The Remarkable Life of Ibelin tells the story of Mats Steen, a young man who spent most of his childhood and life in a wheelchair due to Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, but found freedom in the virtual world to do what he couldn’t in the physical one. His unique circumstances highlighted an aspect of life that many still fail to grasp. Many parents scoff at or even sneer at computer games and online social interactions. But whether we like it or not, the digital aspect of our lives is real and profoundly influential. It brings people together, bridging distance and even time. In Mat’s case, it even transcended the limits of physics. As parents, we need to accept it and take it seriously. To quote Mats’ father, Robert: “We should have more respect for it and more understanding. And when we have more respect and understanding, we can also reassume the role of parents in the digital lives of our children.”
Gymboree Learning Lab
In preparation for school, we enrolled Jeanne to Gymboree’s Learning Lab:
Learning Lab combines multi-sensory learning products from LeapFrog School™ and Handwriting Without Tears (HWT) with Gymboree’s interactive approach for a well-rounded learning experience for reading, writing and math. Leapfrog activities are designed to help children build essential skills including letter and color recognition, counting, and shape identification, while HWT provides hands-on sensory-focused activities for fine motor skill development and beginning letter skills.
I woke up Jeanne and we quickly prepared. We took a cab to Gymboree. We were early so we were able to play and get some exercise at the play area while waiting for class to start.
Class is an hour long and is composed of the following activities:
- Greeting song
- Counting activity – count the letters of your name
- Necklace making activity – shapes, writing, and eye-hand coordination
- Alphabet flash cards – culminating with the selection of the letter of the day
- Object flash cards – objects starting with the letter of the day
- Project activity – painting and gluing together a paper animal
- Coloring activity – coloring using odd sun-shaped coloring tools
- Goodbye song
Overall, it’s a good school environment experience for Jeanne. Even if she knows most of the stuff already, being in a classroom gives her opportunities to further improve her knowledge and engaging in social interaction. And developing competitiveness >:)
How To Raise A Grateful Child
Life won’t always gift your child with exactly his heart’s desire. But there are ways you can make sure that, underneath it all, he learns to appreciate what he has.
- Your 9-year-old keeps a running — and growing — list of toys he has to have. He’s up to number 23 this season.
- Your 5-year-old grimaces at the stuffed Elmo her aunt gives her and says, “But I wanted a Barbie!”
- You can’t even take your kid to get socks or lightbulbs without him whining for you to buy him something — seemingly anything.
- Your 6-year-old gobbles down the Teddy Grahams that another parent at the playground gives him. But when you prod him to say “Thank you,” he won’t.
- When you say no to a DS that, according to your daughter, “everyone at school” has, she complains that all her BFFs get cooler stuff than she does.
Sounds familiar? Here‘s how to handle it.
Source: Parenting.Com
One Awesome Dad
We met a guy yesterday. As usual when Jeanne’s around, the conversation veered towards Jeanne (we love talking about Jeanne) and kids in general. So somewhere there, he mentioned that he’s a a single dad. That he raised his 2 kids, now age 10 and 11, from the time they were babies. Being a parent is already a tough job. Doing it alone is like 2x as tough. And raising 2 kids? That’s like 4x!!! If that’s not awesome, I don’t know what is!