For Father’s Day the kids did the cutest little singing presentation of the wise man building his house upon the rock. They’re constructions workers. Get it…builders…yes…ha ha….too cute. This is pretty much the core group of regular kids at OriginsChurchNYC. No, not too many but Anika and Dante love it nonetheless. They absolutely love going to church because they have so much fun with their friends there.
It’s an impressive physical feat to make down and back those 8 rings for a total of 16. The kids can do that. Again and Again. All the blisters and callouses are like trophies on their hands.
The kids actually just made handrolls, we got to make the fancy stuff though.
I must admit that his attention span and focus marvels me but at the same time somewhat worries me. I ask myself at what point I should intervene and require breaks but at the same time I just want to let him go at it since it seems to be such a passion on his behalf. I remind you he is only 5, well actually 5 and a half now. I picked up the Beach House Lego Creator set last Tuesday and already he’s built two of the three models…completely on his own! The first one took 3 afternoons at least a few hours each. That one was 51 pages of step by step instructions. Once completed we took pictures and immediately he wanted to take it apart to start the second model. That took one afternoon and about 6-7 straight hours on Saturday with minor bathroom breaks. That one was 61 pages of steps. He just kept working…very methodically…patiently and persistently. The rest of us were having an American Idol marathon catching up on the past shows of this season so we were all sort of hanging out together and Dante would contribute his comments on the show as different things would trigger his reaction but all along with a one track mind on completing his project. He finished (and we finished) about 11 o’clock at night! WHEW!!! Like I said, I do question myself as a parent…but it was the weekend. As soon as he was done he immediately asked if he could take it apart again to build the third and last model and at that point I definitely drew the line and said it was bedtime for all but he could do it the next day after we took pictures to document his achievement. Needless to say when we decided to go out to lunch with friends after church the next day he immediately objected and expressed his desire to go straight home and have lunch there though we all knew he just wanted to get back to his model building. When we finally did get home he took the old model apart after Melvin took some pictures and got right to work on the the third model.
I’m definitely all about nurturing passions but I do feel like I’m somewhat on foreign territory here. In a way it has been a very natural development with Dante since he has been organizing and making patterns with things, toys and whatever he can get his hands on (ie. underwear, DVD boxes, books) since he could physically do it (around 1 year of age). He moved right into puzzles and completing 60-100 piece puzzles by age 3-4 with persistence and ease. And now at age 5 he has acquired a keen interest in models. Legos are not new to him but little by little i’ve introduced more and more complex models and he just breezes right through them. I guess that is why the Erector set and even this current Beach house model which are recommended for ages 8+ were just a natural progression. The biggest difficulty is the manual dexterity for handling such tiny pieces but even that has not been an obstacle. He is persistent enough to tackle this challenge that I think it done wonders for his fine motor skills but I wonder if his eyes are getting strained….ay ay ay. These are definitely good concerns to have I guess you could say.
A note to parents: every child is unique and naturally develops milestones, skills, talents and abilities at different times. There are many factors for this and I do acknowledge that pushing any child into things he is not ready for are detrimental. In my opinion and experience it is best to nurture their natural curiosity and interests and just follow their natural progressions always giving them plenty of opportunities to try new things that are developmentally and age appropriate.
Here are his first two model beach homes:
So Dante is hooked on building models…he’s been doing it for a long time but lately he has just taken it to a whole new level.
I picked up this little Lego ship kit and as soon as he got his hands on it he just went right to work never asking once for help. He just followed the self explanatory directions and within a few minutes he was ready to show everyone his creation. That was yesterday. This morning he took it all apart and built it again from memory and then took pictures. I think his own unique point of view really comes through.
Then I took his picture ;-).
And being the proud Daddy and photography aficionado, Melvin took a couple more…
It’s been a while since Dante’s played Zoo Tycoon on the computer but it all came back to him as he engaged in creating his little zoo with plastic toy animals, legos and Jenga blocks. As he informed me he wasn’t just making zoo exhibits, he was creating an individualized habitat for each species. Red legos are actually slabs of meat, yellow ones are bananas, green ones are grass and the little round white one is drinking water. The dinosaurs are separated into meat eaters and plant eaters. Each block was specifically thought through and at times he stopped and asked me stuff I actually had to look up online for him. The last one, the flower, is the zookeeper. Yes he spent a good couple of hours working on this one. After he finished I gave him the camera to take pictures of his zoo and in the end he took his own picture so everyone would know who created this all. So there you have it Dante’s Zoo.
(His favorite animal is the rhino, I actually mislabeled the picture and called them hippos.)
He actually picked all the parts for each step of the process and figured out how they went. We just helped hold them together while he screwed them together. He was very proud of his first model pictured here…a motorcycle. It took 4 days to complete. Yes, he has a very long focused attention span…it was a long project.
Yep! That’s her…Anika.
One of the perks of the water getting shut down for the winter on all the city fountains is that you actually get to climb right in.
Anika’s first day home for homeschooling we went to have lunch with melvin as a special treat and just for kicks we took a picture in front of this green screen they had set up at his work for a photoshoot.
Though I in particular experienced a high level of stress as her public school days came to an end, Anika has been as happy, calm and excited as can be. We’re pretty much continuing something in every main subject area she was covering in school and have added a few things here and there as well as going more in depth in each area. (Here’s some of what we are covering: Morning Journal, Math, Word Study, Social Studies (Mexico Unit Study), Science, Art, Music, Reading, Writing (all kinds), Spanish, Thinking Skills, Cursive, Computer-Typing, Computer (all kinds of other stuff), Poetry, Blog, Research, and Physical Activity.) These things are mapped on a weekly schedule that is flexible but certainly has goals for each day. Some of the things unique to home learning that we’ve particularly enjoyed are our walks. On the first one we had quite a lengthy conversation in Spanish which Anika is still in the beginnings of learning and on the second one we did a neighborhood photo shoot with the subject of signs (signage) and a visit to a special garden to better visualize a scene we read about in “The Secret Garden.” Both included some free park play time. We’ve had wonderful days. I think this is gonna work out just fine. Really it is up to us to make of it the best experience it can be.
Today was actually her fourth day home learning though Friday was a bit unusual since Dante was home too. He needed a day to process the change and understand his school situation was just fine and it wasn’t unfair that he wasn’t getting to stay home as well. It’s all worked out now, what he really wanted was as much attention as Anika was getting and once we showered him with that and lots of special times together he was just fine. He needs intentional quality time with either mom or dad or both and that makes all the difference in the world.
My anxiety came from the fact that though I didn’t get much resistance for our decision, I could definitely sense the sadness and worry of the teachers; an unstated questioning of whether or not i had any idea of what i was getting myself into, and of course there’s what may seem like a ludicrous thought that I can do any better than the tons of well trained professionals invested in the kids at this school (ie. two credentialed teachers, two assistants (as of last Wednesday, THREE assistants, which makes a total of 5 adults for 22 students—yes, the needs ARE that acute), and on a weekly basis—a gym teacher, a music teacher, a science teacher, a computer teacher, a spanish teacher, an art teacher, AND a dance teacher!) WHEW!!! Yes, this can be intimidating. Ultimately it came down to the fact that though they care for and love Anika they have no say in the make-up of the class she previously found herself in and the peer environment that made up the bulk of Anika’s school day. It was those pressures and realities and how they were affecting Anika that led us to intervene. (The best intervention is early intervention.. 
) Anika can certainly hold strong in tense environments for long lengths of time and thrive but what many don’t know is she tends to keep all her frustrations and anxieties bottled up and you won’t know there is a problem until it is too late. Partly it’s her personality and partly it is her undeveloped coping skills but regardless it is what it is. Having spent 95% of every minute of her life with her I know this child profoundly. I know her spoken and unspoken language, I can sense her emotions even before she herself recognizes them, I can tell when she’s feeling sick though she herself won’t say a thing until she is really really sick, I know and value her unique personality, gifts, likes and dislikes, and of course I totally love her like only a mother could. Given my intuition (gut instinct) and knowing these things about this child along with good sound judgement (having sought much advice from those wiser than myself) led to the final decision. Now whether it actually is the better choice we will not really know (as my wonderful sister-in-law puts it) until time has passed and we look back, until Anika looks back on her childhood. What we can do as purveyors of our present and future is to do everything within our means to make it as wonderful an experience as we possibly can.
After talking with several school administrators we came to the mutual agreement that her last day would be last Wednesday (3-5-08) due to the statewide math tests. The day was certainly much anticipated and the teachers and Anika agreed to keep it all a secret so the rest of the kids wouldn’t worry about her leaving but plan for a little celebration for her on her last day. I volunteered to bring in chips & salsa and lemonade. To add that extra little special touch I bought beautiful little colorful paisley napkins. I also prepared a gift for everyone in the class. For the students, I framed their individual illustrations we had previously made for the art project. Anika helped me with picking out colorful patterned backgrounds to match each color frame. For the teachers we brought in all the kids illustrations into a photoshop document and resized them all to fit into an 8.5″ by 11″ paper, printed them on nice presentation paper and framed them. The finished product was beautiful! I really do hope they enjoy them. For the assistants I printed the same thing just did not frame them.
This of course is the wonderful aftermath of a very intense transition for me as I went through the full gamut of emotions and doubts in the process. Needless to say, here we are pressing forward anticipating all the wonderful things the future holds.
Here are the final class gifts:
