Interests in the Driver's Seat

What are my kids interested in? This week, I got to see some of their their interests that have little to do with school subjects coming to the fore. After borrowing my needle and thread to try making a cape for a doll, P asked for a needle and thread of her own. I asked if she'd like a bit more than that, and she said yes, so I "went shopping" in my sewing supplies. Ten minutes later she had several colors of thread (including a strong quilting thread for tougher projects), a sewing needle, a pincushion with pins, a few other bits and bobs, and a small toolbox to keep them in. Then P and I went through my rag bag, and she found several pieces of cloth she loved that were big enough for doll stuff but nearly useless otherwise except for scrap quilts (the sort of thing that brings me joy to give away!), and we tucked those into the large bottom compartment of her box. She's been making doll capes, doll dresses, and small bags for random stuff. From her first efforts, which had stitches I could stick a thumb through and loose thread ends coming out, to her later ones, which have smaller, more secure stitches, she's making a lot of progress, with very little instruction desired or given. 

T has completed his potty transition, and is now a self-motivated, full-time potty user. Knock wood, it's been at least a couple of weeks since the last accident. He chose a book at the library with shoelaces to practice tying and has been asking me to read it to him (and show him how to tie them) a lot. He's obsessed with buttons -- buttoning and unbuttoning them repeatedly when he could be eating, or playing, or going someplace he loves -- and is unhappy when he can't find a shirt with buttons to wear. And this week he climbed a tree on his own for the first time -- and, the next day, fell out of a tree for the first time. Fortunately he landed well and took no lasting damage. He was so proud to show me where he could climb!

One night, I heard P singing a variety of nursery rhymes and songs to a single tune, which had a trochaic meter with 4/3/4/3 feet per line. She had already found that "Mary Had a Little Lamb" worked fine, but that "Rock-a-Bye Baby" and "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" were awkward. I sang each of them to her (to its own tune) while counting stressed syllables on my fingers, and she immediately caught on to the difference between the 4/3/4/3 pattern of "Mary" and the 4/4/4/4 pattern of the other songs. We didn't use the words meter, foot, trochee, or dactyl, but P learned the basics of scanning poetic meter handily from something she was already trying on her own.

We've had a video-heavy week -- I'm experimenting with placing fewer limits on screen time and seeing where the kids' natural preferences take them -- but we've still had some good family walk and walk/bus expeditions, and I'm hoping for more biking soon, now that the nearby school playground (which has lots of level blacktop and gentle grassy slopes) is open after renovation. My activity during the videos has been knitting a hat from yarn I spun last month. Now that it's done, both kids want a similar one, maybe in different colors. That will have to wait until I catch up with the laundry folding, but it should provide another good opportunity for thinking about colors and elements of textile design.

A while back, P broke her bedside lamp. At the time she declined my offer of a replacement. This week I offered again and she accepted, and bam, we're back on the reading-into-the-night track. I'm thrilled that she's reading in volume again, but sometimes she'll read a whole book in a night and still be in bed at 11 the next morning. With T still taking an afternoon nap, that puts a real crimp in our ability to get out and do things. We'll be searching for a good balance. Tonight I asked P to set a timer for a reasonable hour for lights-out, to remind her not to read through the night, and I see that she has honored it. More reading means more trips to the library. P still searches for any Magic Tree House books she can find, but she's chosen a few books in other genres. We'll see if they get read before they're due.

Here's a sampling of recent videos and their subjects:

• The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That: different ways of getting clean for different animals; silkworms; camouflage; different animals' adaptations for living in trees
• The Way Things Work: Ballooning, belts and gears, inclined planes, flight
• National Geographic's Really Wild Animals: Polar Prowl was about animals' adaptations to prevent freezing to death (migration, insulation, hibernation, and staying in the water a lot); and how young are raised and learn survival behaviors. A bonus feature on cats highlighted similarities between domestic and big cats, as well as cats' adaptations and behaviors for hunting, and how young cats learn to hunt by playing. After all this, my kids' imaginative play has taken a turn toward feeding baby birds, including regurgitating food for their penguin babies.