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June 3 - Mythology Quiz

Mythology quiz today! I asked Zephyr and Lyric a few mythology questions, and they knew a lot of basic stuff, like

  • king of the gods is Zeus
  • the Roman name for Zeus is Jupiter
  • the strongest mortal ever was Hercules

and other stuff I prompted them on other stuff like

  • Mars was the God of war. Greeks called him Ares.  
  • Venus was the goddess of love. Greeks called her Aphrodite.
  • Neptune was the god of the sea. Greeks called him Poseidon. 

Sticking to the stories behind planet names proved to be a good strategy. I got to hint at a bunch of stories and set up a bunch of characters for future quizzes. 

At the end I offered Zephyr a prize if he could name 12 gods before school. He got: 

  1. Zephyros (duh) 
  2. Zeus
  3. Poseidon
  4. Persephone (also the name of a friend of ours) 
  5. Athena  
  6. Venus
  7. Mars
  8. Pluto
  9. Saturn (technically a Titan, but I accepted it)
  10. Uranus  (ditto)

and then he blanked. I gave him some clues to get Mercury, and then for the last one he tried to make up a name for a god ("See-ras?"), which I liked a lot as a tactic. I'm a firm believer in making up your own gods. I told him Ceres was in fact the god of the harvest (and that's what cereal is named after) so it was close enough. 

I gave him the MUNNY figure I never got to give him when Memorial Day made us skip a day.  He dug it! We'll decorate it soon.  

Selfgrade: B+. It felt like a C- immediately afterwards because it didn't conform exactly to my expectations, but after reviewing it again for the blog, I realize we actually covered a lot of ground. There's a lesson in there somewhere.

June 2 - Superhero Drawing Studio

Today for Superhero Drawing Studio, Zephyr wanted to make his own Pokémon cards... well, his own brand of Pokémon called Z-Me. Sounded good! I sized out the frames for him (so that when we cut them out they would fit in his new binder) and let him go to town. 

Lyric wanted me to make a picture of Batman, Robin, and Stripe man for him to color. And he wanted a giant Stripe robot behind Stripe Man. 

Work in progress.

While I was doing it, Lyric saw what Zephyr was doing and started to make up his own cards. Hey, why not?

I'm going to give myself an incomplete on this one. I got to show them how I draw a stick figure out of circles and lines and let them work on their own cards, but I feel like I started too late. We had to stop just when we were really starting to roll. 

June 1 - Feats of Strength!

Today's Morning activity was FEATS OF STRENGTH, in which I challenge my kids to do physical labors while chanting "FEATS OF STRENGTH! FEATS OF STRENGTH!" at them.

For feats of strength today, I got out some old fitness things that have sat unused in my closet for years... my adjustable dumbbells and my body wedge. I had the best of intentions to use them (and did for a while) until I became a devotee of Shovelglove, which I evangelically endorse and still return to on occassion.

But it struck me that although I wasn't using them, no reason the kids couldn't use them. So they became obstacles to overcome by... FEATS OF STRENGTH!

For the first feat of strength, Zephyr had to lift two 2 and a half pound dumbbells over his head, starting with his arms all the way out, while laying on a slope:

With Heraclean effort, he accomplished it. His form was not pretty, but he's just a beginner. Lyric wanted to give it a shot as well.

Actually not so bad, but it was more of a press.

Then I had Zephyr try to use his butt to touch the top of the slope 10 times in a sort of proto-squat. FEATS OF BUTT STRENGTH!

Not sure if it shows up in the picture enough, but Lyric was lying on the wedge trying to pinch Zephyr's butt when he touched the wedge BECAUSE HE IS A TRICKSTER. Such are the perils one must have to face when attempting a FEAT OF STRENGTH!

As a mythic penalty, I made Lyric dangle upside down on the wedge and try to do a sit up. He did two! FEATS OF STRENGTH! FEATS OF STRENGTH!

NEW FEATURE THIS MONTH! I'm going to grade myself everyday to take a more honest accounting of what's working. I'm a pretty tough grader. Today I would say was a B+... I got to teach the kids a bit about muscles like triceps and pectorals, and I got to use materials that were under utilized, but I could have done more on the scene setting were I more present in the moment. Room for improvement!

Lyric raising a 2.5 pound disk. FEATS OF STRENGTH! FEATS OF STRENGTH!

June 1 - New Schedule!

It's a new month (so let a man come in and do the popcorn)! Lots of fun in store.

Monthly clean up notes and prospective highlights:

  • Since 1) we're not going anywhere this summer, and 2) I'm trying to learn how to code while teaching Zephyr and Lyric about coding, I've determined that I'm going to try and conduct MY OWN coding camp for the kids. We'll have a preview day this month on the 24th.
  • Mythology quiz on the 3rd! We'll see how that goes... it's an effort to get the kids into mythology, so we'll be looking to test where their base knowledge is.
  • Zephyr's having a Bird Celebration Day at school on the 17th (they will have finished their Bird study) so we'll be starting it off at home then as well.
  • A new idea for treasure hunt this month based on escape rooms! Check it out on the 16th.
  • Last day of school party on the 26th! Ain't no party like a morning party because a morning party has school immediately afterwards.

 

May 31 - Marina Abramovic's half birthday (observed)

Okay, starting out with excuses once again... I missed yesterday's morning activity because the kids were coming back after spending Memorial Day weekend up with Grandma and Grandpa (and Nana!) in Pennsylvania. But I didn't want to miss the event I had planned because it was a tribute to performance artist Marina Abramovic's THE ARTIST IS PRESENT.  

We were supposed to do it Monday since it was her half birthday, and birthdays are very important to her: she considers them to be the beginning of her performance, which would be her life (also, she and her partner Ulay had the same birthday... Crazy. If you haven't seen this video where she sees Ulay 30 years after they separated by walking in opposite directions across the Great Wall of China, you really should, it's one of the most intense things I've ever seen). 

So for our activity this morning I wanted to take a page from Marina Abramovic's book and have a staring contest with the kids. As I told them, this was not a staring contest that they had to win by not blinking, but rather one where we would stare at one another, look into each other's eyes, and be truly present in the moment for one full minute.  

I attempted it with Zephyr first. I couldn't take pictures while I was staring at him because I wanted to emphasize how he should focus on only one thing, and it clearly wasn't easy for him. His eyes would dart away and I would have to call him back. To be entirely honest it wasn't easy for me, either. 

Lyric was actually a little better at it, surprisingly. He wasn't great, and his main challenge was not laughing, but he managed to stay still and present for what must have been 20 seconds straight. That may not seem so long, but ask any actor or radio DJ and they'll tell you, 20 seconds of silence can feel like an eternity.  

Finally I had the kids stare at each other. This I was able to take pictures of:

Side view.  

The kids were admittedly a lot more smiley than Marina Abramovic, of course.

Lyric's perspective. Zephyr was pretty smiley through the whole thing.  

Zephyr's perspective. Actually, a Lyric was pretty smiley too.  

Was it successful? I'm not quite sure, I think so. I think they might have had a few moments of being really there, and at least they became more familiar with the work of Maria Abramovic. They seemed to have fun and that's what matters.  

And then they played magnet tiles with each other for the rest of the morning.  

May 26 - Filmmaking, Day Four

I wanted to try a little more experimentation with putting music into Vines, and Lyric wanted to film something with his Duplo Batmobile. I tried to set something to the Dead Milkmen's Bitchin' Camaro, but it was DRM-managed! Rodney Anonymous, I promise, it was going to be done with love, strictly pro-bono. So I had to go with Plan B.

I think tomorrow we'll do a little more work on our 360 film THERE IS A MONSTER IN THE PLAYGROUND. It's way past the date I thought I would get it out, but I guess I'm teaching the kids that there is a long and arduous months-long process that goes on after you shoot something, so [PATS OWN BACK] good job, me.

May 25 - Filmmaking, Day Three

Lyric wanted to make a quick Vine about a hide and seek championship, and seeing as last time we did that morning activity I found my documenting it to be unsatisfactory, I was excited to make that a reality. Here's what we came up with.   

I wanted to do more but then Lyric overturned his drawers and made a giant mess in his room, and I had to cancel filmmaking to schedule an emergency Mystery Elves clean up session.  

I have to remind myself there was a point in my life when dumping lots of stuff out on the floor and making a giant mess sounded like a great idea.  

That basically took up the rest of the morning.  

May 23 - Filmmaking, day one

We've been doing a lot of 360 filmmaking these past few months (BTW, our 360 film THERE IS A MONSTER IN THE PLAYGROUND is still coming together, we just need to record a soundtrack for it, possibly this week), but this week we wanted to return to Vine and make some new quick silly movies. 

Zephyr and Lyric especially wanted to make some Vines based on TWO MORE EGGS by Matt Chapman. If you haven't seen these yet, hokum smokes, click on that link and get ready to have your mind blown. It's some of the funniest kids content out today, and we think Chapman is a bona fide genius. He's one half of the Brothers Chaps (of Homestar Runner fame) and a key contributor to PICKLE AND PEANUT, an established Vine favorite for us. And even though some of the jokes hit a little close to home for me, TWO MORE EGGS is right up there with his best stuff.

So Zephyr wanted to do some stuff with Dooble, a confusingly accented foreign character who gets into all sorts of bizarre situations. We made him a hat prop, drew on a strange moustache, and were off to the races.

We also experimented with putting music under Vines...

Hey guys, what about grain?

May 20 - Cardboard Toy Shop

With Mumsie here this morning, the kids were too occupied with her to want to do a morning activity. So they had Mumsie time instead.  

Mumsie plays Spot It with Lyric. She also taught Zephyr how to play Crazy Eights.

I had been busy with a craft project of my own all week (preparing a party based on HP Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos, complete with a glowing Necronomicon and spell cards)  so I gladly sat back and watched. More next week. 

May 19 - Wrestling

Having two boys, you start to wonder as a parent how much physical fighting is unavoidable. I recognize that fighting is going to happen, no matter how much I might encourage them to work with and care for each other. On some level they crave the physical contact with each other, I think. But I figure at least the fighting can be more structured with a distinct end point. And so today I tried to teach them wrestling. 

Mumsie was staying for the weekend, so we converted the couch into a bed for her. This would be our ring.  I wanted to teach them the basics of the actual sport of wrestling, but I also wanted them to have fun, so I figured I needed to teach them a bit about professional wrestling as well. I taught them the basics of what pinning your opponents shoulders for a three count was (which was key, as I hoped this would give them a natural end point to fighting they might do outside the ring), and then I had them do intro walks into the ring to start off the match.

I tried to get them to wear Luchador masks (which we have several of, for whatever reason) but no dice.  They did want to wear capes and regular masks, however, so I think they sort of got it.

Zephyr won pretty handily, although Lyric got in there pretty good once or twice. Zephyr is bigger and three years older, but Lyric is definitely the more pugnacious of the two. I expect this result to begin to shift soon. 

Ding ding ding!

At the end I showed them what a wrestling interview looked like by showing them a clip of Macho Man Randy Savage and Mean Gene Okerlund. Maybe next time we'll try and do our own.  

May 18 - Treasure Hunt

As an experiment this time, I'm going to try and let the pictures do most of the talking for this Action Figure Epic Treasure Hunt.

The kids read clue #1, with figures (as instructed)

Clue #1 led the kids to... the air conditioner!

I had planted Bane at the air conditioner, so they found him there, where we had them battle.

When they had defeated Bane, I gave them a little slip of paper I had in my pocket. This was a twist that surprised them. Here's what it said:

A little rebus to keep their brains sharp

Batman checking the bananas for the next clue

He eventually found the clue under the banana hanger

Clue #3 led the kids to the shoeshine box we use to store the hand-drawn notes my wife puts into their lunchboxes every day. It took them a bit to get it, but they got there on their own.

I tried to get better photos of the fights between Batman, Robin, and the villains, but it was a surprisingly hard shot to get since I had to be controlling the villains as well as photographing everything. They mostly came out looking like this.

Once again, pulled this note out of my pocket for them after Ivy was defeated. I thought this might be more difficult, but Zephyr got this immediately. I suppose its the only flower in the house at the moment.

Reading clue #5

Clue #5 led to the humidifier, after a quick discussion about states of matter and how water vapor in the air is called humidity. It also serves as their night light, hence the "bright" clue.

Lyric got this one, and was generally just really into this treasure hunt all the way through.

Clue #7, which was in the toy shopping cart. It let to a red helmet hanging off of an umbrella stand in the living room.

The kids found the Joker in the red helmet, and I delivered my final pocket note.

This led to a clue I had taped to a red phone on the kitchen counter. I thought it would be hiding in plain sight, but it was too obvious... I had to tell them not to open it when they found it as they were finding clue #3. But now they ran to it right away.

I was pretty happy with this way of using letters to spell out a message. Mildly challenging for Zephyr, but still fun. He figured it out.

Lyric took off for their room like a bolt.

Justice League figures with cool armor! Sweet!

Just one last thing to say: this is kind of an excellent summation ofwhy I'm doing this whole morning activity thing. I can tell that this exactly what they want. Giving them an opportunity to play toys with their Dad while engaging some intellectual curiosity solving puzzles and winning a toy at the end is pretty much making their fantasies into a reality. Isn't that something you want to do for your kids? You have the opportunity to make that happen, it just takes a little planning and effort.

May 17 - Teddy Bear School

Today's class,  Back L to R: Arc, Arctos, Blue robot, Tyrone, Boris. Middle L to R: Fluffington Q. Ursine ("Fluffy"), Robear, Kuma, Perry, Chickens, Ragomorph. Front row: Crocodilus.

For Teddy Bear School today, we finally had a day where a lesson got taught rather than having a discipline matter that needed to be attended to. It was a science lesson! The boys met up before class to coordinate their lessons.

Very seriously discussing how to get through to those Teddy Bears. Real Jaime Escalante stuff.

Zephyr gave the class a quick presentation about how trains run on steam power:

And then Lyric taught the class about bats, and how to make them out of rubber ("Take some black rubber and make a bat with it").

And then it became kind of a lesson about Batman. Not exactly the most scientifically accurate presentation ever, but the students were well behaved, so I'll take it.