Ballerina Base Two

Larkin started a ballet class a couple of months ago. I had nightmare images of rows of young children standing at a barre performing repetitive movements while being shouted at by a barely mobile ex-prima ballerina. Luckily, local friends with older kids directed us to a class that Larkin has loved.

Miss Tina prepares them for a performance, and the kids are introduced to the basics while learning a routine for the show. Finn, while not interested in formal lessons, has been very excited to discover that some of the ways he moves have fancy ballet names. Most notably, he now likes to announce what he's doing as he "chasses" across the room.

Larkin has been having an excellent time, and I've been amused to see how some of the things she's learning in ballet bleed over into other aspects of life.

Yesterday we were playing a board game that involves rolling a pair of dice and moving the appropriate number of spaces. At the beginning, Larkin announced that she was going to "practice ballerina counting." When, for instance, she rolled something that added up to 8, she would count out: "1-2-3, 2-2-3, 3-2." She never hesitated in her translation of the roll of the dice to ballerina base two.

Challenge Game

I got this idea from one of the unschooling mailing lists I'm on. Emile and I came up with a set of cards, each with an activity/challenge for the kids. They pick one out of the box and do whatever the card says. The primary purpose is for them to have fun... the secondary purpose is for us to have something to fall back on when we're feeling particularly tired or having a hard time engaging with the kids as actively or positively as we would like. To this end, we tried to come up with things that Larkin and Finn could do pretty independently.

So far, they have been having a BLAST. I don't know how long this first set of cards is going to last, so please let me know if you have more ideas! Many thanks to Jim, Alex and Elly for greatly enhancing our original set of ideas. I'll try to take pictures of the more entertaining ones as they happen.

• Guess how many same size lego bricks will fit in a measuring cup. Count to find out how close you are.
• Make a potato person or animal using a potato, thumb tacks, tape and any materials you can find in the craft cubbies. Name your creature and make up a story about its life.
• Draw a picture using only paper and dry beans. Write your name with the beans.
• Find something to represent each color, then construct a rainbow on the floor.
• Get on your hands and knees, put your knees up on your elbows and croak like a frog. How long can you hold that position?
• Draw a star while hopping on one foot.
• Get a pen or pencil, paper and a mirror set up so you can draw while looking ONLY in the mirror-- NOT at the paper. Draw a heart, then a star. Are certain shapes harder/easier to draw?
• Count how many books are in the nearest box of books.
• Push a ball across the living room floor with your nose.
• Find 10 things in the house that start with the letter "S."
• Find or make something in the house that looks like a unicorn horn and figure out how to attach it to your forehead.
• Measure how tall Larkin's bunk bed is in lengths of Finn's forearm.
• Count how many times you can fold a piece of paper in half. Is it different with different kinds of paper?
• Draw a treasure map on your stomach with a marker.
• Sing "Happy Birthday" in a secret fairy language.
• Make as many hearts as you can with a single pipe cleaner.
• Find 10 things in the house that are yellow.
• Create an alien out of playdough and make up a story about its planet and life.
• Say the alphabet backwards.
• Time how long you can do a "wall sit."
• Draw a picture of what you would look like if you were an alien.
• Dress up in Emile's clothes and do something he would do.
• Hide something in your room then draw a treasure map. See if someone else can find the item using only the map.
• How many grains of rice do you think fit in a level tablespoon? Measure one out and see how close you are.
• See how far you can walk while balancing a spoon on your nose.
• Measure the length of the living room in lengths of Larkin's feet.
• Find one purple thing in every room of the house.
• Draw a picture of Spiderman.
• Walk from one end of the house to the other five times, like a different animal each time.
• Act out one of your favorite scenes from Avatar, playing all the parts yourself.
• Tape a coin to your forehead.
• Find 10 things in the house that start with the letter "P."
• Draw an upside down face on your chin, using your mouth as the face's mouth.
• Turn every item of your clothing inside out and then put them back on.
• Walk like a pirate from one end of the house to the other with a toy bird balanced on one shoulder.
• Close every door in the house, including closets.
• Count to 20 by twos.
• Put every barrette in Larkin's hair box in your hair.
• Call a grandparent and tell them about your day.
• Make a painting of a butterfly using only ketchup and paper on the kitchen floor.
• Dress up in Jenny's clothes and do something she would do.
• Using mirrors and a flashlight, shine a beam from the kitchen table to an upstairs wall.
• Design a paper airplane and see how far a flight it can make.
• Put on 3 pairs of pants at the same time. How hard is it to bend your knees? Touch your toes?
• Get 10 big lego and put an empty jar on the floor. See how many lego you can drop in the jar while standing with your arm extended straight out in front of you. What if you stand on the couch?
• Draw a star using only your toes.
• Find a large stuffed animal and dress it in your clothes.
• Walk backwards from the game table to the dogs' door.
• Call an uncle and tell him about your day.
• Turn off every light in the house.
• Count how many articles of clothing you can wear all at once.
• Tape your thumbs to your palms and then try to: write your name, open a door, take the lid off a jar.
• Measure how far you can jump from standing. How about with a running start?
• Find a mirror and see if you can learn to cross your eyes. Then try raising only one eyebrow.
• Draw a circle while keeping your eyes closed. Then a picture of your head with your eyes closed.
• Draw a scary face on a paper bag then put it on your head and make a monster noise.
• Guess how many earth balls are in the jar in the snack cupboard. Count to see how close you are.
• Using only sticks and leaves from outside, build a boat that will float in the tub or sink. See if it stands up to waves.
• Take turns telling one sentence at a time of a story.
• Jump up and clap your hands once while you're still in the air. See how many times you can clap during one jump.
• Find 10 things in the house that start with the letter B.
• Close your eyes, stand on one foot and touch your nose. Keep your eyes closed and try not to fall down while counting slowly to 10.
• Make a picture of a horse using only paper and dry cereal on the kitchen floor.
• Make up a story about who your "real" parents are and what they are like.
• Find 10 circles in the house. Then squares, rectangles and triangles. Which shape was hardest to find?
• Measure how many finger lengths long the stair supports are.
• Arrange things under your blankets so it looks just like you're sleeping there.
• Make the shape of a person on the kitchen floor using only spoons and butter knives.
• See how high you can make a stack of stuffed animals.
• See how many holes you can punch in a piece of paper with a pencil tip before it falls apart into more than one piece.
• Run around the kitchen island 15 times.
• Touch every electrical outlet downstairs.
• Count how many times you can go up and down the stairs in 2 minutes.
• Touch the floor of every room in the house with your elbow.
• Tell a short story about a robot, an alien and a princess.
• Count how many times you can hop on one foot before you have to put the other foot down.
• Pick a poem or short story you know and sing the words instead of just speaking them.
• Slither across the living room like a snake-- keep your arms at your sides and don't push with your feet.
• Count how many times you can spin before you fall over.
• See how many 3 inch long tears you can make in one piece of paper before it falls into more than once piece.
• Pull yourself on your belly all the way across the living room floor without using your legs.
• Sing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" while standing on one foot.
• Count how many times you can hop around a piece of furniture on one foot.
• Find your way from one toilet to the other with your eyes closed.
• Make a card to send to a friend.
• Count the number of pieces of clothing in the room you're currently in.
• Make as long a line as you can out of stuffed animals laid end to end.
• Ask Emile if he wants a sandwich. IF yes, make him one.
• Tuck a teddy bear into each bed and bring them a drink from a sippy cup.

 Hopefully a more general kid-life update will be forthcoming shortly.