April 19 - Sweet Ninja Moves

HYPOTHESIS: By adding in an element of fantastical training, children will more readily participate in physical fitness exercises.

PROCEDURE: This weekend, at the auction to benefit the kids' school, they handed out these light-up styrofoam wands so that parents could bid on stuff in the darkness. I stealthily absconded with a few of them and gave them to the kids, with the intention of using them as sticks to duck under and jump over for Sweet Ninja Moves. And it LOOKED AWESOME.

Lyric jumps over Zephyr's leg sweep

Zephyr dodges Lyric's vertical strike

Zephyr ducks Lyric's upper sweep

We also did some more of the "Rocks / Arrows / Noodles / Chambers" stuff we did last time, but those pictures didn't come out nearly as cool as the three above.

RESULTS: Possibly some minor improvements from last month, but nothing major. But I really liked seeing their focus while doing the "Rocks / Arrows / Noodles / Chambers" stuff, those karate lessons are paying off.

April 18 - Tea Party Manners Challenge

HYPOTHESIS: Kids will learn manners easier if they are phrased in the form of a game.

PROCEDURE: First you lay out cups and saucers in front of each child and invite them to drink. As they drink correct for various and sundry manners violations: elbows on the table, burping at the table, asking for more juice without a "please" or "thank you", etc. I tried to go back to thinking of it as a game as much as I could, awarding points when they did something genteel and dinging them by making a loud buzzer sound each time they did something rude.

Using tiny tea cups works really well, because they have to politely ask for refills a bunch of times.

Zephyr is into this game and enjoys acting like a gentleman, but Lyric enjoys getting dinged for rude behavior. Importantly, I THINK THIS IS OKAY. This exercise is not necessarily about forcing them to use good behavior at all times but rather about giving them the ability to recognize what is good behavior and what isn't. Lyric can make weird rude noises and get a reaction from me, but it can be in the context of light-hearted fun. The hope is that when he is in a situation where people will expect good manners, he'll know what is expected and what is forbidden.

This is also a great exercise to teach them basics of engaging in interesting conversation. I asked Lyric and Zephyr to tell me about what they're learning in school, and I didn't accept monosyllabic answers. And surprisingly, I got some good answers!

RESULTS: I feel good about what the kids were able to take away from this exercise, and for a quick 5-10 minute activity, there was a lot of bang for the buck. They both asked politely if they could be excused from the table at the end, too, so in that I feel there was a sort of victory.

April 15 - Superhero Adventure

HYPOTHESIS: By performing a task where they have to work together, children can be taught the value of cooperation.

PROCEDURE: Like last month's Superhero Adventure, I wanted to set up a task where the kids would have to bridge a gap together. This time, I figured it would be dimensional wormholes... that way I could narratively have monsters come out of the wormholes while giving the kids something they would have to plug up.

Zephyr claimed he was Pokéman, a superhero who used super-powered pokémon cards to fight bad guys, while Lyric wanted to be Rocket Boy. I think Lyric just wanted to stay in his pajamas, honestly, but I thought it was pretty neat how he made a story around them.

Whereas last time I ended up using a shoehorn to extend between the two kids, this time I had the idea of using a rainbow tube from this seldom-used play tent the kids had. This turned out to be a great prop. The kids loved using it.

I wasn't exactly sure how far apart to put the two wormholes, so I put them about 10 feet apart from one another. As it turns out, I WAS WAY OFF.

I tried to correct it by saying we had to go into the other dimension, and in there all sorts of geometry was weird. It was admittedly a weak and expositional section of storytelling, but whatever. I moved the two wormholes closer together so the kids could put the tube between both.

Teamwork!

RESULTS: The kids seem to be getting better at working together when they need to... and I heard a story about them hugging each other as they left school, making other parents and nannies envious that they seemed to be siblings that get along. I'm not sure you can draw a direct link from this to that, but it's all a rich tapestry and all. I think we're seeing some real results here!

April 14 - Bird Treasure Hunt

HYPOTHESES:

1. Children will happily learn and apply knowledge for a game, and have a great time doing it.
2. If we did 10 little challenges rather than 4 big challenges for a treasure hunt, we could have more fun and keep younger players involved longer.

PROCEDURE: For this treasure hunt, I knew I wanted it to be bird themed and to be comprised of more (slightly easier) challenges. Part of the prep was finding the right accomplices to work with. I needed to find some birds. Fortunately there were a bunch in Zephyr and Lyric's stuffed animal collection:

From L to R: Sparky the Penguin, Owly, Sigmund the Swan, The Cranberry Goose, and Pigeon Pillow.

I wrote out five (non-rhyming, which is somewhat a break from the norm) clues, and then five more small clues for each of the birds. Each of the birds' clues would also have a letter, which the kids would have to unscramble at the end to find the treasure. Then I hid the birds and clues at various places around the house, so that one clue would lead to the next.

Part of the fun of this is that the kids were RIGHT NEXT to a few of the clues the day before, but didn't even know it. Zephyr slept right next to Owly and didn't realize he had a clue taped to his wing. It's somewhat risky, but the effect is pretty cool to watch on the children's faces.

The kids were positively ITCHING to start the treasure hunt this morning. I insisted they wait for me (because I had to take pictures) but we got started pretty close to 6:10am. Lyric opened the first clue and gave it to Zephyr to read.

This might be more difficult as a lot of the questions are "our house" based, but feel free to play along!

The first clue spoke of an owl whose best friend has no arms or legs. Zephyr was puzzled, but Lyric knew right away who I was talking about: Owly, the amazing protagonist of an eponymous silent cartoon, and his best friend Wormy. These books (by Andy Runton) are simply the sweetest things and I can't recommend them enough, for children (and adults!) of all ages. Runton is a master of silent storytelling, and Owly books are so beautifully written and structured that even pre-literate kids can learn to read them. We have every single one and a plush Owly and Wormy, and that plush doll in Zephyr's bed is where the kids raced to. When Lyric found the note on Owly's wing he literally squealed in delight.

[Squeal]

Owly's note said that 1) his letter was O and 2) to look for the next clue in a book featuring him. Of course, as I said, we have 7 books featuring Owly, so Zephyr and Lyric started rounding up the books and flipping through them, looking for clues.

There weren't any clues in the black and white Journal-sized ones. But I was gratified to see they didn't give up, and realized there were also larger color Owly books elsewhere on their shelves. They found one, but were stymied when they found a note that said to look for the other one!

Zephyr kind of had the perfect reaction to the "Nope, Other book" note. It was a teasing joke that kind of connected, letting him know that he was getting closer and driving him to keep pushing. They soon found the right one.

Man I love Owly comics. Get as many of those things as you can.

Side note: it was about now that we realized the kids had misplaced Owly's note (which they needed to keep to unscramble the letters at the end), and we looked everywhere to find it to no avail until we realized it was stuck on Lyric's butt.

There it is.

But back to the hunt.

The next bird they were going to look for was supposed to be a "rock dove" that was hiding in plain sight. Zephyr got this was referring to a pigeon (one of the bird facts he picked up at school) but couldn't quite think of where we had a pigeon around the house. They looked all over their room, but couldn't find him. I gave them a hint that it might not be in their room, and that gave them the inspiration to look out in the living room, where we have our owl and pigeon pillows.

The note there told the kids 1) his letter was V and 2)  to look for the next note on some bread. The kids ran to the fridge and searched the bread.

Fans of alt weekly comics have an advantage on this one.

The note talks about a penguin that wears sneakers and sunglasses, and fans of eerily prescient comics might have guessed that I'm talking about Sparky the Penguin, protagonist of Tom Tomorrow's This Modern World. Tom Tomorrow wrote a great kids book called The Very Silly Mayor which the kids love, and Zephyr understood immediately that was the book he had to find.

Zephyr was on it.

The kids only remembered they had to find the plush Sparky afterwards "behind a curtain". We only have one set of curtains, so it was kind of obvious where they had to look, but they still couldn't find it, even though they were right on top of it. They asked for a clue, but I told them that when things were hard they had to try harder. In all fairness, I knew they just had to look on the floor a little more thoroughly... I could even see Sparky's sneakers under the curtain. They got it eventually.

Sparky's note said that his letter was T, and to look for his clue in his book, but of course Zephyr had already found that.

People who attended our wedding have the advantage with this one.

As long time readers of the blog might know, swans are an important symbol for my wife and I. The kids knew it, at least, and went to check under the sinks, where they found Sigmund.

Sigmund's note said his letter was S and to look for his note in a lamp shaped like him. My wife and I have swan lamps on our bedside tables (see above), so the kids rushed to our room to find the next clue.

The final bird was a bird we call the Cranberry Goose, which was made for Zephyr by his great aunt when he was a baby. This question didn't really test their bird knowledge or anything, but it did test their knowledge of where the Maple Syrup was, which is... practical knowledge.

The Cranberry Goose's note said his letter was E and to look for his clue on something that rhymed with his name. Thanks to Pickle and Peanut, Zephyr got that "Goose" and "Juice" rhyme pretty quickly. They looked in the fridge, found the cranberry juice, and got the final clue.

Have you been paying attention to each bird's letters?

Zephyr wanted the letters on pieces of paper so he could more easily switch them around... and then he got it!

The treasure is in the STOVE!

The prize for this month was a Dr. Strange and Silver Surfer action figure! Even my DC snob kids could see the coolness of the power cosmic and the Sorcerer Supreme.

RESULTS: The kids have so much fun ding treasure hunts, and I think this was the most fun they've had. More clues made for more fun. Prep wasn't so bad, either... not having to rhyme made things a lot easier. Plus they got to use knowledge like what a pigeon was, where penguins live, and lots of other little practical knowledge like where books and foodstuffs were. Plus they got Scrabble-esque practice mixing up letters to come up with words, which I think helped my own verbal ability as a kid. But I think that moment looking in the curtains when they realized they just had try harder when things are hard might have been the best lesson they picked up.

April 13 - Karaoke Star Time

Well, since I messed up and didn't get my act together yesterday to get a treasure hunt going, today was Karaoke star time. We had done something like this last month and Zephyr had been itching to do it again, but he was somewhat low energy for a few tracks. I think the reading got to him... typical rookie karaoke problem, honestly. I figure if he gets his Malcolm Gladwell-esque 10,000 hours of karaoke practice in starting now, by the time he's 30 he is going to have THE most killer set.

Of course, this is still at the very start of those 10,000 hours still. So with that in mind, here's Zephyr's take on the Violent Femme's "Blister in the Sun":

Boy, this is a pretty fun song to sing. And before you say, "Hey, you know what that song is about, right?" let me tell you 1) no it actually isn't and 2) Even if it is, so what? It's just a great song, and getting quiet and then getting loud is an awesome thing to put in a song. I honestly don't know why more songs don't do it. This and "Shout" by the Isley Brothers are pretty much it for that technique.

Oh you think you can do better? Then you take a crack at it!

Even better, have your kids do it. If they're super-adorable doing it, post that video and send it to me!

April 12 - Mystery Elves Obstacle Course (pre-empted)

Today was supposed to be Mystery Elves Obstacle Course, where I attempt to trick the kids into cleaning up the house by running an obstacle course where they clean, but Zephyr was busy this morning making his own homemade Pokémon cards and I thought that was so cool that I just let him do that for the entire morning. Sometimes you don't want to interfere with self-motivated creativity, you know? Check out some of these:

They're technically not Pokémon cards, of course... they're for a Pokémon-style game Zephyr is designing at school with his new friend Mason. But Zephyr was really into cutting out cards and doing drawings and making up attack moves for the cards, and I just thought it was all pretty sweet.

Lyric wanted to get in on it as well, and made up his own game called "Dinosaur stomp". He drew a few (very abstact) dinosaurs on some scraps of paper and then had me draw him some others for him to color. Okay, sure, why not?

The rules for "Dinosaur stomp" were either too simple to be an actual game or too complex for me to understand, but Lyric got some good coloring practice in while Zephyr made up his own stuff. Pretty good for a morning activity, I say.

Because I had a freelance gig today, I ended up moving tomorrow's treasure hunt to Thursday. But trust me, it's gonna be a goody. Tomorrow we'll do the Karaoke performances! Zephyr's been looking forward to that.

April 11 - Teddy Bear School

HYPOTHESIS: Children will let you know what happens at school more accurately if you let them take on the role of the teachers.

PROCEDURE: Subjects gathered and lined up the stuffed animals in "classroom formation". Larger animals (like Gruffalo and Boris the Allosaurus) were brought in because it was "Family Monday", and they were the parents of students in the class watching the lesson.

Back Row: Paddington, Fluffington Q. Ursine ESQ, Tyrone, Arctos, Boris the Allosaurus, Gruffalo (and his son Buffalo). Middle Row: Robear, Kuma, Chickens, Arc, Baby Dinosaur. Front Row: Corduroy.

To start the class, Subjects played the "name game" and had the teddy bears go about and say their names followed by the word "Baconshteen". The meaning and significance of the word "Baconshteen" was not explained to the researcher (me), nor was the fact that every fifth teddy bear was not supposed to say "Baconshteen". But the subjects clearly found it hilarious.

Lyric was about to start the lesson, involving throwing a ball to students.

The lesson was about to start, but then there was a commotion as Baby Dinosaur apparently bit Chickens and had to be seaparated from the class. The two subjects had different ideas of how Baby Dinosaur had to be disciplined, and the researcher let both try their own methods.

Lyric puts Baby Dinosaur in time out.

Younger subject put Baby Dinosaur into a green rocking device and gently explained that biting was never allowed in school. This was unsatisfactory to older subject, who, it should be noted, has recently been dealing with younger subject biting him on occasion. Older subject demanded sterner punishment, and took Baby Dinosaur to other room to go the Principal's office.

Principal Zephyr has a stern talking-to with Baby Dinosaur.

Older subject threatened Baby Dinosaur with expulsion from Teddy Bear School if he couldn't stop biting people. Younger subject came in to plea on behalf of Baby Dinosaur. Researcher stepped in to tell subjects that expulsion might be a little too severe, but it was on the table if Baby Dinosaur couldn't learn that you NEVER EVER BITE PEOPLE. Younger subjects (and Baby Dinosaur) seemed to understand.

RESULTS: Well, we didn't really get a chance to get to a lesson, but I think this exercise served as an effective means of conflict resolution for the two subjects. How effective remains to be seen, of course, but it clearly served as a forum for the older subject to express his frustration with the younger subject and highlight the reality of consequences. I'm not quite sure if this is an accurate reflection of how conflicts like biting are dealt with in school (and the difference in approach could be the difference between a biting incident happening in Pre-K versus 2nd grade), but it did let the kids act out a crisis and attempt to solve it. I rate that as a success.

However, in understanding what "Baconshteen" means, I am still clueless. Total failure on that point.

April 8 - Juice Crew

HYPOTHESIS: Kids will happily eat more fresh vegetables if you let them take part in juicing them.

Not pictured: blueberries added at the last moment

PROCEDURE: Subjects were given chopped up fruits representing every color in the rainbow again... this time we used:

• RED: Watermelon and strawberries
• ORANGE: Baby Carrots
• YELLOW: frozen bananas and fresh plum
• GREEN: Beet greens
• BLUE: Blueberries and Frozen blackberries
• PURPLE: Beets

Subjects threw chunks into the juicer and ate some raw as they performed juicing. Older subject really enjoyed using press to push vegetable material down into the juicer.

RESULTS: a superdelicious and healthy juice the subjects loved. They drank three glasses each. Shot glasses, mind you, but still. A clear success, although I just realized I still have to clean the juicer.

Sorry no breakdancing today. Next time for sure.

April 7 - More Product Testing

Zephyr with the Kwik Stix set

More product testing today, with the kids trying out the Kwik Stix set of tempera colors and the snapcircuits build-it-yourself FM radio. Well, we actually didn't get much of a chance to use the snapcircuits thing, really. But we did get to go nuts with the tempra sticks!

The tempera sticks are essentially like glue sticks you can draw with. Zephyr used them to make some drawings of flowers from Plants Vs. Zombies. The sticks are really thick, so they didn't do details so great, but the colors are indeed bright as advertised. And they weren't messy! I was dubious about that claim, but it was accurate. They were definitely easy enough for Lyric to use them effectively, too!

Lyric used the tempera sticks to draw a cool picture of the Teen Titans! He was really into telling me how Cyborg had one red eye and Starfire was flying. I was pretty impressed by this one. It's loose in form, but I really dug how he took in the body shapes and poses. And this was all freehand!

From L to R: Raven, Robin, Starfire, Cyborg, Beast Boy

From L to R: Starfire, Robin, Cyborg, Beast Boy, Raven

I mean, check out that Beast Boy. Very cool.

This is what he gives me when I ask him to smile.

We started trying to make the snapcircuits radio, but ran out of time. It was a bit harder than it looked.

So overall, I think I'd give the Tempra Kwik Stix an A- and the Snapcircuits radio an incomplete. We'll try to revisit that this weekend.

April 6 - Product testing!

Thanks to Chay Costello Sosin from the MoMA Design store for delivering these toys for our subjects to test! For that matter, thanks to Chay Costello Sosin for delivering these subjects to test these toys she also delivered. Happy Mother's Day early, Honey!

Today's activity of Detective Training was pre-empted for Product Testing again! Today we tried out two new games: DR. EUREKA, a test-tube pouring brain teaser game, and MAKE N' BREAK, a timed building challenge game. Both were a lot of fun! Let's review!

DR. EUREKA's test tubes, colored molecule balls, and challenge cards

The first game we checked out was DR. EUREKA, and it was immediately popular with the kids. The point of DR. EUREKA is to take plastic test tubes with wooden colored "molecule balls" in them and get them into the permutations shown on the challenge cards by pouring them into one another. The act of pouring one test tube into another is somewhat crucial in this: if anyone spills, they're out of the challenge (in theory). It's harder than it looks, especially for younger kids with little patience. You have to tilt the test tube up juuuuuuuuuust enough to pour one ball out and leave one ball in most of the time, and getting that precise angle requires a bit of fine motor skills. Lyric (age 4 and a half) kept on dropping the balls everywhere, which is probably age appropriate, but Zephyr (age 7 and a half) was starting to get the hang of it.

Not pictured: a bunch of attempts that left little balls rolling around the floor.

On the one hand, one could call the balls dropping to the floor a mess, but it is WAY less of a mess than if liquid were in those test tubes.  Let it also be said that there is something SO SATISFYING about rolling balls from one test tube to the other, it just seems to scratch an itch like r/oddlysatisfying videos on reddit. And I think the fine motor practice was especially good for the boys, plus the brain teaser element was fun for me (possibly a little advanced for the kids, but they were just learning). All in all, I give this game an A. Definitely a fun thing to do for kids - kids 8 and up would probably use it the right way, but younger kids could still have fun with it.

MAKE N' BREAK's blocks, timer, die, and challenge cards

Next was the construction game MAKE N' BREAK. The point of this game was to make as many of the structures on the challenge cards with the colored blocks as you could in the time allowed. Zephyr took to this game almost immediately.

Lyric was put in charge of the timer for this one, as the building was a bit outside his age group. But he really got into being the timekeeper.

Which is not to say he accurately measured the time, but so what.

Zephyr loved playing this game, and got how to build stuff super-quick. He also really loved tearing his things down after he built them up, getting a bit too excited about it at one point and sending blocks everywhere. But when he saw that was a bad strategy, he was more controlled about his demolition.

All in all, another really fun game that helped with fine manipulation and visual thinking. Another A! More product testing tomorrow, with a special guest!

April 5 - Superhero Drawing Studio

HYPOTHESIS: By drawing with younger subjects, you can impart a variety of lessons about how to draw and help develop the right side of their brain.

PROCEDURE: Started to draw a superhero on my own as subjects were finishing breakfast to model creative behavior for them. When I asked older subject (Zephyr, age 7 and a half) what he wanted to draw, he said he wanted to draw the cartoon birds from mobile game Tiny Wings (a current obsession). Demonstrated to subject how the characters are designed on a basic circular model and showed him tips on drawing in that style. Subject retrieved iPad to base drawings on actual images.

Subject was especially dubious about method of drawing the nest ("It's not an oval shape! It looks like a U!") but came to see how one shape was actually in front of another. Subject colored in drawing with sharpies.

Younger subject (Lyric, age 4 and a half) did not want to draw superheroes and preferred to dress up as a superhero.

As Robin, natch.

When I suggested that maybe he might want to draw a bird like other subject was doing, younger subject suggested we dress the bird as Robin as well. I immediately praised the idea of the younger subject and got right on drawing a version of a Tiny Wings bird dressed as Robin.

Note: we ran out of time and didn't get to color it in (maybe some other time we will), but I like that I showed the kids they could think of an idea and just draw it out of thin air.

RESULTS: I feel like I got to impart a bunch of lessons and model a lot of good creative behavior for the subjects with a minimum of effort. Very pleased with the results.

April 4 - Chess Puzzles

HYPOTHESIS: Monthly Chess exercises will breed more familiarity with the game and better ability to plan and strategize

PROCEDURE: Younger subject (Lyric, age 4 and a half) was first tested on being able to name all six chess types. Previous testing revealed he knew 4 of 6 pieces' names. Older subject (Zephyr, age 7 and a half) was tasked to stand behind younger subject and make "it's good" signal if correct (both hands up in the air) or "no good" signal (arms crossed in an x) depending on the answers of younger subject. Results:

RESULT: Younger subject got 5 right and missed only one (the Bishop, admittedly the trickiest piece). This means a 17% increase in knowledge, not bad at all!

Then the Older subject was challenged to a game on the clock and to figure out the following puzzle (from Black's perspective) from Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess: Can you figure out if black is checkmated, and if not, what their move is out of checkmate?

Zephyr's finger is on the black King. This might be tricky!

RESULT: Older subject DID figure out the answer to the chess puzzle (hint: it doesn't involve fleeing or interposing between the king and the attacking piece) and gave a spirited performance in a loss in the game. But fun was had by all, which in itself is the most important result.

April 2 - New Schedule! Plus some thoughts

April schedule is ready! Three full weeks and then SPRING BREAK! Whooooooo!

April is here and we've got a whole new bunch of activities planned for our mornings. Only one new thing this month, the Tea Party Manners challenge on the 18th. That should be fun.

Other fun things this month:

• Hopefully at some point sooner rather than later this month we'll release the 360 film we made this week, THERE IS A MONSTER IN THE PLAYGROUND. We still have to shoot the credit sequence and I have to learn how to edit together a 360 film, but we're close to getting that done.
• Possibly a bird-centric treasure hunt on the 13th, since Zephyr is studying them at school. Good news for ornithologists!
• STYLE UPDATE: I want to try a new, more scientific writing voice this week, as an experiment. If it seems like it's working I might try and keep it up for the whole month, but let's see how it goes first.
• Maybe we'll shoot a (raunchy) Spring Break comedy during the last week of the month? Like, four and a half year old raunchy, so lots of butt and booger talk. Not really sure yet, this is almost certainly a terrible idea. But is it SO terrible that it's a great idea? I'll return to this idea later.

So stay tuned for more #parenting fun and #radicalhonesty! Tell me if you think I'm getting the hang of this.

April 1 - Filmmaking (Day Five)

This morning Lyric came to me as I was waking up and said he had a nightmare there was a dinosaur in the microwave. I told him it was just a dream and that nightmares can't hurt you, but he demanded I look in the microwave to make sure. Here's what I found:

In the spirit of #radicalhonesty, Lyric TOTALLY BLEW IT last night when, as soon as I came home, he blurted out "Don't look in the microwave!" The kid is humorously awful at keeping secrets. He had also hidden several other things, which he would systematically set and then get too impatient for someone to find it tomorrow.

I did manage to get him back. I told him I had gone out shopping last night and picked up some stuff for breakfast. I asked Lyric if he wanted pepperoni, which he jumped at (it's his favorite). But then I gave him this:

Not pepperoni... PAPER-oni! April Fools!

As for our morning activity, It was supposed to rain this morning, so instead of going out to film more of our 360 film THERE IS A MONSTER IN THE PLAYGROUND, we conducted a slightly more simple shoot indoor with Professor Hotcakes. I have a whole adult puppet show I'm working on starring Professor Hotcakes, but today was the first day I brought him into our morning activities.

Professor Hotcakes has been up to some April Fools hijinks! Good luck getting the formaldehyde smell out of the fridge @benjaminellisfine

A video posted by Robert Sosin (@chompyduchamp) on Apr 1, 2016 at 5:00am PDT

I should probably explain a little: Professor Hotcakes is a superintelligent and eccentric crimefighting plate of pancakes and "Shortstack" is his sidekick Benny (who hates the name "Shortstack"). Not sure if that clears anything up, but there you go. Zephyr did the camera, which (finally) allowed me to demonstrate the Professor's eye movement ability!

We might try and pick up the last title shot for THERE IS A MONSTER IN THE PLAYGROUND this weekend, and then next week I'll try editing it together. Fingers crossed!