This is actually about Wednesday, which is confusing.
The little ones went on a literacy spree yesterday. We got the Handwriting without Tears catalog in the mail a couple of days ago and both Aidan and Paddy have been taking turns marking it up, tracing the sample pictures and having a lot of fun. It is interesting to see that they are so much more into “schooly” things than the older set were. Just as I get used to VSLs, I grow a couple of ASLs (audio-sequential types). Just kidding right now but it definitely bears watching. Cindy at Applestars says that the preschool years for her are times to watch the little ones and learn about their temperaments and how they learn. I think that is very wise.
Then Paddy found some colored markers and drew several pictures. Apparently they were maps. (maybe he IS a VSL after all) He was very careful to use 3 different colors for each one. I knew he was doing it intentionally because he said, “For this one I’m only going to use two colors.” He described them as he traced the path with his finger. “Here is the road to Cavalry,” then with the next one, “You go past here and here and then you are at Mass!” and then, “this one goes to B and R’s house (friends who live up in Oregon) — you go past here and here and then you are at THEIR mass!” I asked him if they were maps and he agreed, but then said, “They are codes.”
Then Aidan wanted to do his “words” — magnetic letters on a Doug and Melissa chalkboard, along with some word cards I found at the Dollar Store.
This is the project we devised for this week and he has been immersed in it almost every day. I also brought out the 100 Easy Lessons book, thinking he could build some words from that book. He was polite but not that interested.
Sean has been reading the Father Brown mysteries, and working on his storyboard. He told me that the computer comic kit wasn’t really adequate to do the story he had in mind so he was thinking of writing out the story and then using the kit to depict certain parts of it rather than the whole thing. He told me that he wanted the story to be “dark” — explaining that he meant like Citizen Kane. IE he wanted a certain atmosphere and a storyline that would not have All Good or All Bad characters. I interpret that to mean not amoral, but dealing more with the middle ground between black and white. Anyway, we had a very interesting conversation. He is not sure if his writing abilities match what he wants to do. I interpolated Polonius-like statements about how the older kids learned a lot by trying to express something challenging, etc, and it paid off in their work later on.
I identified way too much with Polonius while reading Hamlet by the way. When my oldest son read Pride and Prejudice he said, “I don’t get what’s so wrong with Mary Bennet” (the pedantic sister in the group). I had the same wry feeling when reading how Hamlet despised Polonius. OK, he’s a bit smug and banal; I can see that. But I see I will have to be careful how I speak “words of wisdom” to my kids. Or on my blogs. Sometimes a word to the wise is MADDENING. I forget who said that but probably that’s the distilled version of Polonius being called “A Rat!” and then pierced through with a rapier as he lurked benevolently behind a curtain, to then be dragged off and buried who knows where (that’s where I am in the play right now)
(These are Kevin and the guys playing Mystery of the Abbey last week before Liam left for college again, but actually, yesterday evening Kevin and the guys played on the X Box. The conversion of Kevin’s minigolf game is on the X Box now and Kevin wanted to see what it looked like. ) You can see our log rafters — we have nature study all around us, especially when there are spider webs on the logs, which there usually are!
