February 10 - Hide and Seek Championship

So morning activity for today was supposed to be hide and seek championship, but it just didn't take off. The kids were sleepy, I made a juice, and time just got away from us. That happens some mornings. I was tempted to try and do a make up session this afternoon, but in the spirit of radical honesty I figure I want this blog to be founded on, I've decided to document when this #MorningFunManifesto doesn't work as well as when it does.

Hide and Seek Championship is perhaps the easiest of the morning activities to do. It's just playing hide and seek with your kids. I like hide and seek a lot, I think it implicitly instills a sense of independence (when you're the seeker) and an ability to be silent and contemplative (when you're the hider). But because it takes no prep at all, it's also the easiest activity to drop. However, it's also an easy activity to bring in as a substitution, and I wouldn't be surprised to have it come in again towards the end of the month.

There's still a lot to do today that's #MorningFunManifesto related, because tomorrow is supposed to be Treasure Hunt. Treasure Hunt is the kids' favorite morning activity, and it takes the most prep (about an hour, usually). But it's worth it.

Zephyr is doing a "subway study" in school now, and they have a presentation on Friday. So I decided that this treasure hunt will have a subway component to it. While I was out today, I got a free subway map from a tourist information booth, and when I got home I started writing up some clues.

Here's how treasure hunt works: There's one starting note, three hidden notes, and one hidden treasure chest (filled with 4 small toys). Each note gives a clue to the location of the next note, but to figure it out, the kids need to solve a problem. At first, it was just to complete a rhyme, but as the kids have gotten better at Treasure Hunting, I've changed up the types of problems. There's been riddles, rebusses, and last month we used math problems to come up with digits in a combination lock (in that one, the chest wasn't hidden but instead locked in a terrarium and left in plain sight). A few pictures from that hunt:

So after writing and printing out the clues (which I'll share tomorrow), I load up the treasure chest, and then hide the clues and treasure chest throughout the house. For example, I hid this clue in the top of a large Lego head:

We'll see tomorrow if it works... it should be a good one.

February 09 - Detective Training

Today was another easy activity that doesn't require a lot of setup... Detective Training. It teaches kids perceptiveness, in theory... at least it taught my kids the meaning of the word "perceptiveness". Here's how you play.

First, have your kids look over the room. I find it's better if it's a little messy, for reasons that will become evident soon.

I'd like to take this moment to pre-emptively apologize to my wife for putting an image of our messy living room out on the internet. Sorry, Honey.

Encourage them to look around a little and take in everything in the room. I have them especially notice things that are out of place... like say, pajama bottoms in the middle of the living room floor or couch cushions strewn all about. Then have them go to their room and count to twenty.

While they're in their room, hide three toys (I use action figures, but you can let them choose) somewhere about the room, ideally near something out of place. Once the figures are hidden, call the kids in and have them search for the figures. However, when they move stuff around to look for the figures, have them put them back in the right place (like have them put the couch cushions back in the right place).

And that's it! Your kids get a mini-treasure hunt, and you get to subtly get them to pick up after themselves. Pretty sneaky.

February 08 - Lunar New Year

It being Lunar New Year today, there was no school, so I got to sleep a little late and Zephyr and Lyric got to watch TV in the morning.

But this weekend. Oh boy this weekend.

MC's Zeph E. Fresh and Slick Lyric drop a poetry recitation of La Di Da Di by Slick Rick and Doug E. Fresh. Starring Zephyr Sosin and Lyric Sosin Background images by Robert Sosin Camerawork by Andi Sosin and Joel Sosinsky

This was the culmination of a Poetry for Prizes project I started months ago. I'm planning to turn it into a video, but here's the live version. Zephyr did it despite having a slight temperature (and was in three other acts!) but I'm sooooooo proud of him. When things were hard, he tried harder. And Lyric straight up ROCKED it.

More on Poetry for Prizes in about 2 weeks. Back to the Manifesto tomorrow.

February 05 - Juice Crew and Breakdancing

For this activity, usually scheduled right after the Veggie Challenge, the boys and I make a juice (using our Hurom slow juicer)  juicer for their mom while listening to old-school hip-hop, and then we try to learn a breakdancing move once we're filled up with juicy power. I try to make it an "every color of the rainbow" juice, using:

1. a red fruit or vegetable (today it was watermelon)
2. an orange fruit or vegetable (today it was carrots)
3. a yellow fruit or vegetable (today it was half a banana)
4. a green fruit or vegetable (today it was a pear and some kale leaves)
5. a blue fruit or vegetable (normally blueberries, but today we didn't have any)
6. a purple fruit or vegetable (today it was pomegranate seeds)

The kids love making the juice because it's both easy and cathartic: just dump the stuff into the hole and occasionally push it down with the plastic thing.

The juice today came out dark green, but holy crap did it taste delicious. We made about two and a half cups, enough for me and my wife to have a full glass and Zephyr and Lyric to have several shot glasses worth.

Normally we also do a breakdancing lesson, but today we had to rehearse for tomorrow's talent show (more on that soon). I tried to give Zephyr a quick lesson about keeping the beat, but he didn't quite seem to get it.

February 04 - Veggie Challenge

Today I realized it was Veggie Challenge day and I hadn't gotten any vegetables for it. The rules for Veggie Challenge are kind of fluid... we've had veggie challenges where they've needed to eat a fruit (like 10 orange slices) quickly, we've had veggie challenges where they had to identify the veggie blindfolded, we've had veggie challenges where they had to try an exotic fruit (like prickly pears or starfruit).  The winner of the veggie challenge gets bonus "Veggie points", and 350 veggie points can be traded in for a small toy. Essentially it's a sneaky way to get them to eat more vegetables: they'll do it more readily if they think of it as a game, and if there's a prize somewhere in it for them, they have motivation to see it through.

But today I had forgotten to get veggies, and all we had in the house was some leftover broccoli my wife hadn't roasted. So it was going to be a raw broccoli challenge today.

I ripped off two florets and put them on small plates, and then covered the plates with other bowls. When I called them in to start the Veggie Challenge, I insisted they couldn't look under the bowls until the challenge had begun. I didn't want them to psyche themselves out.

When they were seated, I yelled "go" and they revealed the broccoli. I said that they could get 50 veggie points for each floret they ate, plus a 100 bonus Veggie Points if they finished both first. GAME ON. They went at it.

Zephyr started asking me if he possibly could just eat the stalks, and I said I'd give him 25 points for each stalk he ate, but he'd need to eat the whole floret for the big points. Meanwhile Lyric was diligently going at it, chewing with all his might.

It looked neck and neck for a while, but Lyric ended up winning it. This was the first time in a while Lyric had beaten his older brother in something, and he was pretty thrilled about it. And Zephyr ended up getting 50 points for eating both stalks, which was enough to add to his previous winnings to get an action figure. Plus, I got to send them off to school with the knowledge that they had been tricked into eating healthy vegetables. So a win all around.

February 03 - Teddy Bear School

From L to R: Trigon, Paddington, Kuma, Robot, Fluffington J. Bear ESQ, Chickens, Arctos, Arc. Non-Teddy Bears go to Teddy Bear school as well, it gives the program more diversity.

Today's morning activity was one Lyric made up a few months ago: Teddy Bear School. For this, the kids take their teddy bears, sit them up against their dresser, and then act as their teachers (and on occassion, as storyteller Bill Gordh, who comes to their school with his banjo every month to tell stories from around the world. He's amazing.) The great thing about this activity is you get to see from their perspective what actually happens in school... a notoriously hard bit of information to get out of kids ("How was school today?" "Fine, great") At least, I think this is close to what happens in school.

So today Teddy Bear School started out with a PE demonstration. Lyric stretched for a sun salutation, showed off his headstand, and Zephyr did a tree pose.

Then Zephyr came in as Bill Gordh and told a story about everyone in the world being changed into money. During the story Lyric had his Trigon doll (that's the red demon thing from Teen Titans Go) make a commotion, so he had to be led out of the class into the hallway. This is the kind of information I really enjoy hearing about school, and you get to see your kids utilize the lessons they learn in school for conflict resolution. That's why Teddy Bear School is so great: it's adorable and educational. A win / win.

February 02 - Superhero Drawing Studio

This morning I got up dumb early for no reason at all and couldn't go back to sleep. I was pretty darn groggy, but fortunately for me, today's morning activity was a nice and low-key one: Superhero Drawing Studio.

This activity started out as just "Drawing", but I found that making something too open-ended for kids made them less able to focus on the task at hand. Limitations make great walls to bounce off of. I consider my ethnicity to be "Comic Book Nerd", and those genes must have passed off to my kids because Lyric is CRAZY about superheroes (Zephyr is not as crazy about them, but still enjoys them). So I made "Drawing" into "Comic Book Drawing Studio", but that was a little too aspirational at the time for the kids (I do intend to go back to it sometime, though). So we took a step back and just made it "Superhero Drawing Studio".

All you need for Superhero drawing studio is paper and writing implements, and you draw superheroes with your kids. Drawing with your kids is a great way to teach them stuff: drawing stuff like "how to draw a stick figure", sure, but also parts of the body, perspective, light and shadow, etc.

Today Lyric was really annoying Zephyr, and Zephyr was in the trap of dealing with someone feeding off negative attention. The more Zephyr got frustrated with Lyric, the more Lyric wanted to be around Zephyr to provoke him more. Zephyr was saying how he wanted to punch Lyric in the face, so I separated the kids and took Zephyr to have him draw someone getting punched in the face instead.

This was what I drew, and I tried to show Zephyr foreshortening - how one hand looks way bigger because it's closer to the viewer. But then of course, Lyric wanted to get in on what we were doing, so I started making a drawing with Lyric and having him pick out the colors we should use for it, and Zephyr snuck off to go make his own drawing in the other room.

Lyric picked what colors should go where and then tried his hands at the pants and gloves, and then deigned the two "wings" on the back. It came out pretty good, I think! We got to talk about what a visor was, the differences between metal and plastic, and how cool "racing stripes" are. Lyric wanted it to be part orange because it's his favorite color and part purple because it's my favorite color.

Meanwhile, Zephyr had gone back to his room and tried to draw Zomboss from Plants Vs. Zombies (after checking in with me that we could draw supervillains as well... totally allowed.) He went on the iPad to get a reference and then went at it. I'm digging how he's drawing beady eyes.

By the way, that's just what Zephyr wanted to wear to school today. He's into wearing ties.

February 01 - MUNNY making

Today was a reward day for the kids, because they had helped me out with a huge project over the weekend. SO MUCH MORE ON THIS HUGE PROJECT SOON, it's kind of immense but I'm not ready to reveal it yet. But the kids were amazing in it, and they deserved something special.

So today I gave them something I've been holding onto for a few years: giant blank MUNNY figures from Kidrobot. We'd decorated tiny ones before, but this time I broke out the big guns.

I got these as Kidrobot on Prince Street was going out of business and had always been meaning to get into them, especially when I wanted to design figures for 3D printing. But I just never got around to it, and they've been hanging around forever. The kids got really excited about it, though. The chance to make and design their own toy was a huge deal.

Zephyr named his Sarah (presumably after his teacher Sarah, which is probably a good sign he's enjoying school) and that made Lyric want to make his a girl as well. He called her "Emily". He wanted her to have a red and white striped shirt, just like him.

The smaller Munny figures we had previously done had stickers, but for these larger versions we needed to use sharpies and pencils to decorate them. I showed them how to plan out what they wanted to do with pencil and then finish it up with a Sharpie. We talked about how eyes further apart are "Cuter", and how eyes change shape when people smile.

I also showed them how adding eyelashes to an eye makes something look more feminine (what I suspect cartoon anthropologists call "the Minnie Mouse principle"). I prefer to think of it as passing on basic cartooning principles rather than gendered heteronormativity. Zephyr did his all on his own, I drew in Lyric's shirt and eye and mouth placement. But then Lyric started on his own pants and Zephyr started making a rainbow banding pattern!

Work in progress. I drew Pickle and Peanut on the TV that came with Zephyr's for him.

We had to get off to school and left the Munnys in mid production. But we shall return to them! Progress reports as they happen.

DAY ZERO - January 31st, 2016

So I'm going to try my hand at dadblogging. This is an experiment for February, I've essentially dared myself to do an entry every weekday. Bear with me, it'll be worth it. I think.

This blog is going to be (at least on the surface) about the morning activities I do with my two sons Zephyr and Lyric. Every month I make up a schedule of things we can do in the morning before school, and I've found it to be a great way to 1) spend quality time with my kids, 2) teach them important lessons in a fun way, 3) enjoy being a dad, and 4) not feel like I'm wasting the most precious moments of my children's development immersed in whatever time suck has hold of me at the moment. Just a little planning and preparation has made being a dad WAY more enjoyable, and I felt like I should share it.

I'll get into it, the reasons behind it, what comprises it, and what you have to do to do it yourself as we go on. But for day zero, I just want to get this out there and get moving. So without further ado, here is February 2016's #MorningFunManifesto schedule: