Reading More Than Just the Words

I'm currently reading a fabulous, enlightening book called Mind In the Making by Ellen Galinsky. The book gives practical suggestions for helping children develop essential life skills and clearly explains the research that shows why these skills are important. The book is so great, I wish I had read it sooner!
One of the strategies that is discussed is helping children make connections between prior knowledge and experiences and what they are currently learning or doing.  For example, when reading with your child, you can encourage them to use clues in the book to answer questions or make inferences.
I've been working on being more present when I read to Z-man. Pointing out details. Asking questions like "What do you think the construction team uses that tool for?" or "What might happen next?" We've recently been looking to previous pages in the book if we can't remember something, like what toy the lego kid brought on the plane. When he doesn't know the answer, I think aloud. "Hum, I don't remember either. I wish I knew where I could find that answer...I think I saw it somewhere in the book already. I wonder where..." We turn back through the pages to find the answer. He tries to "spy" (a favorite word) the answer before I do.
Today, Z and I spent much of our three hour train ride from New York reading. One of our favorite sing-along books, Down by the Station, by Jennifer Riggs Vetter, references a throttle on an airplane. He asked what a throttle is. I said I couldn't remember either and then asked where we could find the answer (and suggestively pulled out a few other transportation books). Z-man found a cockpit in another book and spied a throttle, answering his own question. He was so proud of himself for figuring it out. We then talked about the airplane trips we had taken and the chance we had had to walk in a cockpit on one of these trips.

Z-man has been pretending to be an airplane pilot since. Let's just hope he doesn't want to ditch his already purchased Halloween costume to sport his new favorite occupation!

Z-man's "Limma"

I asked Z-man what he wanted to eat for snack and he thought long (really long) and hard and then told me he had "a limma". After much confusion, I realized he was telling me he had a DILEMMA. His "limma"? He couldn't decide between goldfish and cheerios. Luckily, this problem has an easy solution. We had both.

I mixed them together in his snack cup. After drawing a chart with a goldfish on one side and a cheerio on the other, I asked him to sort them before eating. He loved it. He sorted all of them and then surprised me by counting them, too.

 

Z-man kept asking me, "What goes on the black line?" So I gave him a "challenge." (After the wave of Ice Bucket Challenges, this is Z's new favorite word. He will do almost anything if I pose it as a "challenge.") I ask him to line up the goldfish and the cheerios on the line. I started the pattern verbally, saying "one goldfish, one cheerio." He followed my direction and then kept it going! Sorting and patterns in one snack time? Win!

Most importantly, this activity was another great reminder that almost all of my most enriching and best mom-moments are super simple and organic!

 

Taping with my two

Z-man has been so excited for his cousin's birthday that he has been singing "Happy Birthday" to her for over a month now! The day before my niece's party, I pulled out the presents we had picked for her and sat down to quickly wrap them up. Z-man immediately stopped playing fire rescue and came over to see what I was doing. He sat down next to me and asked to help.

The to-do list inside of me was urging to me push him back towards the fire trucks and legos. The Mama Suerte inside of me inspired me to pump the breaks and focus on him. We turned this quick task into a half hour discussion about what we love about the birthday girl, the day she was born, and my great-grandmother who taught me how to wrap presents when I was little. He measured the wrapping paper, cut it with my help, and taped the wrapping paper all together. Z practiced fine motor skills, cooperation, and frustration tolerance (especially when the tape stuck to itself). Our wrapping adventure definitely made the gift giving more meaningful and boy, was he proud of himself when he was done.

I did not cross things off my to-do list as quickly as I had hoped that morning, but I made a mental note to always wrap presents with Z this way. He's just growing too fast to not slow down!

Friday Night Date Night

A while ago I decided that I wanted to make Friday nights date nights for Z-man and I. I thought that I would plan these super fun, exciting, new activities for us to try that we would have an absolute blast doing. We did this about twice. I realized that we are both tired by the end of the week and I am hardly gushing with great ideas, despite my cool mom intentions.
I decided to just work on being present for Z-man Fridays instead of just going through the motions until bedtime rolled around.
This past Friday, after dinner, Z-man and I went outside to play. We chased each other and laughed until our bellies hurt. We looked for rollie pollies under bricks and squealed when crickets jumped out. He hid in the play castle and I pretended like I couldn't find him.
We laid on our backs and looked up at the huge tree in the front yard. Z spied a squirrel's nest as we talked about branches and roots and trunks. Wiggling our toes in the air and looking for shapes in the clouds, Z said "You the coolest." MELT.
Our night was simple, organic, and fabulous. Friday night was definitely the coolest.