Kia ora, everyone. Hello again. You'll never guess what Susan did this week! When the weather started getting colder, Susan started wishing for snow. And snow is what she got!
"But it didn't snow!" I hear you say.
True! But that didn't stop us having a snow day! See, in the Beecrafty house, we've had a snow day tradition of making pancakes and building the tallest block tower of all, ever since that first snow day years ago when Mr K and Miss Missy stayed home from work and preschool. Yes, we've built snowmen, but it's the pancakes and the block tower that really make it a snow day. We always try to build our tower as high as the ceiling, but we only managed it once. Maybe one day we'll get there again.
Our snow weekend was just as much fun as ever! You can't go wrong with pancakes, and even though the Young Lad said he didn't want to help with the block tower, as soon as we got the blocks out, suddenly, he became chief architect and builder. Susan got to put the top block on (not quite at the ceiling) and she didn't let the lack of snow stop her from building a snowman!
Susan's snow day wouldn't be complete without books, so I put together a list of stories for our kind of snow day. Some of the books I wanted to share can't be borrowed just yet, but I found some videos, so you can still see the story while we wait for the library to open again. Not long now!
Our snow day got me thinking about family traditions. I've been reading The Book of New Family Traditions by Meg Cox, which has some interesting insights about the "everyday traditions that...demostrate hands-on love for our children." I love the traditions that have evolved in our family over the years. Movie nights with Miss Missy, Mickey Mouse pancakes to remind us of our trip to Disneyland, homemade gingernuts like the ones we were given after the Earthquake, the secret handshake the Beecrafty kids share. I hope it's these fun family traditions that my kids will remember about their childhoods. And I hope this crazy time will be remembered that way too. Maybe it'll be the bears in windows, or the failed Anzac biscuits that tasted so good! Maybe those things will develop into traditions that we'll repeat, and reminisce over for years to come. Has your whānau managed to create some fun memories together? I hope so.
Tiny Adventures
Seven weeks in, Susan and I are starting to run out of ideas, and maybe you are also scratching for things to keep boredom at bay. I found some great parenting resources on the Allright? website. Their free Tiny Adventures app seems just the thing for Susan and me! So I'll be sure to have a look for some ideas. If we can somehow work in Susan's fox costume, she'll be in heaven!
Thinking of tiny adventures reminded me of a movie we watched years ago, Tad the Lost Explorer (aka Las aventuras de Tadeo Jones). You can watch it on Beamafilm, it's pretty fun!
I also found a sweetly absurd little chapter book called the Adventures of Miss Petitfour, who likes to travel by tablecloth—that is to say, she holds the corners of a tablecloth and lets the wind catch it and take her where it will—and has 16 artistic cats who travel with her like the tail of a kite.
And finally, a tiny coding adventure. I know I've been bemoaning the amount of time the Young Lad spends playing computer games, but sometimes you can learn a lot playing games. Of all the challenges his teachers have shared, the one he enjoyed the most was coding. And then I stumbled upon Coding for Carrots, a Google doodle coding game. It's a really simple wee game, you just have to work out how to make the bunny hop along and turn corners to grab all the carrots. There's lots of maths skills and problem solving involved, and lots of cute fun!
Just a few more days of trying to supervise learning at home, now. Thank goodness!
Although the library will be open again soon, Storytimes will not be running again for a while. So in the meantime, keep watching Digital Wā Kōrero-Storytimes, and I'm sure Susan and I will be back for another virtual visit at least one more time! If you missed our earlier visits, you can catch up all our adventures here.
Ka kite! See you again soon.
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