Daniel's Bents Revealed in Games

In the Lifestyle of Learning pilot program for "Seven Seasons to LYFE" we have entered into "Season 6 – Liberate Your Child’s Uniqueness."  We have been observing our children and looking at their unique gifts, talents, interests, bents and dispositions up to this point.  We have been learning that there is "healthy play" which provides a vital foundation for children to develop a strong ability to self educate and "unhealthy play" which produces self focus and boredom in the child’s soul which leads to many problems.

This week we are focusing primarily on peculiar bents and dispositions in our children.  I have noticed that Daniel is developing a pattern of inventing games.

Several months ago he began to think about the LEGO board games that are in the stores.  He has never played one, so he went to the LEGO website and studied the information on the games that they offer.  It would be easy to look at this as silly, but he is learning to research through ths process.  From there he went through the process of discovery, asking himself, “What if I put this piece with that piece?” and entered into imagining what it would be like to use certain LEGO pieces together as part of a game.  From there he created a base model of his first game.  He brought his sister, Alina, into his imagination and creative process as they began to play the game that he had started.  Together they came up with new ideas, trying this and then trying that, challenging themselves to make the games more elaborate and fun.  The two of them then brought Tiana into this process with the game and the three of them began to ask “What if we this or added that?” and further modified the game.  They spent hours and hours playing what turned into three separate games that they had worked together in (1) discovery, (2) imagining, (3) creating, and (4) challenging themselves in.  They all had participated in the four elements of healthy play together.  The story isn’t finished as Daniel is now continuing on with this three-part game, turning it into one big game.  He is continuing in discovery, imagining, creating and challenging himself and will do so until he is ready to play the game again.  He is engaging in healthy play.

Recently I noticed that Daniel and Alina were playing a game with the die cast cars from the movie, "Cars." They were rolling dice, counting things, etc., it was very interesting.  Yesterday Daniel and Alina taught me to play the game.  It was a really fun game, and I am not saying that just because he is my son, though anything he does IS fun to me.  

When I began to ask Daniel questions I learned that he was playing with his "Cars" cars when he began the process of discovery, asking himself, “Which race car is best?”  He then began to imagine and create a race track, create actions that would happen when a player landed at each car, and create rules to the game.  Daniel then challenged himself by playing the game and making small modifications to make it more fun to play. Again, there is that healthy play.

 Daniel’s imagination led him to another area of learning as he desired to make a trophy for the winner of the game.  For the first time experienced Daniel making something with Polymer clay.  He began with discovery, asking what would happen if he pressed the polymer clay this way or rolled it that way.  He imagined that if he did things a certain way it would look a certain way then he began to create what he had imagined.  He found out that his ideas didn't quite work out the way he had imagined and had to challenge himself and, begin the process over again, asking what would happen if he did this or that just a little different.  It took a little trial and error for him to get the look he was hoping for.  He continued using all four of the elements until he was satisfied with the trophy and this is what he came up with.

This is Daniel's drawing of the layout of his game.  He sat down and drew this out before he put the game away the first time so that he wouldn't forget the lay out and what some of the pieces do when he puts the game together next time.  The next part of this project will be to write about it and keep a journal of his projects as they grow.

Some of the things I am learning about Daniel's bents and dispositions are that he enjoys playing quietly, either alone or with his sisters.  He is happy to do both.  He pursues his interests with imagination toward unique expression as well as copying other ideas to a point and then launching off of those things or things he has experienced.  When Daniel has created something, he enjoys using or playing with his creation just as much as going through the creative process.  He enjoys playing his games over and over as well as bringing others into the process of creating and playing with the final result.

I am so glad that play is such a vital part to education, it's something my children enjoy and LOVE to do.  They excel at it!

Books we are reading in Season 6 are Get to Know Your Children and WWOL Book 2 - The Unit-of-Life Learning Model

Gilligan Myth

My children enjoy watching Mythbusters and Gilligan's Island, so it's quite natural for them to have come up with a Gilligan's Island myth to test.  Below is what Tiana wrote about it:

Anyone who's seen Gilligan's Island should know this myth.  Can you really charge batteries with salt water, bobby pins, pennies, wire, and cocounts?  Well today my sister Alina and my brother Daniel decided to try it out!  This was really fun to do.  so go ahead and do it yourself!

All you need is:

Bobby Pins

 Wire

 Salt (and water)

 Pennies

 After you get everything together put the salt into bowls (or coconuts!)

Then you want to place the wire under the bobby pin, but make sure the wire is on top of the penny.

Then we used scotch tape to hold the wire on the battery. Be sure and tape the wire on both the top and the bottom of the battery.

 Next take chop sticks (or anything else you want) and stir the salt water. Keep stirring for awhile

If you want to know if it really works, here's a spoiler (but those of you who plan to do this yourself don't look until after you do it!) Myth Confirmed. In other words, it really works!


Have a great rest of your day everyone!

Lego Games and Teamwork

The sound coming from the other room was so enjoyable! I heard lots of silliness and giggling. When I went to see what the source of all the joyful sounds, I discovered my three youngest children sitting at the kitchen table playing a game I hadn’t seen before.

As I pressed in to find out what they were doing I discovered that they were playing a LEGO game. Daniel, my 9-year-old, had created three game boards with the LEGOs. The first had a volcano on it, the second an island and the third was a robot castle. The point of each game is to collect the fire crown from the top of the volcano, the emerald staff from the robot castle and the water sword from the island by spinning a wheel made out of Legos. This is done by moving the little peg-styled man the number of spaces indicated by the spinning wheel through various obstacles, pick up the item and bring it back to their original spot.

As I continued to listen I learned that Daniel came up with the game ideas and built the game boards. He invited his sisters, Tiana (14) and Alina (12) to play with him and they, over a period of time, helped him improve this and tweak that until they came up with the game I was seeing. I was so blessed by their ability to work and play together in a productive and enjoyable manner!

A few days later Alina and Daniel wrote up directions for the Volcano version of the game. Alina typed as they both brainstormed on how to word the instructions. When the instructions were done and printed out I sat and played all three games with Daniel.

I was so impressed with how much fun the games were to play! We came up with some modifications to their game directions and they are in the process of editing them.

In the meantime, Daniel is adding a 4th part to his game which involves a cave. As it turns out he has decided to combine all three games into one big game and will be adding the fourth, the cave, when it is done.

The creating and game playing and teamwork continues!

The Hikers Fortune by Zopingo Productions

This is a film project the kids worked on and finished last week.  First is the movie trailer...




Here is the movie...






And now the bloopers and unused clips....

Mess or Research?

I recently reread Marilyn Howshall’s Wisdom’s Way of Learning Book 1 – The science, Art, and Tools of Learning (WWOL) and for the first time the SAT’s of Learning is beginning to make “real life” sense to me.  It’s amazing how hard it’s been for me to shed (or truly begin shedding) man’s educational process that I grew up in.

I thought I would share some pictures of what my living room looks like pretty much daily.  I often wish I had a different room that we could let their educational process take place in, but perhaps God wants to use our current home situation to do a deep heart work in me, such as loving my kids enough to let our main living area look like this more than not.  

These pictures represent the Research part of the Five Learning Tools described in WWOL.  All the kids play with the Legos, but Daniel plays with them the most, so I’ll use him as an example of describing the education process that is taking place here.  I have to confess, this is a slightly cleaned up day!  

Research:  Daniel’s informal research has shown up in building and rebuilding various pieces. Some pieces he would build and rebuild, others he would modify as he rebuilt them. His formal research would be the time he spends looking at Lego kits and how they are put together. He spends time studying the kit instruction books. It was through one of these books that he got the concept of building a bird, which he turned into a chicken, then eventually designed a penguin, which then turned into robot penguins, until he came up with the “Ultimate Protobot 10,000” designed after a computer game figure. This Protobot is a large robot penguine.

Record:  I believe this tool occurred through his repetitive building and rebuilding different pieces. He told me that he has a green army jeep that he would build, blow up and rebuild over and over until he could build it without the instruction manual and is now making modifications to.

Reason:  When he decided to build the Protobot, being that it was so much bigger than the penguins he had to figure out what worked and didn’t work, sometimes through the thought process and other times through trial and error.

Relate:   Daniel got the idea for making Lego birds from a Lego instruction book, but added a piece to turn it into a chicken. Then from that he started thinking about how to make a larger penguin (relating what he knew about making the chicken to how he would develop the larger scale penguin), which then led to robot versions of penguins (relating previous experience/knowledge to his new creations), which then led to a much larger robot version of the penguin (again relating what he picked up from his previous creations to how this new larger version would come together, each time going back to research to figure out how to make the larger scale work out). This is an area that I have had a hard time comprehending and have just "gotten" today.

Rhetoric:  Daniel shares each creation with everyone in the family, he shows how it works (whether real or imaginary), how he came up with the idea, and thing he tried until it worked out the way he wanted it to.

Daniel’s Lego creations are starting to look much different than his original creations from last fall.  His creations have more detail and are showing more complexity.  Daniel is living a Lifestyle of Learning.

Daniel's Grilled Cheese Sandwich

Daniel has had an interest in helping out in the cooking for awhile now.  I have taken time here and there to show him around the kitchen, he's getting pretty good at helping clean up and making simple foods on his own.

When he asked for a grilled cheese sandwich it occurred to me that this is a perfect time to give him some new experience in the kitchen. We've always talked about being safe around the stove, but this is the first time he has got to use the stove himself.  He was a little concerned about being too close, which is good, but then we talked about how dangerous it is to be afraid of the stove. 

 We talked about how quick reactions can create problems, but that we need to be confident around the stove.  We talked about how the confidence comes with experience.  For example once he discovered where the heat level increased he was more comfortable putting the cheese on, and was even more comfortable with putting the top piece on.

I was flipped it for him this time, and then took it out with spatula without a word from me.  Unfortunately I took this picture for forgot to get a picture of the finished product, so I will just leave the rest up to your imagination.  He was very happy to have made his first grilled cheese sandwich mostly on his own.

Snowflakes

At the Lifestyle of Learning Project Fair the Polings did a snowflake presentation/workshop for the kids.  Philip and Rachel gave some wonderful pointers and then let the kids have a hand at it.  The kids really enjoyed that and we came home and made several more.  I thought it was great to see Daniel take an interest in spending several hours cutting snow flakes and I gave it a go as well.

 Sereina's

 Daniel's

 Daniel's

 Sereina's

 Daniel's

 Sereina's

 Tiana's

Tiana's

Lego Education

 Barbie and Marilyn (of Lifestyle of Learning) say, "Let them make a mess!"  So these past few weeks Daniel's mess education has been taking place in our living room.  

 He has built many things from his own imagination.

 He is getting a lot of experience at studying directions and then following them to build kits.  

He's been learning the value of a basic system of organization so that he can find parts easier.  He's also learning the skill picking up his mess educational materials up so that we can have use of the living room from time to time.  Daniel spends hours and hours on his education, waking up and getting right on it and working through the day until it's time for bed.

Daniels Drawing

One day there was a damselfly and I tried to catch it but I couldn't get it. I saw another one and then I caught it. It reseted on my hand for quite awhile. Once it flew away I got the idea to draw a picture of it. I used colored pencils do color my picture. The green scribbles in the background is grass. My sister, Tiana, helped me by telling me how she draws legs.  

What is a damselfly? A damselfly is an insect that looks like a tiny dragonfly. Most of them are blue.


by
Daniel