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June 15 - Mystery Elves

Today was the kids' least favorite morning activity, Mystery Elves, in which I try to get them to clean up around the house by turning it into a game.  

I was VERY unsuccessful in getting them to clean this morning. In fact, the kids kind of made things messier... Lyric has been somewhat obsessed making his own Pokèmon cards (which he calls "Pokè L" cards), and he made a dozen more while not eating breakfast. 

Lyric's Pokè L output this morning.  

But that's okay! It's all part of the plan... A plan which should become more evident tomorrow. Cliffhanger!

SELFGRADE: incomplete. See tomorrow! 

June 14 - Superhero Adventure

Another day with no school, another day where it would be so easy to just blow off morning activities... But I managed to motivate a little and get something going.  

It helps that the kids love Superhero Adventure. Normally I try to make Superhero adventure a game in which the kids have to work together to accomplish something, but today I just wanted to take it easy and play with the kids. They surprised me by saying they wanted to be villains this time, however...

Anatetar and Mr. L... Supervillains! 

I went and got stuff to be a hero from their room: 

Electro-Samurai... The hero! 

The kids being villains kind of threw me for a loop with the playing... Was I supposed to let them win to make it more satisfying for them or defeat them so that the good guys win? I wasn't sure. So I just chased them around the house with rubber swords. That seemed to work okay.  

SELFGRADE: B-.  The kids had fun, but it wasn't really teaching them any real lessons. But then again, kids play to learn and all, so maybe they were learning? Regardless, the kids got to play with me at their level and I got to feel like I wasn't wasting the morning. 

June 13 - Teddy Bear School

​Teddy Bear School this morning, where the kids act as teachers to a class full of Teddy Bears. I'm going to try and let the pictures tell the story. 

Setting up.  

Taking attendance! From L to R: Bat Bear, Corduroy, Robear, Kuma, Pikachu, Charizard, Arctos, Arc, Tyrone, Fauxbear. Pikachar and Paddington, not pictured. 

Pikachu is the smallest so Zephyr built him a special flight suit. Interesting since Zephyr is the smallest in his class. 

Zephyr took the class through some Pokèmon cards. And before you poo poo the educational value of Pokèmon cards, consider that a good portion of the class WERE Pokèmon, so it was kind of like their cultural heritage.  

Zephyr did an interpretive dance at one point for the class? Not sure what that was about, honestly.  

Lyric brought in a blanket for choice time

These guys gathered on the blanket for dramatic play

Kuma played with blocks (and was joined by Pikachu eventually) 

Arctics played with what was supposed to be Legos, but was actually a different kind of blocks

And then pretty much the rest of Teddy Bear School was the two teachers really getting into playing with the blocks. Class dismissed!

Selfgrade: B+. I just let this one happen, which is probably the right way to play it.  

June 10 - Juice crew

Awwww yeah! Juice Crew this morning! This is where I make a fresh juice with the kids while listening to old-school hip hop and teaching them breakdancing moves.  

Today's Every Color of the Rainbow juice had:

Delicious and nutritious  

  • Red watermelon  
  • a navel orange
  • Yellow frozen banana
  • Green pear
  • Blue(ish) blackberries  
  • Purple grapes

I kinda blew it, though, because there was this monster beet in the fridge I forgot to throw in. But anyway. 

This time I set up the juicer and let the kids do it all themselves, while I made vines and set them to Eric B. And Rakim's "Know the ledge".

wait a second... "Know the ledge"... "Knowledge"... Oh snap! I just got that, like 23 years later. Pretty deep, Rakim. 

Anyway, the kids took the juice and served them to their mom, with a homemade note.

And then we took a moment to toast each other on a delicious juice accomplished!

SELFGRADE: B. The juice was delicious, but how could I forget that giant beet? Inexcusable. And again, no breakdancing. At this rate they'll never get their 10,000 hours! And in the world they're going into it's serve or get served.

June 9 - Coding Camp preview

When I wrote up this month's schedule I didn't quite realize that days the kids have off from school (like today) would be a great opportunity to test out what coding camp could be like. So I called an audible this morning and switched out veggie challenge to making a game on Hopscotch with Zephyr.  

We made a "Food Fight" game and it was pretty rad. I wanted to have Z walk you through it, but we ran out of time... perhaps tomorrow.

SELFGRADE: B.   A good first step into the world of coding, but I'd like to get Lyric more involved.

June 8 - Straight up just blew it this morning

Yeah, I didn't even try this morning for whatever reason. I feel guilty and awful about it, like I blew an opportunity to do something fun with my kids in favor of doing something pointless. Which is actually what happened. 

Well, I guess I also made a mix of Morrissey/Smiths songs about working and played it while I was around them in the morning? At least maybe I exposed them to some music? Man, I feel like that's grasping at straws.  

But tomorrow is another day. I'm going to try and recall this feeling and let it power me to making tomorrow better. 

 Selfgrade: F. Get your head out of the clouds, Rob!

June 7 - Karaoke Star Time

The kids were playing Pokemon with giant cards with each other this morning, and it was pretty sweet so I didn't feel too much pressure to get them doing today's morning activity.

But I felt like I would've regretted not doing anything, so I tried to see if I could quickly teach Zephyr the first few bars to "Peter Piper" by Run DMC. This YouTube karaoke video for it is really high quality (except for a few mistaken lyrics):

The degree of success in teaching Zephyr was... not so much.

#MorningFunManifesto Karaoke day - Zephyr tries learning Run DMC's "Peter Piper"

A video posted by Robert Sosin (@chompyduchamp) on

Selfgrade: C. I barely tried, could've done a lot better. I like the idea of teaching him Peter Piper for Poetry for Prizes day, though.

June 6 - Chess Puzzles

Chess puzzles today!

Zephyr got a bunch of books at the Book Barn (the greatest used book store on planet Earth) yesterday and he really wanted to read them, so it was a little difficult getting him to take time out to do a chess puzzle.  I promised him it would be quick. I had laid out the following problem from Bobby Fischer's book:

Play along!

Zephyr was black, and had to find the move he had to do to get out of check. It was a problem he needed to look at the whole board to figure out, but there was only one correct answer.

Nope, pawns don't move like that

Did you get it? It was moving the Rook over to interpose. It took a little time and focus, but Zephyr got there.

Afterwards, while Zephyr read, I quizzed Lyric on piece names (once again he got everything except the Bishop, the only two syllable chess piece) and started showing him how each piece moved. I said he'd like the Knight because it makes L shapes when he moves, like the first letter of "Lyric".

And then Lyric wanted to see how many pieces he could balance on an upside down Rook.

Selfgrade: B. It would've been nice to fit in a game with Zephyr, but it wasn't in the cards.

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.