Culture Fair- Arctic & Antarctica

    On Sunday we went to Culture Fair at Montessori to see my son's work on polar region projects. It was mired by horrible back pain I sustained doing yardwork. Still managed to get through it, as all the charming classroom projects had a way of lightening the load off my back. I did have to sit down midway through, which was slightly embarrassing because it gave the appearance of me getting bored. I hope nobody thought that.
    I came back to watch the kids sing songs for us and dance like penguins with their classmates. The finale was an adorable quiz game where the kids got to answer descriptions of mysterious polar animals on flash cards, without visual aid. Dylan answered the orca whale, and Lucas answered the chinstrap penguin. I didn't even know there was a chinstrap penguin before this weekend. Lucas has also been talking about phytoplankton and zooplankton, a crucial part of the food web down there, and words that few adults would be familiar with.  Clearly the school is doing something right.

    Dylan has taken a recent interest in drawing. I got him a journal with graph paper that he chose among other writing and drawing formats. I told him it's good to keep a journal of your work, so you can revisit things you were working on at a certain point in time. You can write about your feelings, thoughts, ideas, lists, stories, visions... Lots of things that are private and important to you. It's his first one. So far, he has only used it to create interesting, pixelated drawings and mathematical squares. I hope he decides to keep it. There came a time when I grew out of childhood and got rid of mot the amateur work I did as a kid, but I wish I hadn't.

    Yesterday, after playing Pictionary for Kids, Kairika had them hold a contest to see who could draw a better daddy, with the winner chosen by me. Dylan drew me laying down with a book in my hand. He'd written "hurt back" off to the side, haha. It was hurt all weekend and still is. It made me laugh so I have him the victory. Unfortunately, it was not drawn in his new journal.