waiting for superman

Nope, not the education documentary, though I'm looking forward to seeing that.

The daddy. Because to the little guy below, Daddy is Superman. And Superman is worth waiting for around lunchtime (we are so stinkin' spoiled to have him home for lunch most days!!!) and at the end of the day.

And evidently it helps to lick the glass. Hmm, maybe I should clean the windows more often...

The extra window cleanings are worth it for this guy, don't you think?

learning how to grip a writing tool (and other homeschool-esque ramblings)

We've started with some preschool stuff in these parts. It's nothing too formal, but our girl had been almost begging for a little something. Some days it's crafts and memory verses. Some days it's nothing more than reading the week's story from her AWANA book. Some days it's nothing. (Just keeping it real!)

The plan for a typical week involves:

• memory verses from AWANA and from the kids' program for our church's weekly Bible study (and sometimes another one), 
• a few letters from the Hooked on Phonics pre-K curriculum (which I got on major clearance last year when they were updating packaging, maybe $10 or so), 
• activities centered around a book (often books from Before Five in a Row, which uses older classic storybooks and provided suggested activities and biblical connections - it isn't necessary, but I like having a starting place), 
• some play with the Lauri Math Discovery Kit, and 
• some nature- or kitchen-based science stuff. 

We also do little non-school things that help with learning too, like sorting laundry (an early math skill), watching educational TV (not the greatest activity, but I'm amazed at what sticks in her mind from PBS shows), talking about pictures as we look through the newspaper together, and lots of unplanned, on-demand reading together.

I wasn't expecting much from the Hooked on Phonics stuff, to be honest. Someone had given us the toddler set, and it stunk. Then I realized that the pre-K one, while better, relied heavily on workbook pages. As a teacher, I hated workbook pages. Sure, students knew what to expect, but usually they were bored and I was more bored. Our sweet girl LOVES the workbook. She's all about it. She thinks it's the coolest school thing we do. Who knew?!?

One thing I noticed was that she held her crayons in a fist. That never bothered me when she was coloring, but I was thinking about how we could get a better writing grip when the natural order of things in our house helped me out.

What do I mean? Well, if you're like us, you probably live in the land of these, too.

Yep, the land of broken crayons. (With the occasional teeth marks, but that's irrelevant to writing grip.) When she had intact crayons, she held them in a fist. With broken ones, she does this:

Now she doesn't even hold full-sized crayons in a fist anymore. I know because I tried to get a picture of what I meant. When I handed her a big crayon, though, I got this.

So, to show you what I'm talking about, I demonstrated (with a Pepsi Max because my favorite homeschooling mommas have taught me, among other things, that homeschooling involves caffeine.)

Problem solved, somewhat accidentally. Good stuff.

And as an extra note...
Our homeschooliness is super flexible, and I have no idea when we'll opt for something else. We just knew, after lots of prayer, that it would be unwise for our family to do preschool this year. Between AWANA one night, the kids' teaching program during my Bible study one morning a week, and church on Sundays, we didn't want to add more on, especially because it would crowd out playdates and museum trips and other fun stuff we love. We know that we live in a culture that is perpetually busy and doesn't encourage white space in the calendar, so we didn't want to allow overcommitment to slip in this early!

(And, in case you're not from around here and are wondering why I'm explaining our choice not to be preschool for a three year old, let me clarify that most of our friends' kids are in preschool. My new hair stylist asked me the other day which preschool our daughter goes to, which is the typical question - it's rarely a "does she?" but more often "where does she?" I don't mind all that, but I wanted to clarify for friends of mine who don't live in heavily preschooled areas.)


So, quick question after this rambling post...is this helpful or interesting? Do you even care? I don't mind making occasional posts like this, but it's one of those more mundane parts of our lives that I'm not sure anyone else wants to know. If your answer is no, it won't hurt my feelings; it'll just spare me the time of writing posts like these. And if you answer is yes, it's not much more work for me because I'm writing down this type of stuff anyway to have a record of it. What do y'all think?


(And let me add here that I don't think you ought to be concerned if your three-year-old doesn't have an ideal pencil/crayon grip. It'll come in time as the small muscles it requires develop. I just stumbled across this - literally, as I stepped on crayons! - and it worked for us, so I wanted to share it!)

little town of bethlehem (documentary review)

When I offered to review Little Town of Bethlehem, a documentary by EthnoGraphic Media about the growing nonviolence movement in parts of the Middle East, I was looking forward to broadening my view of what's happening in a part of the world that's almost always in the news but about which I don't feel like I know very much.

The three individuals at the center of the film are (bios copied from promo materials because they were accurate and well-written):

• Sami Awad is a Palestinian Christian whose grandfather was killed in Jerusalem in 1948. Today he is the executive director of Holy Land Trust, a non-profit organization that promotes Palestinian independence through peaceful means. 
• Yonatan Shapira is an Israeli Jew whose grandparents were Zionist settlers that witnessed the birth of the Israeli nation. Today he is an outspoken advocate for the nonviolent peace movement, both in his homeland and abroad. 
• Ahmad Al'Azzeh is a Palestinian Muslim who has lived his entire life in the Azzeh refugee camp in Bethlehem. Today, Ahmad heads the nonviolence program at Holy Land Trust, where he trains others in the methods of peaceful activism.

While it was educational, it had two major flaws and one distracting quirk. First, the narrator and most of the people interviewed were soft-spoken and fairly monotone. Plus the music soundtrack was louder than it should have been, overpowering the words it was meant to accentuate. I had trouble focusing on the information presented because the words weren't easy to hear. Additionally, the artsy editing was more jarring at times than interesting, and at times the way it was edited made it hard to figure out who was talking.

Second, while I know that classic documentaries are meant to inform more than editorialize (although Michael Moore's films changed that, and now most are politicized), this one tried so hard not to pass judgment that parts of it fell flat. The Israeli-Palestine conflict is complex, but there are aspects of it that are clearly noble or ignoble. Talking about peace in a relativistic sort of way rings false.

And, finally, I get that anyone with Western roots hears "nonviolence movement" and thinks about Martin Luther King, Jr. However, the references and video clips of him were excessive. Plus I don't think the parallels - if they exist - between these activists and MLK were clearly communicated, which is why it was more distracting than helpful.

I really wanted to like this. I just couldn't get into it, though.

Thanks to the team at The B&B Media Group, Inc. for providing this for my review. They didn't ask for a positive review, just an honest one.

blue m&ms

I remember when they came out. I was excited. More excited than one should get about the color of candy. (Quality of candy - now that's certainly something worth getting excited about!)

Anyway, if you give a little guy a blue m&m, you might get something like this.

And, if that happens, a wet wipe can remove the stickiness, but the blue will remain for a while.

(And, yes, those are the pink leggings of a little girl climbing above him on the couch. We're refined and reserved around these parts.)

democracy

It's a good thing.

And, yes, she is wearing an "I Voted" sticker. And so is her baby doll. And her other baby doll. And her other one.