledge to the stairs and leave the house. (Note to my friends, if I ever turn up missing, I don't have my directions with me... that's my "insurance" policy, memorize the directions and leave them at home for the hubby to find).  The woman's house is all of 4 miles away through 3 backroads (we're kind of neighbors).  When I arrive ten minutes later than I planned (oops), she comes to the door and she asks the inevitable "did you find it OK?"  This is where I excercise my insurance policy "oh yes, good thing it was easy to get here, since I left my directions at home!"  Now she knows that I've left a trail right to her doorstep if she pulls any funny stuff.  I pull out my dollar and we make the exchange. 

Then she surprises me.  I'm still on guard, I don't know this woman.  She asks, "do you want some perennials to take with you?"  I only brought my dollar with me, so I politely decline, when she explains that she rescued these from her friends greenhouse, they were headed for the trash, and she wants to give them a second chance.  We proceeded to load my car up with a flat of creeping phlox, a flat of portulaca, a HUGE hibiscus, and 2 more flats of perennials.  As I'm about to get into the car with the kids, she asks if they'd like to see some chickens.  Now my guard is up again.  But, the kids want to see chickens, what can you do. 

Off we go up into her yard, where she has 4 week old chicks, and some 8 week old chicks, and a batch of 4 freshly hatched bantams with their momma (and daddy and aunts) and a big (HUGE) ol Rooster named Rodney, and a bunch more up in a little shed that she let out to run around beneath a mulberry tree.  My kids, not known for being brave, boldly followed the largest chickens right over to the mulberry tree and stood in the middle while the birds munched.  The rooster came over and joined us for some of our visit.  They were in awe!   She had chickens with funny hair doos and a bunch of eggs she'd already collected.  She talked to me about how the chickens would get broody if she didn't pick their eggs up soon enough, so she'd have to let them hatch.  She showed us themomma bantam sitting right on her day old chicks.The kids laughed as Rodney the rooster attempted to... ahem.... get a piggie back ride  As we were headed back to the car, we saw even more chickens.  They'd just built them a new coop.  and put it out under the mulberry tree.  Already thinking like a farmer, my big guy noticed that the holes in the chicken wire were big enough for the mulberries to fall through, and my little one pointed out the rectangle of picked clean grass beside the cage (where they had been the day before.).  And then we left. 

So what started out as an overcautious trip to pick on one silly little thing turned into a lesson on farming for my kids, and landscape work for me.  A little fear seems healthy, as long as you can still put it aside when the time comes!

Editing to add a pic of our columbine rock garden...

The Tinkerbell Party

With the next birthday looming right around the corner (OK, so its more than 3 months away...) I decided it was time to blog the last birthday for the girl. She's already planning this year's party, so these ideas need to come out so new ones can formulate, right?

The lil one was ALL about Tinkerbell this year, so sneaky mom that I am, had a co-worker who was thin, and blond, and a sucker....

Meet Tinkerbell!

The party started, as most parties we host do, with something that everyone could be involved in until everyone had arrived... in this case, beads and pipecleaners... I had the stash already for the most part, including bigger wooden beads for the littlest guests.  Once Tinkerbell arrived (as announced with some jingle bells and a twinkling light that could be seen outside the window:

"She's here!  She's here!"

Apparently I was caught in the act of creating Tink's costume, because my munchkin announced to her and the room at large that she THOUGHT I would be making her a costume, but I DIDN'T (the nerve) so she didn't ahve a costume to wear!  Tink was appropriately sympathetic... and then told us about the sprinting thistles... You know... those little meadow creatures that are always "poking everybody in the petunia."

Well.. you don't want them on your side of the meadow, so you toss them over the hill into the other side... and back and forth until arms are tired or the game gets boring (in this case, about 20 minutes!)

Next, we do some projects:  On the list for today: Bug Fingerpuppets and Ice Painting (note the spring time arriving theme?  First Tinkerbell movie?  eh? anyone? eh?).  Up next, some more games of course... (aka, give my suckers, errrr... family a chance to clean up my mess while I have fun with the kids... )  So we labeled some paper squares with kids names and put all their take home goodies on the back counter, and headed over the the orange foam boards I'd taped to the floor... AKA: the Alligator Crocodile Pit.  You grab a little vial of pixie dust (glitter in a small bottle with water) and balance across the beam, avoiding the snapping croc to deliver the dust Tink needs to get back home.  I was worried that this involved story line would bore all but the oldest kiddoes, what I found was the the tiny ones were taken with the miniature tubes and the challenge of the balance... we let them keep playing, and the big kids that came helped by taking turns being Crocodiles or returning the collected pixie dust to the start for more fun!

Our daycare provider (whom we love and are so fortunate to have in our lives!) made an Everyone Wins! Pin the Tink on Pixie Hollow game for the party (which hung in the girls room for MONTHS!).  All the little goodies that I'd grabbed at 75% off in the Target dollar bins made GREAT everyone wins prizes, plus, each munchkin got to take home the Tinkerbell with their name on it!  They were ecstatic!

And then it was time for cake: The request: Cherry cake with Strawberry Icing, but she was willing to settle for whatever I could find in pink...  The result?  A LOT of pink!

And that was that... we sent everyone off with a goodie bag with a tiny little glitter notebook, tinkerbell markers or crayons, some type of Tink make up/jewelry/hair doo-dad, and some fairies socks... Pretty successful year! 

This Year's Event

This year's party was great! 16 kids in attendance, ranging from 3 1/2 to 7. Most parents stayed, but a few chose not to.  My main goal for the past week was to have everything seperated into laundry baskets in the order it was needed, that way, I could walk in with one basket, and then if someone showed up early, I could get things rolling.  Otherwise, I could have the buckets out, and take advantage of the kindness of my mom, her husband, my aunt, grama, and other relatives.  They've all seen how I run parties, and are AWESOME at playing along and helping out!

We started out with Lego Time at the tables. I searched out a great deal at Toys R Us (birthday coupon for $3, flier with $5 coupon, buy 2 get 3rd free, get free extra mini-set, 20% off one set... , I walked away with 3 large sets and a bonus set for about $22).

Knowing that not every kid is a lego building fan, some mazes and other idea starters were out on the tables as well, such as:
http://robotclub.ab.ca/articles/20/lego-and-duplo-printable-grids
http://www.teachervision.fen.com/space-exploration/printable/34168.html
http://www.printactivities.com/ConnectTheDots/astronaut-dot2dot-2.html
http://www.busybeekidsprintables.com/Space-Stationery.html

Next, we converted a game from Diane Craft's Active Play into a Meteor Shower. I carefully set it up with the kids, and they really take it from there. Basically, I had about 40 small stuffed "rocks" or Meteors for the kids. They don't want them on their side of the barrier, so they toss them over to the other side. There are kids over there throwing them back though. It seems like 6 years old is a little too old for this as a large group, but since it was a party, and not school, a little chaos is fun, right?

When the game was over, I challenged the kids to stuff all the meteors into the black hole... Just a coffee can with tissue paper hiding the label.. it was tough, and took a few minutes. Meanwhile, all my relatives were busy cleaning up the legos, and putting out the next activity (Did I say thanks? Thanks!).

We had 2 space ship options to create, with supplies for each child to do one of each. One was this flying saucer from Family Fun. The other was a pre-made kit, which I bagged individually.  I ran around with a sharpie writing names on saucers and baggies with spaceships, and I know at least one other marker was out there too!

When that started wrapping up, we played "Pin the Person on the Planet," a variation of the game we're all familiar with, right? Each munchkin picked a lego guy (there were about 30 options, and a few extra heads)and a flashcard that showed a planet (from the Target dollar bins). We made sure they knew which planet they were aiming for, then the blindfold, and you stick your lego person onto the lego planet... The "winner" prizes were to one side, and the "consolation" prizes were to the other side, so when the first 5 kids all won, we were able to just let kids pick whichever prize they wanted... no biggie!

Two guys on Mars

Next was the pull string Pinata. I found a lot of VAGUE directions like this...but that was enough to get me started... I used a diaper box, and had the hubby cut a bread crumb canister into 8 one inch sections using a razor blade, covered them in tissue paper, and stuck them on the "top" which was actually the bottom. For the pull strings, we did a whole bunch of ribbons, but one was looped through a few holes I'd punched in the "bottom" flap. I didn't follow these directions, though you could!

The only thing holding the box shut was a layer of tissue paper, and while only one of the two flaps would get pulled open, I counted on gravity and brute force to make all the candy fall out the open side, which it did! Since the theme was Space AND Lego, and the Pinata was Lego, it only seemed fair to fill the pinata with Spacey items... So SUNmaid raisins, STARburst, and MILKY WAY, along with glow bracelets were the goodies. The glow bracelets all cracked when they fell to the floor, which made for a neat effect (and hopefully not too many upset parents, for sending a TON of stuff home with their kids!). We did the "all pull at once" version, I should have made the strings about 3 feet instead of the 2, but it worked fine. Each kid had a baggie (no ziplock, just the cheapies) in one hand, with their name for collecting, we counted to 6 and PULL! I super curled the key ribbon so I could make sure it got pulled too.

Last was, of course, CAKE! We changed some of the directions from that website, NECO wafers are so hit or miss, we left them out entirely... I added Oreos to the filling layer. We talked through the beverages, but the easiest option was juiceboxes... at the last minute I decided to offer water as well... good thing.. it was about a 50/50 split for the kids!

He's happy here, I swear!

On the way out the door, of course, everyone received a goodie bag. Each one had Lego Crayons (made from the molds, which are tough to come by, at least in the US), a Space/Lego booklet, Lego Magazine, a space toy from a Space Toob, and a little lego kit, all in a brown paper bag, which was big enough to hold everything but the Flying Saucer...

Soundtrack to the party:
I am the Highway, Audio Slave
Why does the Sun Really Shine, They Might Be Giants
Airplanes, B.o.B.
Speed and Velocity, They Might Be Giants
Satellite, Dave Matthews
Bad Moon Rising, Creedance Clearwater Revival
See you on the Moon, Great Lakes Swimmers (off for the kids 3)
Spacegrass, Clutch
Why does the sun shine?, They Might Be Giants
Rocket Man (punk rock cover), Me First and the Gimme Gimmes
We are All Earthlings, The Muppets
Space Oddity, David Bowie
Blue (Da ba dee), Eiffel 65
Across the Universe, Jim Sturges (covering Beatles)
How Many Planets?,They Might Be Giants
Countdown, Rush
Rocket Man, Elton John
Fly me to the Moon, Matt Dusk (but Frank Sinatra would work too!)
I don't want to live on the moon, Ernie and Shawn Colvin on Elmopalooza
What is a shooting star?, They Might Be Giants




Items included in the activity booklet:
http://www.printactivities.com/ColoringPages/Space-Coloring-Pages/space-travel-road-signs.html
http://www.printactivities.com/Mazes/Shape_Mazes/Astronaut-Maze.shtml  
http://www.printactivities.com/Mazes/Math-Mazes/Space-CountingBy1s.shtml
http://www.printactivities.com/ConnectTheDots/Planet-Dot2Dot.shtml
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/devices/spaceshuttle/label/
http://www.teachervision.fen.com/space-exploration/printable/34168.html
http://www.busybeekidsprintables.com/Space-Stationery.html
http://creative.lego.com/en-us/parentscorner/activities/default.aspx
http://www.1800dentist.com/LEGO-Battles-coloring-pages
http://www.livinglocurto.com/2010/07/free-printable-lego-bingo-game/
http://www.dltk-cards.com/doorknob/dk4-lego.asp
http://powerminers.lego.com/en-us/downloads/posters.aspx
http://robotclub.ab.ca/articles/20/lego-and-duplo-printable-grids



Over achiever

I like kids' birthday parties.

There, I said it.

Actually, I LOVE them! I love the fun and excitement and singing and cake and frosting (especially the frosting!)

I've been accused of being an overacheiver (moi?)

The thing is, they're fun! I'm too old to have my own party, so YES I will live vicariously through my children, and YES I will go overboard on elaborate schemes, because if I don't, who will, and... it's FUN! Parties I plan have themes, and activities, and movement, and treats, and tradition, and everything else that goes with having a birthday party. Before I had my own children, you'd catch me joining in with other people's party planning. At one point, I looked at a career in planning kids birthday parties... the problem is, I'd go over budget everytime, and spend all the money I took in on "just one more" great idea!

I've done the party place thing. I've been to party places, bowling alleys, Chuck E Cheese, and kids activity places... they're fun, no doubt. One year, I even tried paying to have a party at one of those places. It was just as stressful, didn't go the way I'd have planned it, and I walked away with a sense of disappointment, rather than, I'll admit, the pride I get from the parties I host!

All this to say... My boy's turning 6 in less than a week. He's had a duck party, a train party, a monster truck party, a USA party, a Trick or Treat party and this year... Space Lego party... More to come!