Mental Toolbox

At the end of each quarter, every class in the school invites parents to a "Summative," a presentation of what they have been working on in "Project Group" all quarter. In the third quarter, Po's kindergarten class learned about their "Mental Toolbox," skills they can use to solve various problems in school and in life. Throughout the quarter, the students did a different project or experiment focusing on each mental tool. The tools included: time management, planning, scientific method, discussions and decisions, common sense, focus on the process, play vs. messing around, and resources.

During summative, the class was broken into smaller groups, and each student presented one of the mental tools to the parents, complete with a PowerPoint slide show. The student described what the mental tool is, what the project or experiment they used to learn about it was, and how they used the mental tool to help solve the "problem." Pretty amazing stuff.

After the presentation, the students escorted their parents to another room where there were several different stations set up with problems and experiments that the students had never seen. They were to explain to us which mental tool they should use in order to complete each task. It was a really fun interactive experience for both students and their families.

Our family approached a station equipped with photos of paintings and art, as well as colored transparent paddles that, when overlapped, created different colors (yellow and blue make green, etc.). We read the "problem" together, which described a situation where you only had primary color paints (red, blue, and yellow) and wanted to create a painting that had many different colors. What would you do?

Presumably, primary mental tool we should use would be "resources" to combine colors to create new colors, but I used my restraint and didn't shout out the answer right away. I let Po take the lead.

He pondered for a bit and then said "that's easy. I'd use my 'common sense' and just ask for more paints!"

Getting Paid

You may or may not know that I own a pet sitting business. We have a very sweet dog that comes to our house for "day care," though sometimes at night. Her mom has a pretty hectic schedule, so it's kind-of always a last minute thing. If she's here for the late-night shift, I often enjoy walking her. I put the littles down and leave the teen thing to grab them out if there's a fire while I stroll around the neighborhood. Since hubby was home, I recruited him to go with me tonight.

He made the mistake of telling the nearly-slumbering children that we'd be departing. Po was super tired from his Spring Break swim-a-thon this morning, so he was perfectly happy to bid us farewell. Cam, on the other hand, needed some convincing that her big bro could handle the task.

Po was more than willing to help. "Cam, Mommy is a pet sitter, and she does this for her job, and if she doesn't walk the dog, she won't get paid. Do you like toys?"

"Yeah," Cam affirmed.

"Well, if you don't let Mommy go for the walk, and she'll kiss us when she gets back, she won't get paid, and then she won't be able to buy us toys," Po explained.

Seemed pretty logical to me, and Cam seemed satisfied.

Fast forward thirty minutes, and as I enter their room, I noticed Cam was actually still awake. I kissed her and whispered "go to sleep, baby girl, we're back from our walk."

She whispered back, "did you get paid?"

I said, "well, it doesn't really work like that, but...yes."

"Good. Did you buy some toys?" she inquired.