For Camp Rainbow's art week, we wanted to get the kids looking closer at and appreciating the world around them. I love Jane Brocket's series of children's nonfiction picture books that help kids explore art and design concepts through photographs, so we read aloud Brocket's book on patterns -- Spotty, Stripy, Swirly.
Thus on a trip to Atlanta to explore the Asian markets and go to Stone Mountain, we brought a point-and-shoot camera along that the kids could use to capture the patterns they saw. Here's what we found...
Before I became a mom, I had no idea how much problem-solving is involved with raising a kid. When an issue arises that needs attention, you mull it over. If you can't figure it out, you try to find someone knowledgeable to help, usually starting with trusted friends or family before moving on to the pros via books or in person. Sometimes there are products that help. Kiddo swimming is no different. For safety reasons, swim proficiency is super important to me and I've been trying to figure out how to get Eli there.
Eli took swimming lessons last year at age four. It was a good experience and he liked the pool, but he always wanted his head completely above water. The instructor recommended a Water Gear float belt that keeps kids at a fairly low buoyancy level (compared with a flotation vest). His instructor also suggested that Eli work on lying down in the bathtub with his ears underwater, and it felt like a real victory when Eli was at peace with doing this. I was glad for the progress, but he was still a long way from swimming.
This year, in late May, we tried lessons again. Eli is five and a half now, which made a difference. Every day as I watched, he became more confident. Finally, near the end of the session and with his instructor right beside him, Eli paddled about five feet without his "floatie belt." (See proud picture above! As for the product pictures below, they are Amazon links.)
I was thrilled, but now what? I looked around for more lessons, but the affordable ones were full and the expensive ones didn't fit with our camp schedule. So I talked to some of the best swimmers I know as well as Eli's aunt who used to teach kids to swim. Getting Eli over the urge to keep his head above water at all times was crucial, yet I didn't want to force him. (I've known too many people who can't swim because someone literally put them in a situation over their heads!)
One of my mama friends suggested getting a mask for Eli rather than goggles as they are more comfortable. Thus I got Eli a scuba-type mask that keeps his nose dry...
In addition, Eli's aunt said that getting kids interested in retrieving underwater objects can help, so I got Eli some diving toys -- little colorful fish with streamer tails that sink in the pool. Today Eli put the mask on and I dropped the fish on progressively deeper steps. It took some coaxing at first. Once Eli put his face in the water, however, he was sold. An hour later Eli was paddling three feet down to retrieve the toys from the pool floor and he even let me toss him.
There's something amazing about the first time you look down and see your kid swimming underwater. I was so proud! Eli still needs someone right beside him because he tires quickly. We're getting much closer to swimming proficiency, though!
I think today's success came from breaking the problem down into smaller parts. Figuring out how to move your body in the water is tricky. It's even harder when you can't see like normal and it feels weird to have water in your nose. Taking the latter two issues out of the equation gave Eli an advantage in figuring out the rest.
Hopefully, once Eli is swimming well, the water in his nose won't bother him much. Thus I also got Eli a pair of the new hybrid-type goggles. They are small like goggles yet are actually a mask around both eyes, which means less pressure on the eye sockets. The nose is not covered. (Thanks Christine for letting me know about these! And I do have some nose clips in case Eli would like them.)
If anybody else has tips for helping kids learn to swim well, please share! Thanks!
Update: A friend noted that it is important to have kids practice swimming sometimes without masks or nose clips. Then if they unexpectedly fall into water or get hit by a wave, they are used to those sensations and won't panic. (I'm paraphrasing, but thanks, Emily! Good thinking!)
This spring I was wandering through my favorite used bookstore -- one of those delightful places with carefully-selected and hard-to-find items -- and I came across a book I'd heard about but never seen in person. I snatched up an old hardback copy of Mud Pies and Other Recipes (NY: Macmillan Co.). In 1961, inspired by the play of her two young daughters, Marjorie Winslow created a mock cookbook that beautifully blends grownup and childhood worlds. If Winnie the Pooh and Piglet open a restaurant, this volume will be their guide...
Fried Water Melt one ice cube in a skillet by placing it in the sun. When melted, add 1 cup water and saute slowly -- until water is transparent. Serve small portions, because this dish is rich as well as mouth-watering.
Rainspout Tea Place a teapot, or a sandpail, at the end of a rainspout and wait for it to rain. After the sun comes out, serve this tea under a rainbow with sawdust cakes.
Sawdust Cake Mix a little of the clay found along riverbanks with sawdust and pack into a square cake pan. Sprinkle with water from a sprinkling can. Bake in the sun until hard, then turn out of the pan and frost with moss.
Eli suggested his buddy, Eileen, might like the book too, so we invited her (and her mom) over for a mud pie cooking session.
We let them borrow our mud pie cookbook and even wrapped it in brown paper, paper string, and grass stems to add a little mystery.
We sent out our invitation at Spring Break, but it was such a chilly spring that we kept putting off the cooking session. Ah, but summer finally arrived, warm and weedy. The sun is hot enough to bake a mud pie on the sidewalk. The leaves are thick and juicy. The wild strawberries are just waiting to get squished. Perfect.
One Mama's Two Cents: I was a huge mud pie connoisseur when I was a kid. (Click HERE for a post about how mud pies still influence me!) Eli loves pretend cooking too. When he attended a Waldorf preschool in California, his teacher talked about giving kids access to functional tools and making sure they have toys that aren't just plastic. Thus Eli and I started collecting real but small-scaled kitchen gear at Goodwill and garage sales. Aluminum, copper, and stainless steel won't rust if left out in the rain and feel wonderfully real (because they are real). If you start your own collection, what should you look for? Here are a few suggestions: a saucepan, a mixing bowl, a teapot, spoons, butter knives, a spatula, measuring spoons, a funnel, saucer-sized plates, cups, muffin tins, and a colander. We provided the kids with a filled water table, a dish pan containing a shovelful of dirt, and access to a yard full of greenery.
Eileen's mom and I thought it would be fun to have the kids dictate invented recipes to us that we could photograph and turn into a cookbook with the kids. But the weather meant that Winslow's book was largely forgotten by the time we finally had our mud pie session. Maybe it's time to pass the book around to Camp Rainbow families and have a huge mud pie and cookbook session!
For our summer Camp Rainbow group, we wanted our kids to know that there were people living here long ago, and that those people had a culture and a way of life. Last week became Native Americans week. (Click HERE for more about Camp Rainbow.)
We trekked over to the University of Georgia campus. Near the Georgia Center there is a small stone monument...
I don't know if the five year-olds were impressed, but it fueled my imagination! Lumpkin Street runs from Downtown Athens to the Five Points area and has some interesting old buildings along it, but I didn't realize its history was far older.
The kiddos seemed to really like the craft projects. I found an older book at our local library that had quite a few handmade Native American games and other projects. The favorite seemed to be the Stick Game. Each kid decorated three flat sticks -- one with a dot pattern and two with a snake pattern. The opposite sides remain plain/blank.
Then they tossed their sticks in the air and there is a scoring system for the resulting patterns. (American Indian Games and Crafts by Charles L. Blood. NY: Franklin Watts, 1981.) 3 Plain Sides Up = 4 points 3 Marked Sides Up = 4 points 2 Snakes, 1 Plain = 6 points 1 Snake, 2 Plain = 6 points 1 Snake, 1 Plain, 1 Dots = 0 points
We also made some clay-colored play dough using cinnamon and other spices. I have a few pieces of Native American pottery shards that I collected on the Georgia coast, so I showed those to the kids. Then we had fun marking the pottery the way the Native Americans might have. I showed them how to do simple coil pots as well. (Click HERE for a post that includes the play dough recipe.)
That are some great Native American sites in Georgia that are open to the public, but it ended up being too crazy of a week for a long field trip. Maybe later in the summer we'll go to Rock Eagle, Etowah Indian Mounds, Ocmulgee National Monument, the Chief Vann Historic Site, or the New Echota Historic Site.
This week for Camp Rainbow is "Wet and Wild" (water creatures and wetland habitats). We've got our library books and now we just need to schedule a few adventures with buddies...
Last post I wrote about Camp Rainbow, our loosely-gathered group of parents and kids who get together for themed fun during the summer. (Click HERE for that post.) During the "Careers and Jobs" theme last week, we decided to meet for lunch at Your Pie, a small chain pizzeria where they make personal-sized pizzas while you watch. After everybody ordered, we read aloud the non-fiction picture book Pizza Man by Marjorie Pillar (from our local library).
I called a couple of days in advance and asked if the kiddos might have a tour. The Your Pie staff were fabulous! They let the kids peek behind the counter and into storage areas, explaining how a restaurant works and answering their questions.
We lifted the kiddos up so they could see into the huge brick oven...
They even experienced the cold of the walk-in fridge.
Then the staff got out some extra dough and let the kids work with it. First the kiddos got to help hand-mix the bowl of semolina and fine cornmeal that keeps the pizzas from sticking.
The kids even got to try their hand at shaping and hand-tossing dough!
After leaving Your Pie, the group headed back to our place where we had a make-believe pizza kitchen set up for play. Here's our brick oven -- a cardboard box with a couple of red light sticks at the back. And the folks at Your Pie were so nice to give us some clean pizza boxes.
One of the moms cut circles of cream-colored quilted fabric to serve as crusts. (She even made them into four slices each and hemmed them!) Dark red fabric cut into wedges with pinking shears were pizza sauce to go on top.
Other moms helped cut toppings out of felt -- pepperoni, black olives, sausage, green pepper strips, pineapple pieces, and tomato slices. (The mom who made the pineapple and tomatoes really knocked it out of the park. She added large stitches of embroidery thread for the pineapple and then glued together two layers/colors of felt for the tomatoes, trimming shapes out of the top layer with tiny scissors. She said she found lots of instructions for felt food on the web.) Not pictured: Small strips of cream-colored felt worked for shredded cheese.
In addition to the pizza kitchen (pictured above), we had a call center with a toy cash register, play money, and some check-box pizza order forms I created on my computer. We also had a real (but non-working) phone and a couple of computer keyboards that I found at Goodwill.
Even with a malfunctioning chef's hat, Eli was a happy Pizza Man! Thanks, friends. And thanks, Your Pie!
One Mama's Two Cents: Our pizza day felt like a real success. Book + tour + play = learning. The play session got chaotic sometimes and the moms were kept busy deconstructing pizzas to refill the ingredient bins, but everybody had a great time. I think part of the success was that each mom talked to their kid(s) in advance about giving the pizza parlor game a try. The moms agreed that we'd try to keep the kids on task for ten minutes. After that, kids who were less interested could quietly drift downstairs to the playroom. (In preparing for the afternoon, I hid most of the other toys in our upstairs area but also locked the door to Eli's bedroom.) Most of the kids played for at least a half hour and some were still at it when folks had to disperse to head home. We had seven kids (ages 3 to 11), and that was a good number. If we do similar playdays in the future and our group has grown, we may have to limit it (first-come, first-served reservations) just to make sure it doesn't get too chaotic. We've saved our pizza-making pieces so we can do the pizza parlor again later this summer. Once the summer is over, each family can take a pizza box and fabric fixings to play at home. I think it was novel and fun for the kids to have a make-believe game created and set up by the parents. Usually kids either get a store-bought type of play set or create their own play set on the fly. The latter is fantastic and the way it should be most of the time! We certainly let the kids adjust things the way they wanted in the home pizza parlor. Still, what stood out about our pizza game is that this time the mamas modeled play ideas for the kiddos. It was refreshing fun for everybody.
So how do you keep your kid's brain -- and your own brain -- from going to mush over the summer?
While summer is a great time to drift along simply enjoying the moment, a sprinkling of planned gatherings, outings, and crafts nicely balance those lazy, hazy days. So how do you think up fun things to do?
As summer approached, some moms from Eli's school and I got together to create "Camp Rainbow." It isn't a camp in any traditional sense of the word; it's just parents and kids hanging out. Still, it gives us a framework for thinking up fun. There are twelve weeks to the summer, so we thought up a dozen themes to help us narrow down our brainstorming. We decided that the most important thing was flexibility. Some weeks may be jammed while others are sparse. Some outings may be attended by multiple families while others are just a couple of moms and kids. Everybody can drift in and out according to their work, day camp, and vacation needs. Easy peasy.
Our first week's theme was "Careers and Jobs." I picked up some nonfiction picture books from the library and found many about food service careers. Thus we met up at Waffle House where kiddos can sit at the counter and watch the action.
The juke box was almost as exciting as the waffle making station!
After lunch we went to visit a bank. (One of our dads works there and gave us a tour.)
The safety deposit box was fascinating even if it was empty!
But even the safety deposit box paled in comparison to the lollypop jar.
Eli contemplates loan rates...
Kidding aside, the kids really did learn a lot. Camp Rainbow is off to a fun start! Stay tuned...
Saturday afternoon Uncle Eric rolled up with a surprise for Eli. My sweet niece, Margaret, gave Eli the trampoline she no longer uses. Needless to say, Little Guy was thrilled.
Eli handed springs to us as we put the main part together in the shade.
Once the main trampoline was together, we lifted it across the yard and nestled it into a shady spot under a huge oak tree.
And now Eli is just a blur...
A year ago, my brother had to replace the mat of this trampoline. It was under a tree at his house and falling limb during a storm put a hole in it. But even if the same thing happens in our yard and even though we'll always be sweeping leaves off of it, this was absolutely the right spot.
In the heat of summer, the trampoline is in the shade. It will get a lot more use this way and provide some kid-energy-burning on hot days. But it also transforms a corner of the yard into a secluded, leafy bower. Kids need that. It is a spot close enough to the house that he feels safe yet set far enough away that he can retreat there to think and be alone. Yesterday after we got the trampoline set up and while Eli was in the house taking a break, I went out there and flopped down. It was so comfortable and peaceful that I drifted off for a nap. Bird song. Green light sifting down through the leaves.
When my other nieces and nephews were small, they also got a trampoline. During family gatherings, the whole crew of kids often urged me to come out and bounce. What I discovered is that we'd jump and laugh and cavort around until tired. Then each person found a spot to lie down and look up at the sky. Almost without fail, I found that my best conversations with them happened there. Side by side rather than face to face, they began to confess their crushes and their struggles, the worries and their triumphs. I loved getting to know them better as they grew and treasure those memories. For that reason, I always said I'd get a trampoline when I had a kid.
Thank you so much, Cousin Margaret, Uncle Eric, and Aunt Jennifer!
A nearby library had a drop-in program for kids where they got to make art with Peeps marshmallows...
The welcome station had paint shirts to borrow, spring-colored paper, brown paper bags cut into a basket shape, tape, and a few Peeps to eat.
The work stations had Peeps to dip, nontoxic paint in flat plates, crayons, markers, kid scissors, and paper towels.
Chick Peeps actually make an egg-shape if you print carefully using their bottoms. (They can be printed on their sides too.) Bunny Peeps make a...well, a bunny shape!
I love that this activity is great for kids of all ages. Tots are happy dipping and smearing with their marshmallows. For older kids, a thin coat of paint applied to the bottom of a Peep with a paint brush would make a more precise and uniform print that you could then embellish with markers, glitter, and such.
It was dawn. Eli wiggled up into my side of the bed. All was quiet and then...
Eli: "Mama, we need to get some baking soap."
Me: "What is 'baking soap'?"
Eli: "It is what you use to bake Bubble Cake." There is a pause and then he added in a proud, conspiratorial whisper, "I just invented it."
That was a couple of days ago. Then last night I was on my fourth night of solo parenting while the hubby is on a business trip. Evening brought a small but creeping sense of dread. I just didn't have the energy to coax a spring-grass-and-playground-grubby boy into the bathtub one more night. On a whim, I announced if he got all his clothes into the hamper without delay that I'd set up his very own Eli's Bathtime Bakery and provide ingredients for Bubble Cake.
I'd never seen him shimmy out of his shirt so fast.
While the tub was filling and my boy was hopping on one foot tugging at a sock, I shopped in the kitchen for items that were harmless and unbreakable. There was a small mixing bowl full of baby shampoo to be churned with a whisk along with utensils for stirring and measuring. For ingredients, Eli got crumbles of bar soap, a few bath beads, a couple of teaspoons of salt, and some bath color tablets. I also gave him little cups of baking soda and vinegar, which fizzed alluringly when mixed. The plastic tray floated nicely on top of the water, giving him "counter space."
Of course, then I later had to coax a wrinkled boy out of now-cold bathwater. But at least it was a different argument and in the meantime I had twenty minutes to curl up with a good book! (Now if I could just dream these kind of solutions up more often!)
The blog is on a Lego theme this week, if you hadn't noticed. Three more spiffy things to share...
1. Lego Artist Sean Kenney This Christmas we got Eli a book called Cool Creations in 35 Pieces by Sean Kenney. The author is an artist who works in Lego bricks and his book is a how-to guide for building all sorts of things with the same 35 Lego pieces -- robots, buildings, vehicles, etc. Not only is it wonderfully creative and inspiring, but it is also a fun book for travels because Eli can make various small Lego creations while riding in the back seat or in a hotel room.
2. BrickLink is a great source for Lego pieces. I used this unofficial online market at Christmas to buy Eli's 35 pieces but also to find some interesting minifigures and pieces for stocking stuffers. Click HERE to visit BrickLink.
Below: We got a Spongebob Lego set at a consignment sale for $2. Once we laid it out and figured out which instructions to look at on Lego's website, we were only missing one piece (which we easily replaced). Now the Krusty Krab restaurant is part of Eli's Lego Town.
3. Pleygo Lego Rentals Got a kiddo who loves to put together kits and then forgets about them? For our family, we found used Lego from garage sales helped us break free from the put-the-kit-together-and-leave-it syndrome that sometimes happens with Legos. Lots of random pieces makes for more creative play. But there is also a "Netflix" for Lego called Pleygo. Basically, you can subscribe and rent sets for your child to put together. All the pieces are sanitized and shipping is free plus they forgive if you lose pieces. Subscriptions start at $15 a month, which is less than many sets. We haven't tried Pleygo, but we're considering a subscription as a gift. If anybody has experience with it, please share!
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that sink in the pool. Today Eli put the mask on and I dropped the fish on progressively deeper steps. It took some coaxing at first. Once Eli put his face in the water, however, he was sold. An hour later Eli was paddling three feet down to retrieve the toys from the pool floor and he even let me toss him. 
