Sam makes tortillas!

Sam is one step closer to claiming the the title of "Tortilla Maker" in our home.


I had measured and mixed the dough ingredients and was just about to proceed with the rolling and frying when Sam came in and asked if he could help. I said "sure", handed him the rolling pin and (with one ear toward him in case he needed help) I went and turned the heat on the pan.

We make tortillas pretty regularly and I usually am the one to juggle the rolling and frying, running to and fro between the oven and the table to roll more as they cook. It was so lovely to have a willing helper methodically roll out one ball after another into a beautiful tortilla while I casually stood at the stove tending to the one in the pan.

As he was working, I asked him to hold one of his just-rolled tortillas up for me so I could take a picture and he said "no mama, I'm afraid it will tear!". And he's probably right. After 15 minutes or so, as a result of our teamwork, we had a delicious stack of fresh tortillas to go with our tortilla soup.


Sam knew he could do it; and he was pleased with his new skill and proud to contribute to the making of a family meal.


I am excited about the idea of relinquishing more of the process of making tortillas to Sam next time, so long as he is keen and interested. From measuring ingredients to mixing the dough just right, to setting the timer to let the dough rest, to rolling out and then frying.

Knowing Sam, it would likely fulfill his need to feel valued and capable; for learning and autonomy; and for contributing to the whole family. For me, I'm happy that I may soon be free to just concentrate on making the soup and I do so enjoy watching little hands work. Who doesn't like a little help in the kitchen?

skating season has ended

Skating season, for us, has ended until next fall. Sam learned to skate from not being able to stand on the ice! He can bunny-hop, skate around pylons and hardly ever falls down. He had so much fun just being part of the group, being smallest and the least experienced didn't phase him, it didn't really even register. This is what I love about joining specifically home learning groups. The age and ability range does not matter to the children. They readily accept that they are all on individual paths in their learning, have no need to compete or compare, and simply enjoy doing it together. Something I enjoy in particular is witnessing older, more experienced children, naturally helping out and encouraging the smaller or less experienced. This has always been the case wherever we have participated.

One of Sam's favorite ways of spending "free time" on the ice: ice bowling! He enjoyed meticulously and tirelessly setting up the pins and then taking several shots with a rubber soccer ball, trying to knock them all down.

I didn't get a shot of Kale during his "free ice time" because as soon as he could, he scooted down to the far end of the ice to join in on a impromptu game of ice hockey - his all time favorite ice activity. He expressed that while he enjoyed the skating lessons, he isn't sure he really "needs" them as he is happy with knowing how to skate well enough to play hockey and he feels confident he has reached that point. He trusts he'll improve his skating skills naturally simply through playing ice hockey more often. I believe there's wisdom in that thinking, for sure.

Graduation!

The coaches gathered the group at the end to take a shot of them together, in celebration of a successful and fun series of lessons and three of the children completing level 7, the last of the rec level lessons.

satisfaction

Spring has sprung at last!

I began to notice several weeks ago that all of us, and Kale in particular, have been feeling anxious for some kind of change - yearning to get outdoors well before the weather was permitting us.

I noticed that Kale became extremely dissatisfied with playing indoors and nothing could hold his attention or leave him feeling satisfied for more than a few minutes. The Lego/Playmobil/Citiblocs and huge amount of game playing that had satisfied his need for fun, play and creativity for the last several months suddenly held no appeal at all.

This is a challenging place for anyone to be in, but especially Kale, who has a deep need for a certain level of stimulation, and can quickly slide into a downhill funk without it. He needs to be challenged and needs life to be interesting and full and varied to feel his happiest.

With the recent warmer temperatures and sunny days, the opportunity to get some real outside time has finally arrived for Kale (and all of us)!

We have been spending a lot more time cuddling and playing with our beloved chickens now that it's nice out; but even more so, Kale has been drawn to climbing trees that he wasn't big enough to climb last year; planning new forts; experimental building with scrap wood and a hammer and nails..... All this is happening alongside dad who is building a new fence around the yard.

Kale has big dreams about many things and it's just so wonderful to see him finally being able to put some of those thoughts that have been brewing all winter into action, testing, building, tearing down, retesting, all the while his world (inside and out) is being allowed to expand.... I am seeing a new sense of satisfaction coming over him these last few days especially...

Puttering around in the greenhouse with me fiddling with pots and tiny seeds didn't hold much appeal to him over the last week; but planting the peas each spring has traditionally been his "job" since he was four, so he was entirely happy to keep up with that tradition this spring.

wild play

It's so fun that Hillary and Sam share so many of the same passions. Many of these are things my older two children have never had much interest in: costumes and pretend play; face paints; animals, wildlife, animal babies, animal families; playing house and play kitchen; and creative visual arts like painting, coloring, drawing and sculpting. They are like two peas in a pod and I'm so, so glad that they have each other to share common passions with.


One of Hillary's current passions is baby jaguars. Sam likes tigers. They introduction to these came partly from watching a couple of seasons of Zaboomafoo over the winter. They are similarly inspired by looking at Zoobooks magazines which we frequently take out from the library, watching animal documentaries, Kratt's Creatures and playing with their collection of soft toy wild animals. Sam was inspired this winter to start collecting any of the forest and wildlife themed Playmobil he can find.


They do a lot of animal role playing together. So frequently this involves creating habitat: dens, nests or burrows; and then deciding who will be the parent and who will be the baby. Then the game shifts into playing "survival", how will the parent find food, what predators to look out for, how will the parent protect the baby, the baby eventually learns how to walk-fly-jump-forage-avoid being eaten... or to hunt if the animal they are being is a predator!

I find so much enjoyment in listening to them play these animal games. They remind me so much of who I was and what I loved to do when I was small.

read any good books lately?

A few months ago we fell in love with Beverly Cleary paperbacks. It's not often (actually it's a first for us) that we find an author who has written literally dozens of novels, each one as endearing and entertaining as the last. I am so grateful for the work that Cleary has done in her life for what it has given to the world. Through her pages, we can witness true empathy in action. Cleary has an uncanny and heart-warming way of describing the intimate happenings inside a young child's heart and mind. She describes with incredible insight the kind of innocent way a young child thinks and feels; and how he or she takes in and processes what is happening in his or her world.

There have been many occasions where both Kale and Sam have listened to me read with nodding heads, identifying so well with Cleary's description of something one of her young characters is going through.

We have been reading one book after the other, non-stop since we started with Henry Huggins, her first novel, written in 1950. Below is a list of most of her work (she also wrote a half dozen story books). The ones we've read up to this point are in red italics (because those are the ones we've managed to find in thrift shops so far):

Henry Huggins (1950)
Ellen Tebbits (1951)
Henry and Beezus (1952)
Otis Spofford* (1953)
Henry and Ribsy (1954)
Beezus and Ramona (1955)
Fifteen (1956)
Henry and the Paper Route (1957)
The Luckiest Girl (1958)
Jean and Johnny (1958)
Emily's Runaway Imagination* (1960)
Henry and the Clubhouse (1962)
Sister of the Bride (1963)
Ribsy (1964)
The Mouse and the Motorcycle (1965)
Mitch and Amy (1967)
Ramona the Pest (1968)
Runaway Ralph (1970)
Socks* (1973)
Ramona the Brave (1975)
Ramona and Her Father (1977)
Ramona and Her Mother (1979)
Ramona Quimby, Age 8 (1981)
Ralph S. Mouse (1982)
Dear. Mr. Henshaw (1983)
Ramona Forever (1984)
Muggie Maggie (1990)
Strider (1997)
Ramona's World (1999)

*indicates books that didn't appeal to the boys after the first few chapters - for various reasons - so we left unfinished

We are currently reading Ramona Quimby, age 8 (1981). I have to say, It's a bitter-sweet feeling I'm experiencing, reading about Ramona growing up and leaving the youngest most innocent part of her childhood behind. I find myself mourning and celebrating her transition into being a big kid the same way I find I do with my own children.

An unexpected gift: I find through reading Cleary's books that my capacity to step back and really understand my child's unique perspective in situations that come up in our daily lives has hugely increased.

Through reading Cleary's books to my children, I am gently and gratefully reminded of this simple truth: no matter what children are doing, they always have a perfectly good reason to be doing it. If we can afford a few moments to step back and examine their perspective, they will gladly let us in and tell us just what that good reason is.

it's all about balance

Sam is the King of Balance. He loves to challenge himself to new heights using a variety of different objects daily. I am continually amazed by what he manages to stack. Sometimes using wheeled objects even!

Sam, discovers the joy of stacking buckets back in September, 2010

And even more so the joy of watching them fall (or in this case be plowed through by his dare-devil brother on two wheels).

on his own two feet!

After three lessons, Sam is really skating! It happened so fast! When Sam began, he couldn't step on the ice without falling, even with a lot of support. We found out that all Sam needed was a competent instructor's tips and support. The tips that helped the most: bending his knees and placing his hands on the front of his thighs whenever he felt like he was losing his balance - works like a charm every time! Also, picking up his skates instead of shuffling helps enormously. Shuffling causes slipping and sliding.

Sam initiated this learning process himself. He knew he wanted to learn to skate and he felt now was the time. When Sam is the initiator he puts so much heart, drive and motivation into what he's doing that success is pretty much guaranteed (eventually). And he relishes the process all the way along with ear to ear grins.

building building building....

More Citiblocs creativity.

"Welcome to BC Ferries". Kale's design of a BC Ferry along side one of the bridges he built. He was very inspired to try designing his own bridges after reading through "Bridges! Amazing structures to Design, Build and Test".

A random look-out tower for Lego Minifigs.

Sam's house, complete with a roof-top garden and sun.

Something akin to a wigwam. This is reminding us of the wigwam we saw a few months ago on our visit to the Royal British Columbia Museum.

soccer season finale

Kale had his year-end soccer tournament this weekend. All in all, Kale felt positive and content with his first experience on a soccer team. He made some fun friends and had a great relationship with our funny Scottish (read: soccer passionate) coach! The weather was really unlucky this year, a particularly cold and wet winter, but fortunately they did play a portion of their games and practices indoors. This made for a very different game, but it was warm and dry and made it possible to still get together and stay active over the dark winter months.

Photo from the ice-breaker tournament that started the soccer season last fall (2010).

the brown paper knight

Kale and his dad put together this set of armor using whatever they could find from the recycling bins. Old Playmobil set boxes, brown paper bags, paper towel tubes; plus a whole lot of tape. Oh, and a whole lot of creative ingenuity if you ask me!

games we play

While Qwirkle is one of my favorite games and I would play it at any opportunity, it's not a favorite of Kale's. I think it's just a little bit too long for him because he seems to enjoy it until we've about half way through, when he begins to groan and fidget and needs to do something else. Even when he's winning! Sam likes the game simply for the purpose of sorting the shapes and colors and creating pattern games. At five-years-old, the level of strategy involved is a little bit overwhelming to him just yet.



Cranium Cadoo, on the other hand, is a huge hit with the whole family. Kale and Sam both love the opportunity to challenge and stretch their creative muscles through sculpting, drawing or acting out the given subject, or answering general (easy, fun) trivia questions that are nicely geared to younger age levels. We found this game at a thrift store for $2 and the only thing missing was the clay. This was not a problem as the kids immediately set to work whipping up a batch of homemade play dough to replace it. While we played the game, Hillary (3) practiced baking and sculpting with her own portion of the dough at the table with us.



Skip-Bo is a fun card game that Kale has just begun enjoying. I like that you can make it as long or as short of a game as you want just by dealing less cards in the pile you need to get rid of (we play with anywhere from 5 to 30 cards). Some games go so fast we play 2 or 3 in a row, sometimes 1 game can last an hour! A perfect rainy-day or ferry-trip game, fun with just a little bit of strategy and luck involved.