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August 4 - Veggie Challenge

Veggie Challenge day! The theme for this one: Greens! The rules were simple: I set down a small plate of green food and if the kids could eat them all in under two minutes, they win Veggie Points. At 350 veggie points they get a prize (Zephyr started the game with 155 points from previous challenges, Lyric had 100).

Parsley challenge! 

First round: Parsley for 100 points! they polished this one off quick.

Next round: Pear for 100 points! Also, they got through it fast. And then the next round was Garlic scapes for 200 points, but surprisingly they polished that one off so fast I didn't even get a chance to get a picture. They even asked for seconds! Good enough for a prize!

Pokèmon prizes! 

I gave them some pokémon toys I had previously had in my office. Went over big!

SELFGRADE: A-. Easy to do, got them eating veggies... everyone wins.

August 3 - Pokèmon drawing studio

Another quick and simple activity, where Zephyr and I learned how to draw Pikachu together. I think Pikachu is the height of the Japanese kawaii aesthetic, and I suspect he is geometrically designed to be as cute as possible. My proportions were definitely a bit off (especially in the head narrowness) as I was just eyeballing it, but I still think it turned out okay.

Zephyr working on his Pikachu next to mine

Some bit of knowledge I was able to impart: eyes should be far apart enough to fit an additional eye between them. That's rapidly becoming my gauge for how successful a morning activity is: did they get to learn something new you can point to? "Learn something new" is our family motto. 

SELFGRADE: B. Something new was learned! 

August 2 - Sweet Ninja Moves

A very abbreviated morning activity this morning, but still managed to get some stuff in... Zephyr showed me some "Jab/Cross/Kick" combinations and used them to break a board (by which I mean a piece of construction paper I was holding taut) and Lyric showed me how he could snap into guard stance: 

Eye of the tiger! Pajamas of the teddy bear! 

I got to give them a bit of quick little corrections (snapping back into stance after every punch, hands in front of you, kick higher, etc) and compliment them when they got it right, so it felt like they were learning something.  

SELFGRADE: B. As long as we're doing something together I'm satisfied. 

August 1 - Detective Training

Lyric has been recently attached to a stuffed green Stegosaurus he named Spikey, so when I saw he left Spikey unattended in the living room this morning I sprung into action. I hid Spikey and wrote out a note for them to find.  I wanted to give the kids a test where they would need to figure out a clue based on available resources, so I hid the clue in the instructions themselves. 

Can YOU crack the case? 

Zephyr read the note and immediately started piecing together the green letters. As soon as he said "Under hat", Lyric raced to the hats resting on our egg-shaped Karim Rashid umbrella stand. 

Too easy? 

They demanded another case to crack, this time also featuring Lyric's teddy bear Arc, so I sent them out of the room and wrote up a rhyming clue: 

And then I hid Arc under the brown glider cushion and Spikey in a black and white striped shopping bag.  

Zephyr read the clue on the brown glider and quickly deduced where Arc was.  

Quick turnaround at the Zephyr Detective Agency

But finding Spikey proved to be a little tougher... I kind of blame myself for using the word "cross" for poetic reasons. They hunted around the room, searching Chay's black and white Miyake bag and under the piano, but eventually Zephyr spied the right bag. 

More of a striping than a crossing, admittedly 

But they seemed to have fun, and for not a lot of work, it felt good to be back in the morning activity groove. Guilt assuaged. Back in the groove! 

 SELFGRADE: A-. Not too bad for a spur of the moment thing!

Fresh for August!

Well, we're back after taking July off!

Coding camp was kind of a bust, unfortunately... We were doing really well and then we updated Hopscotch and all the integrated videos went away, which threw off Zephyr enough that he lost interest. I would've tried hard to get him back in it, but since I just started a fresh new job, I fear my mind has been occupied with other things. That's no excuse, I know, but that's how it went. I've been in touch with Hopscotch and they're working on new videos as we speak, so we'll get back to coding really soon. 

We did do a few activities in July, though! The kids wanted a treasure hunt so we had another escape room, we (finally) worked out the back design to Zephyr's homemade Pokèmon cards, and we made a paper plate Doraemon mask to celebrate its return to TV... 

Really pleased with the craftsmanship here

I upped the challenge on the escape room, so I gave them an extra ten minutes, but they managed to get out

This month we've got a lot of fun in store! The kids are taking two week-long vacations with their grandparents this month, but we'll try out some fun activities in between. Some things to be on the lookout for:

  • We've been playing a lot of Pokèmon GO this summer as the kids have caught Pokè fever, so Superhero drawing studio becomes Pokèmon drawing studio on the 3rd and we'll (hopefully) be in a position to finally mount our Z-Me cards on the 15th.  
  • Teddy Bear School becomes Teddy Bear Camp on the 18th
  • Filmmaking returns on the 29th

Stay with us! 

Coding Camp, Week one

Back in it! It's been a pretty eventful hiatus... the big news is I got a new job at a great new place, but we also had an amazing time off in Niantic CT, discovered Pokémon GO, and did a bunch of coding!

The kids made their own lemonade stand and wrote fortunes and fun facts on the bottom of each cup. Take that, Snapple! 

Magic hour, July 4th, Crescent Beach. No filter.  

And we played so much Pokèmon Go that by the end they were totally blasè about walking past a Poliwag.

Zephyr has been amazing about Hopscotch, really motivated to make stuff. He's actually been doing it a lot on his own, like this little exercise where he built a little platform scroller that changed backgrounds when the character got to the end of the screen:

Because of... CODING! #MorningFunManifesto #CodingCamp

A video posted by Robert Sosin (@chompyduchamp) on

He also made this joystick to control a character on screen, and it totally made me realize how complex the code for a joystick is.

This was a project he made that turns his finger motions into spiraling emoji. He also used this to make a cool spinning wave.

Zephyr's been working today on spiraling emoji while I was at work #hopscotch #CodingCamp #MorningFunManifesto

A video posted by Robert Sosin (@chompyduchamp) on

And he's been trying to show Lyric how to code as well!

Zephyr teaching Lyric how to use Hopscotch  

The only problem is we just updated and now the system looks a little different, which threw Zephyr off a little. It's that same feeling when suddenly there's a new MS Word and all the buttons you were used to being in one place are now in another. I'm confident we'll overcome it. 

June 24 - Coding Camp Preview

I'm still trying to find a way to film what we do at coding camp, but I did come to an important decision last week about what coding camp (starting next month!) is going to be... Zephyr and I will work together to learn the Hopscotch programming language in order to make age-appropriate learning games for Lyric.  I'm pretty durned excited to get cracking on that.  

Today we worked on figuring out how to join emojis together to make "megamoji" to use in Hopscotch. It was pretty much what I thought it was going to be. It's something we're definitely going to use a bunch during coding camp.

Zephyr's megamoji. We worked it so when you tilt the iPad you move it, which is pretty sweet.  

Way more to come at coding camp next month. 

June 23 - Detective training

Zephyr wanted to keep working on the BONE board game this morning while Lyric wanted to do detective training. So I hid four stuffed animals in the living room and gave Lyric clues to where they were by making quicker and louder beeping sounds the closer he came to an animal.  

Using the beep method to find Arctos the Teddy Bear (behind the curtain) #MorningFunManifesto #DetectiveTraining

A video posted by Robert Sosin (@chompyduchamp) on

SELFGRADE: C-. I could've done a lot more with this, and I have previously. But with the kids ending school next week, I've got some big time senior-itis. And the video ended right before he found the teddy bear! Ugh.

June 22 - Board game making

Instead of doing today's scheduled detective training, Zephyr wanted to continue making our board game based on Jeff Smith's BONE. It's been sitting in a partially completed state for months... I think we started on it in September of 2015. So, yeah, he got me. Zephyr looked for the cards we had made already as I continued to fill in locations on the board. 

Filling in the Rat Creature temple and Barrel Haven

Now we have the Eastern Mountains ready too! Coming along... 

We're not close to being done with it, but progress is being made.  

SELFGRADE: B-. Out of sheer embarrassment for letting this project linger so long. But the game is gonna be dope. 

June 21 - Sweet Ninja Moves

Today was a very special edition of Sweet Ninja Moves (where I drill the kids with martial arts training) because Zephyr is going for his first karate promotion this afternoon. So it's his last chance to brush up for it. 

Lyric insisted on going first (since he came up with the idea to do sweet ninja moves as a morning activity). 

#MorningFunManifesto #SweetNinjaMoves

A video posted by Robert Sosin (@chompyduchamp) on

Finding the right piece of paper to hit was tricky because every piece of paper in the house has a drawing on it (thanks to Lyric's mania for drawing Pokèmon) and they consider each piece special. But we finally were able to settle on a piece and practice: 

Zephyr training for his promotion #MorningFunManifesto #SweetNinjaMoves

A video posted by Robert Sosin (@chompyduchamp) on

Selfgrade: B. I think Zephyr is ready for the promotion, I got to tell him about getting back into guard stance after every punch, so mission accomplished. But I could have done way more if I prepared better.  

EDIT: well, Zephyr had his promotion later in the day and NAILED THAT SUCKER. 

So proud of him! 

June 20 - Cardboard toy shop

Today's morning activity was Cardboard Toy shop, where I make toys with the kids out of recycled cardboard and duct tape. School ends next week, and for their "spirit week" one day is Crazy Sock Day. And this year, ladies and gentlemen, Zephyr and Lyric will be the CROWN PRINCES OF CRAZY SOCK DAY. So today, we'll be making them crowns.  

Step 1) half of a deconstructed box left in the recycling bin

Step 2) trim cardboard to long strip

Step 3) cut crenellations and fold down longer flaps

"Crenellations"  are the little projections at the top of a castle. Props to my Kindergarten teacher Darlene Freeman for teaching me that. 

Step 4) Fold along the grain of the cardboard to create castle shape

Step 5 involves sizing the shape to the child's head size. No pictures of that, yet, but here's what the rough prototype was looking like before we left for school: 

Work in progress. I have crazy crazy socks I'm looking to unload.  

SELFGRADE: A-. That castle shape is going to be big for the kids, I can feel it. These will served double duty as fashion and toy. Recycling!

June 17 - Bird study day

Zephyr's 2nd grade class was presenting its months-long bird study today, so to celebrate we played animal charades where we each had to pretend to be a type of bird. I video'd two of Zephyr's...

Bird imitations #HappyBIRDthday #MorningFunManifesto

A video posted by Robert Sosin (@chompyduchamp) on

More bird imitations #HappyBIRDthday #MorningFunManifesto

A video posted by Robert Sosin (@chompyduchamp) on

i did a penguin (successfully) and a sparrow (unsuccessfully). Lyric tried to do some Pokèmon birds, but just ended up looking like a dodo. But it was pretty cool.  

SELFGRADE: A-. Animal charades are easy, fun, require no prep, and teach kids about acting and animals.  

June 16 - Escape Room Challenge Treasure Hunt

A little twist on our normal treasure hunt this month... This time I based it on the current 'Escape Room' craze! 

Yesterday I planted 5 antique skeleton keys (on loan from my wife's collection) and five clues in the kids' room. The cool thing I found when I did an escape room is that you had to discover what you had to discover to get out, so I intentionally kept the instructions to the kids pretty vague. I just told them there were five keys for the five "locks" on the door, and if they could find all five keys in under 30 minutes they could get a prize. 

The five "locks" 

And then I just watched as they went searching for the keys.  

Let the scavenging begin! 

I made sure to let them know how much easier searching would be if their room were more tidy (to drive in the importance of Mystery Elves day). After fruitlessly searching for five minutes, I gave them the clue to look in something green. They finally found the first clue in the toy treehouse, which led them to the first key hidden in the desk drawer.  

Sorry for the blurriness, things were moving pretty quickly.  

Around each key was a note saying where they should look for the next clue. Because this was an experimental format, I made the clues pretty straightforward (the one on the first key said "tea pot", for example, leading to a clue in one of their tea sets), but in future ones I'll make the clues trickier. 

Lyric took the job of official key bearer. 

The clue in the teapot led them to:

  • a key in Zephyr's pajama drawer, which led them to
  • a clue in a red rocket toy, which led them to
  • a key in their toy Ferris wheel, which led them to
  • a clue in the book Fox in Socks, which led them to
  • a key in the Batcave... 

Ten clues makes for an exciting treasure hunt.  

  • ...which led to a clue in the Lego box... 

They searched pretty thoroughly through the Legos at first but found... 

... The clue was taped inside the top cover of the Lego box! 

This led to them making up a pretty cool sounding song together they called "Under Robots", but soon they spied the Rock 'Em Sock 'Em robots. Zephyr could lift up the robots from his bunk bed but he needed Lyric to reach the key for him while he did it. So they worked together.  

Ladies and Gentlemen, my kids worked together to solve a problem. This is everything I've been working towards.  

Lyric's hand reaching up for the key as Zephyr lifts up the robots. 

Holy moley, I can't believe that worked so well. With the fifth key they escaped and each received 3 tiny Pokèmon toys: 

Which I got off eBay for 12 and a half cents each, but y'all don't need to know that

SELFGRADE: A. I mean, yeah, the clues could have been harder, but hitting a natural "nuclear submarine" task? That is rare and special. It worked and it was fun and it thought them valuable lessons in how to work together. And they jammed on a funky song called "under robots"! That's a mega success.