Brain Spill

We started a new routine for dropping off Sempi at his pre-school. We walk to the school and on the way we find flowers to pick. This morning we found a dried dandelion and Yoshi taught him how to blow the florets. She blew half of it and gave it to Sempi.

Sempi wasn't all too interested but he wanted me to blow the rest. His stipulation was I have to blow the rest with my nose and not with my mouth. 

So I rose to the challenge and took a deep breath and blew air through my nose as hard as I could. I forgot this is allergy season and I have a runny nose. 

The next few minutes were spent on wiping my mustache, lips and my shirt that were covered in snot.

Yoshi and Sempi thought it was the most hilarious thing they've seen. I took solace in the fact that no one else was around to witness the debacle. 

For anyone who is curious, the dandelion was totally unaffected by all of this. 

Sempi and I are playing with a marble run game. I just built a pretty complex structure. I was quite proud of my creation. 

Me: Sempi, look at this run that I built. Is it pretty cool or is it pretty cool?

Sempi: Appa, pretty cool and pretty cool are the same thing. 

Tread carefully when fishing for compliments from a toddler.

This is a continuation of our previous story. Sempi and I are still at the Swap n Play. He's still playing with his cranes and trucks and I'm still playing with three dinosaurs. 

Sempi: Appa my crane is going to help build a fence around the dinosaurs. 

Me: Oh yeah?

Sempi: Yeah people can come and milk the dinosaurs. 

Me: Milk the dinosaurs? 

Sempi: Yeah, like milking a cow, they can milk a dinosaur and drink it. 

He's gonna be so disappointed when he finds out dinosaurs are not mammals. 

Sempi and I are at the swap n' play (an indoor play area). He's playing with a crane toy and I'm sitting on a chair staring at my phone. 

He deicides to rescue me from my boredom and brings three dinosaur toys to me and says "Appa, here, play with me".

So I join him at the table with three dinosaurs. Here's the ensuing conversation: 

Me: Here's a Triceratops, it says, "Woof, Woof". 

Sempi: ???

Me: Here's a Stegosaurs, "Oink, Oink". 

Sempi: *intent stare*

Me: Here's a Brontosaurus, "Mooo, Mooo"

Sempi: No appa, this one says "Grooo", this one says "Bloooo" and this one says "Octopus Stew". 

My little Dr. Suess with his rhyming stories.

A good friend of mine sent me this article after reading my previous ramble. Here are some choice snippets from that article that resonated with me.

Values not Rules:

Focus on teaching values than rules. Instead of, "Here's the list of things that you're allowed to do and not to do," say, "Here are the principles that are important in this family, and let's talk about how you want to express them."

I have been guilty of creating or enforcing rules.

I am not a rebel in any stretch of imagination. But even I refuse to follow rules without getting a background for why that rule exists. I have to buy into a process in order to follow it. It is only fair that I provide the same for my son. This does not mean there are no more rules, but every rule will come with an explanation. 

"Here are the rules we have. And this is what they mean to us. This is how they really connect with our core values."

"Kids are much more likely to think in original ways if you teach them in conditionals rather than in absolutes."

Instead of saying, "This is a book," teach them, "This could be a book."

In other words, teach a child to question the assumptions rather than accepting that there is one right answer. This reminds me of the Candle problem. 

Brain writing not Brainstorming: 

If you take five students and put them in a brainstorming group together, you will get fewer ideas and less original ideas than if you had taken those same five students and let them work independently, in separate rooms, by themselves.

You put kids in separate rooms, what you get is all of the ideas on the table, and then you can bring the group together for what the group does best, which is the wisdom of crowds. The evaluating.

That technique is actually called brain writing.

Great originality comes from being quick to start but slow to finish. That when you dive right into a task, you close yourself off to incubation. If you finish early, you're stuck only with your most conventional ideas, your first ones.