Matching Tracksuits

fun in fours

learning

Map Work

Saturday 04 February 2012

The Girl has been working on puzzle maps at school, learning, continent by content, states and countries -- Europe, North America, and South America down, currently working on Africa.

DSC_6618

Almost every day since then, we've gone over countries and states, an effort to remember what's learned and add new states so she can finish a continent and bring home her hand-colored map.

In Poland this autumn, she drove everyone crazy showing all the maps she knew. Only Dziadek, a former geography teacher, could sit down and listen to her, time after time, catalogue the shifting geography of an ever-changing world. "Many of those countries didn't exist when I was born," I think as she names them for me; as for Dzaidek, even Poland was a different country when he was born. Those nuances are lost on L as she points and names, proud of her memory.

DSC_6625

As a reward, though, we agreed to buy the Leap Frog interactive maps for her when she completed Europe, and they arrived today.

DSC_6630

Endless fun on the horizon.

The Games We Play

Wednesday 01 February 2012

DSC_6585

The Girl simply loves playing games: Candy Land, checkers, Go Fish, "the memory game" (Never just "memory" for her), Curious George -- you name it, she'll play it.

DSC_6583

The long-standing challenge for us as parents has always been teaching her to win with humility and lose with dignity. It's tough to teach a child something you yourself are not good at, for it must be said that I don't always lose with dignity myself. Chess is about the only game I play, and while I don't pitch a fit, my pulse quickens at a loss, and I'm soon berating myself for my obvious mistakes.

DSC_6596

Yet by their very nature, these games make excellent benchmarks for social skills development. There are countless metrics:

  • How far into the game does the first fuss appear?
  • How long does the first fuss last?
  • Once it subsides, does the first frustration return immediately?
  • Is the Girl capable of finishing the game or has she worked herself into an irreversible tizzy?
  • When it begins to look like a loss is inevitable, does she give up or continue playing?

Recent gaming adventures have shown that L is developing a tolerance for the inevitable eventual loss, an ability to recover quickly from initial frustrations, and the poise to win and lose well. It was, in short, truly a phase.

Thoughts on the Balcony

Thursday 19 January 2012

We all go into the classics of literature with certain preconceptions and assumptions. We grow up hearing about Romeo and Juliet, and knowing that it is considered a classic love story, we expect to find a valiant and noble Romeo. What we find, as the play develops, is a character that is entirely more human than we expected. In fact, early impressions of the young man sour quickly.

These are some of the impressions from my eighth graders after a two-day look at 2.2, the famous balcony scene.

  • I think Romeo is a little obsessive. Like when he was in love with Rosaline, he fell deeply in love, but he quickly moved on to Juliet. He didn't even know who she was and he was already making out with her! I think nowadays he would be considered a player.
  • He's a major creeper and totally a player. I would never date him.
  • I think Romeo has good logistics but when it comes to love, he's a bit tipsy! He is a star-crossed stalker.
  • I can't believe he went to her balcony. That is mega-weird.
  • Romeo is a psycho-creepy stalker!
  • Romeo is very spontaneous. He lacks a lot of common sense that Juliet has.
  • Romeo is someone I would trust but would not fully trust.
  • I can see why Rosaline left [Romeo].
  • Even though he is a creeper, he seems romantic and sweet.
  • Boy is he a CREEPER! Come on now! You just met her!
  • Romeo is brave yet incredibly stupid.
  • I hope as we read on he will get back to the person I thought he might've been before, like charming and funny and bold.
  • [Romeo] is annoying and very stalkerish, but I don't see him as mean.
  • I wish Romeo was more of a perfect gentleman, funny, daring.
  • Romeo is a creepy, weird person. I thought he was cool at first, but not anymore.
  • I feel like Romeo is being shallow.
  • Romeo is a creep.
  • [Juliet] seems like she would make smart decisions like not to smoke or drink.
  • I think Juliet would be a cool person (without the old English).
  • You're telling me you wouldn't risk life and limb for your belovèd? That's not very gentlemanly. (In response to another student.)
  • I probably wouldn't be friends with Romeo because he confuses me a lot of times.
  • [Juliet] has good views on love and is an independent girl. We will soon be BFFs :)
  • Romeo is a professional psycho. 'Nuff said.
  • [Juliet is] NOT creepy, like Romeo!
  • The crazy part of it is that Juliet ends up killing herself for the psycho! See, she's the one that needs to be checked into a mental institution for liking him!
  • Romeo is a stalking creep. Nope, we wouldn't be friends. We'd be best friends. We'd go stalking together.
  • Romeo goes with his heart and blacks out his mind, which is not good at all!
  • Romeo falls in love a lot.
  • Romeo would be the kind of person that would be overprotective and call or text you every day, say "I love you" a lot. (Clingy.)
  • I'm not being friends with some mushy guy!
  • I'd be [Romeo's] friend as long as he stays away from my window!
  • I wouldn't want to listen to [Romeo] sob about love and girls all the time.
  • Romeo is a dreamer and a gal-pal and would be annoying.
  • Romeo is starting to turn out a little weird.
  • I think it's pretty hardcore that Romeo lives in the present.
  • I'd keep a fair distance [from Romeo].
  • If Romeo says you can only love one person, then why does he love two?

Working the Puzzle

Tuesday 17 January 2012

The Girl has a little marble and maze puzzle (maybe "ball bearing and maze" is a better description) that involves manipulating the plane of the puzzle so that the ball bearing roles through the maze. Nothing new: we all had one growing up. She's developed an unorthodox method of solving it, though: she simply shakes it until the bearing gradually crawls to the center.

DSC_6377

K decided it was time to teach her how to do it properly.

DSC_6379

The results were amusing for both.

The Bath

Wednesday 04 January 2012

Tough Lessons

Tuesday 03 January 2012

Because one of my plugins broke with the upgrade to WordPress 3.3, I have to click over to Flickr and manually grab the code for each image I want to insert. In some ways, it would be easier simply to upload them directly to this site, but we use Flickr as a mastery back-up for our best photos -- the ones we absolutely don't want to lose -- so in the long run, it's worth the extra step. But it does mean some clicking: Click on the picture. Click on the "Share" button. Select the text and copy. Click to the new window -- you get the point.

Still, as far as sharing goes, this is fairly painless, because one of the hardest things to learn is the gift of sharing. I say "gift of sharing" as if it's something easy for me to do. It's not. I doubt it's easy for anyone in all situations. We all have this or that which we hang on to with clinched fists even when we aren't aware of how are knuckles are turning white.

For the Girl, it's Wawel's candy, "Kasztanki." L is simply obsessed with them. This is partially because of their rarity: they're not readily available in the South. (One might find them in Polish stores up north, but not down here.) Babcia sends them to the Girl on a fairly regular basis, but from time to time, she does run out, and then it's a period of slow heartbreak.

Tonight, we suggested that L share her favorite candy with Nana and Papa so they could see what all the fuss was about. Judging from her expression, one would think we'd asked her to give up a kidney or sacrifice her life. Eventually she relented, though not without a bit of persuasion.

Sharing

I suppose we all take some persuading to share some things.

The Return to Reality

Monday 02 January 2012

The return after a long break is both nerve-wracking and refreshing. The former comes from the unpredictability of fourteen-year-olds. The latter is a simple function of having a long period away from each other. As much as I like my students, it's good to be away from them from time to time -- to be around adults more than kids. (Well, having a five-year-old daughter, I'm not sure how much that's really possible.)

For everyone today -- teachers and students -- it seemed the "refreshing" won out. Far from being reluctant to return to studies, many students seemed positively eager to come back -- at least that was the feeling I got in my classes.

It was a good Monday, and often can one say that, especially after a long break?

Scrabble

Tuesday 13 December 2011

We’ve been struggling to get the Girl speaking Polish on a regular basis. She’s resisted consistently until a recent trip to Poland: two weeks with Babcia, including a week with cousin S, and suddenly, she’s speaking Polish spontaneously — to her toys when she’s playing alone.

Games

And so we’ve reached a point at which the Girl can play Polish games, like Scrabble. We play a modified version: a small marker indicates both where to start and what word to spell. We work through hulajnoga (scooter), kot (cat), dom (house/home), and of course mama (mom).

It might be no surprise that the Girl won the majority of the rounds: it’s tempting sometimes to let her win to keep her interest up. (And it’s equally tempting occasionally to arrange a loss or two in order to help her learn how to lose gracefully.) This evening, though, she wins fair and square.

Games

Saturday 09 July 2011

It’s a lifelong process, learning how to lose. I’m thirty-some years older than the Girl, but I still fight the frustration of loss just as much as she. I could contend that there is a difference: losing at games of chance doesn’t phase me because it’s a question of luck; losing at games of skill–read: chess–does bother me when I feel I made a stupid mistake. Such distinctions are lost on the Girl, though: losing is losing is losing. It all hurts.

DSC_3300

We’ve been working with the learning how to lose (and to a lesser degree, how to win gracefully) with Candy Land for ages. We’ve seen some real improvement: the complete hysterical fits have disappeared, replaced by a temporarily pout and an extended lower lip. In fact, things are going so well that I’ve stopped my Machiavellian parenting technique of stacking the deck to make sure she loses at least once or, if needed, wins once.

DSC_3309

Yet sometimes that dimension of untinkered-with chance provides some amusement: three candy cards within four turns for me resulted in some whiplash-inducing jumps around the board and laughs for the Girl — even when I was surging ahead. Perhaps she knew the next card would bring me back to Earth.

Independent Hands

Sunday 10 April 2011

It’s only expected that a four-year-old grows more independent daily. Lately, that independence has moved out of the normal realms of the everyday, personal actions — bathing, brushing hair, cleaning teeth — and into more wide-ranging spheres: cooking and buying.

She wanted a quesadilla the other day, so I asked if she’d like to help make it.

DSC_0424

When it was done, she ate it with more relish than I’d seen her eat anything in recent memory.

During our first spring zoo outing today, we stopped for an ice cream. L needed to pay by herself — it was imperative.

DSC_0434

The “I can do it!” phase is thankfully far from over.