Frankiestein Fixed

The true sign of a successful weekend for a daddy is when you can fix something to the satisfaction of a fashion/appearance conscious 7 year old.

Lucky for me, the problem doll this time is Frankenstein’s daughter, Frankiestein, and so a pin and cup-hook to repair her knee is, frankly speaking, desirable.

#dollsurgery
Frankiestein Fixed #dollsurgey

Happy Birthday, Universe!

Today TheWeeOne is seven today.
She has fast-growing interest in things like French, piano, biking, NezPerce indians, and pretty much anything else that enters her sphere of sensation.
She takes this seriously, and makes sure everyone in the family knows that her’s is THE center of gravity – her universe is our universe.

A brief question and answer.

What does it feel like to be seven?
I dunnow, I feel older. I feel like a big kid.
Besides when I turned 6 I was happy that I could be in the student lounge by myself.

Are you looking forward to anything this year?
Soccer, I wanted to do soccer. No, it was basketball – no I said soccer.

What do you remember the most about last year?
Nuthin’

Is there anything you miss about being six?
I miss everything.

Some recent pictures.

This is her first day riding – after some instruction on how to balance (without any pedals) for a couple hours off-and-on the day before, she picked it up right quick.
First Day Riding

Speaking of instruction – this is the one what did said instruction. That’s right, I was at work and LaGrande taught OuiOne how to ride her bike, two sessions, two days. She even installed the pedals for her. 🙂
First Day Riding

She bombed around the cul-de-sac for hours until her hands, feet, and bum were sore.
First Day Riding

Then, today, we took a field trip up to the American Girl store for some good-ol-fashioned “dear little dolly” – and tea.
We were in the store for 2+ hours, just playing.
First Day Riding

Tea Time with their girls.
First Day Riding

Philosophy With Children

Ever since I graduated (or rather, since my first Epistemology 350 class with Ann Baker at the UW) I have pined to “do philosophy”.

Sometimes other parts of life have pushed other priorities higher or simply made me fall asleep whenever I cracked a book, but the “pining” was always there.

It’s been about 17 years now since I graduated but (isn’t it always this way, when you least expect it) an opportunity has now bubbled to the surface.

I attended a demonstration with TheWeeOne at the UW a couple of weeks ago where Program Director, Jana Mohr Lone illustrated how she and some of her 4th & 5th grade students from Whittier Elementary do philosophy. (If you have an hour you can watch it all here – http://vimeo.com/62221848
If you only have 30 min – watch the 1st half)

I won’t say it blew my mind, because since I took those first classes I recognized, from a distance at least, the potential in kids for philosophy. Kids tend to have a questioning nature and that is a perfect fit for philosophical enquiry but…

…it did blow my mind because now I recognized, quite plainly, that I could do that too. Heck, I even try sometimes with The Mermaids, and while we struggle to get traction with each other;
Usually me with a question like

What is color?

and they with something more like

Can you dress my Barbie?

I’m usually forcing it.

But I still recognized that, quite on my own, I was doing some of the things I was observing up on that stage – although this session was executed with loads of skill and precision and patience.

The keystone this time, for me, was homeschooling.
Since we (TheMommy) started home-schooling The Mermaids so many options have been exposed and The Mermaids have responded so well that, in all seriousness, the urge to do philosophy fell into place alongside of plain capability right next to the challenge and slightly to the left of probability.

So I sent an email to the director of the School District HOME program – we all talked – she liked it – and bada-bing next September I’ll be leading an enrichment class of up to twelve 3rd, 4th, & 5th graders in what I’m calling

Philosophy With Children

I’m a wee bit excited (yet I can’t abdicate my other, albeit limited, homeschooling commitments).
Yee hoo!

Here’s an excerpt from the wikipedia page on kinda how this works;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_for_Children
In a typical enquiry, a group would be presented with a thought-provoking stimulus such as a text, image, picture book, or video clip. Some time may be spent identifying the concepts raised by the stimulus, and then participants frame their own philosophical questions in response to the stimulus and vote for the one they wish to explore. The ensuing discussion usually takes place in a circle, with the teacher/facilitator intervening to push the thinking to a deeper level but aspiring to allow the discussion to follow the emerging interests of the group.

Sprout wings

Scenario:
You are on your bike, with the wind in your face, headed for a train station only two miles away. The train is 7 minutes away. You haven’t ridden in four days.
You are coming up to the last light, a straightaway, slight uphill grade after the light with nobody behind you.
There’s a truck, in front.
A delivery truck, stopped at the light in your lane.
But it’s not just any delivery truck, it’s got a big fat, flat back, with a hand truck fastened securely.
Oh and it has an ad on the back;

0 sugar / 0 calories / 0 fatigue

It’s a Red Bull truck, yes Red Bull, and it looks something like this**

20130306-074931.jpg

Two questions:
What would you do?
What would blief do?

** (image is a mere re-enactment, because the one thing I didn’t do is snap a picture)

The Middle Middle

I wish I could have these conversations on demand – but they are not at my whim.

TheWeeOne and I had just finished reading a (ridiculously simple) little book whose punchline was “triple mint snow-cones”.
And I had some very hot dinner in my bowl.

These grits are hot man! Like the opposite of snow cones!
Water is the opposite of snow.
What? Wh…Really, why do you say that?
Because hot is the opposite of cold, and when you make snow hot it turns into water.[smile]

Let’s pause the conversation here for a minute and reflect back to a day in the not too distant past when I asserted to (or agreed with?) Monya that air was the opposite of water while in another breath confirming water to be the opposite of dirt.
I think, at the time, BopOp was confounded that we were able guess “the password” using such clues. Contextually, it still might make sense – but I definitely noted that I would have to tell BopOp about water’s other opposite, later.

Then I prodded:

What about steam?
Ok?
Well steam is really hot water right?
Yes.
So what is the opposite of steam?
Water.
[laughing] But you just got done saying that snow was the opposite of water?! [still chuckling]
No. I said water was the opposite of snow.
[laughing stopped]
oh.

Whoa. I hadn’t thought that the opposite relationship might not be considered commutatitive
I said something weak like ‘ok, jus checking’. I mean, you know, who am I to imply that I know the true nature of opposite-ness?

And I wasn’t the only one who had paused to reflect.
Wee suddenly asked;

What’s the opposite of middle?
[barglegsh] I…don’t…know. [at least not any more]

Ahead of me a step, Wee looked over at the computer and said with a lilt

I’ll look it up?

Sweeter words were not yet spoken. I’m not really sure how many times I’ve refused to answer a question and told TheMermaids to look something up. So, I enthusiastically assisted her spelling and she typed her query into The Oracle The Google.

Astonishingly that same question had been posed before, online, and then even answered. But to m y mind the answer was like a long-winded, throw-the-book-out-the-window-dead-poets-society-style fashion. [Yawp!]
I tried to sum it up for Wee.

Well this guy says that there is no opposite of middle, that it can’t have one.

She smiled-ish at me with a combination of we’d-discovered-something-together but with a somethings-still-bothering-me wrinkle in her brow. Lucky for me I think I’m learning a little bit about how to keep these balls rolling.

But don’t take this guys word for it! I mean he says ‘middle has no opposite’ but what do you think?
[and without even pausing]
How about outside?
[What the…?!!] You mean the opposite of middle is outside?
Yeah, like the middle of my body and the outside of my body.

Still trying to get it straight I made three points on the table with my hands, let’s refer to them as A, B, and C. In retrospect, I think I over-simplified her idea by making it ‘linear’ when her idea might be/have been more 3D, but I said,

So you mean that A is here and C is over there and B is in the middle and so then both A and C are the opposite of B?
Yeah. [another smile]
Hm…And all of this space between A and C is like what…just the inside?
Yep.
Ok – ya know, I can go for that…but what about this spot – halfway between B and C.
???
Isn’t that also a middle?
[the question marks resolved and a big smile came across her face and she said.] Whoaaa coool!

I wasn’t expecting that AT ALL, but it certainly made me happy.

Either she was seriously intrigued or something just popped or…ummmm…perhaps it was something in the middle. 🙂
However it is I was pretty revved up and really wanted to see where else we might find ourselves when she grinned a wide sheepish grin and asked,

Can I look up Strawberry Shortcake videos?

There was something like a big whooshing sound in my head, I was still elated about this little exchange, but I made myself capitulate because, again, you can’t force this stuff.

Or as Miracle Max said in The Princess Bride “You rush a miracle-man and you get rotten miracles.”

Yep. You can look up Strawberry Shortcake videos.

And I do have to remember that she is only six.

Six and three quarters!