Category Archives: Education

Where the Concrete Ends

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010I’ve mentioned before that my kids go to an alternative public school.  It’s called Equinox, and offers a holistic education with an emphasis on environmental stewardship.  It’s a pioneering school, and established the first public outdoor kindergarten program in Canada.  It’s new and imperfect, but I love. this. school.

One huge imperfection is that our groundbreaking kindergarten is in desperate need of some literal groundbreaking.  The outdoor classroom space that we have been given is a concrete jungle.  The teachers have done an amazing job in spite of the concrete, but with a full-day kindergarten program coming to Equinox in less than four months, the barren space is even more inadequate than before.

Knowing this, a group of parents have galvanized themselves into a veritable force of advocacy!  The Equinox Outdoor Kindergarten committee is launching an ambitious fundraising campaign this morning on indiegogo, an international crowdfunding website.  The way it works:  we spread the word about the campaign, and then donors contribute in return for great perks!  Our goal is to raise a small but meaningful portion of the project to get started and to demonstrate to potential funders that we have significant support for the project within our school community and beyond. Then we’ll be able to leverage the money the cover the full cost of the outdoor kindergarten – much better than the best dollar matching program anywhere!

Preparing the campaign has required tremendous effort from so many people and can only be described as a labour of love.  Hundreds and hundreds of volunteer hours have already gone into it (we have an amazing video to tell you about it!), and we are just starting!  The completed outdoor classroom may not be ready in time for many of the committee member’s children to enjoy, and our scriptwriter has no personal connection to kindergarten at all – but we all worked on the campaign anyway.  What we all share is the belief that environmental education needs to be put on the map for the future of all children, and an outdoor kindergarten is a beautiful inroad to that goal.

We finally have a real chance to make it happen, and with full-day kindergarten around the corner, we need to act now!  Please help if you can – the sooner we have the funds, the sooner we can create a true outdoor classroom and promote environmental education for everyone.

Donate now and help us spread the word!  The kindergarteners and I thank you with all our hearts!

Gobblet

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When he was in JK, our eldest son was labeled a “genius.”  The fact that his teacher prefaced her opinion on his smarts with the phrase, “He’s just like my son,” meant that we could safely ignore this particular label.  We patted ourselves on the back for being such grounded and sensible parents, for not taking this hyperbole seriously, and we filed her observation under “narcissistic,” and did a little happy dance when she retired.

Our youngest, however, is, in our expert opinion, a genius.  We base this diagnosis entirely on the fact that he can predict, up to six moves ahead, whether he will win or lose a Connect 4 game.  Neither my husband nor I have a particular aptitude for spatial logic, so, when we see it in the youngest of the fruit of our loins, we can only deduce that it’s genius because we did not teach it to him.  The fact that, at the ripe old age of 5, he’s probably played the requisite 10,000 hours of Connect 4 on the computer to pass the Malcolm Gladwell test of expertise, may have something to do with his uncanny powers of prediction, but, because I cannot beat him at a game of Connect 4, I’m sticking with the whole genius thing.

gobblet_gamerOf course, being able to quickly predict the outcome of a game rather takes the interest out of it, so it wasn’t long before he was looking for the next thing.  His JK teacher (lovely lady, no signs of narcissism) found it in the form of Gobblet, a game of strategy very much like Connect 4, but much more unpredictable.  Now, she did not tell us that he’s a genius, but she did say, “He’s hooked.  He’s very good, but it’s all he wants to do.  It’s a bit of an obsession, actually.”

In other words, he’s a genius, right?  I made a mental note to get a game for the home front so that we could nurture this incredible talent.

So, I was delighted when, quite by coincidence (really), Blue Orange, the makers of Gobblet, sent 4 Mothers a sample game.  Hurrah!  We could have the game of obsession genius at home!

All silliness aside, since it has come into our house two weeks ago, Gobblet has been in use daily.  All three of the boys, aged 5-12, enjoy challenging each other to a game, and it is a remarkably even game for all of them.  It is very much like Connect 4, but complicating the task of lining up four pieces in a row is the fact that the pieces nest inside one another, and you can “gobble” an opponent’s smaller pieces.  One game can take as little time as 30 seconds if you are not paying attention, or it can go on for ages as you manoeuver pieces around the board.  I have loved having it at home, not least because of my fondness for games that encourage kids to think ahead, to think before they act, but because of the boys’ obvious pleasure playing the game.

If you are on the lookout for a new board game for your home, I can recommend this one highly.

On Crushes and Birthing and Sex

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I still remember the first time I saw my oldest son experience a crush.  He was three, and we were looking into preschools.  On one school visit, we joined a group of preschoolers at the park.  My son didn’t know anyone, but cautiously ventured forth onto a seesaw opposite another boy.  A pretty little blond girl came up to me.  She told me her name was Shine, and when I said that was a beautiful name, she said thank you.  Then she walked shyly up to my son, and sat behind him on the seesaw.  I watched as her arms gently encircled him at the waist.

When my son realized what was happening, he looked up at me with a surprised flush of pleasure, which he promptly tried to hide.  The kids may have been three, but that moment they shared on that seesaw was genuine, and I felt lucky to see it.

Now my son has a real friendship with a girl in his grade 1 class, a girl so lovely and grounded, that I can’t help but hope he will stay close by her side, and always be attracted to people like that.  And though this is very little and very early evidence to go on, I like to look at it with hope that I will continue to have more excitement than fear about my son growing up into relationships, huge chunks of which I will know nothing about.

Somewhere from here to there, my husband and I are supposed to help him understand his body, other people’s bodies, and their possible connection.  So far this has been fairly easy.  We have always used the correct anatomical language for our bodies, and the boys know about respecting the privacy of these special bits, on both themselves and on others.  They know that if they jump knee first on to my chest that it will hurt my breasts.  In an interesting turn of events, my four year old recently suggested that I not say “penis” in a certain context, but “privates”:  somehow deemed the latter term more appropriate.

My two older boys know how babies are made, in terms very similar to those Beth-Anne described yesterday (babies come from an egg in a mommy’s body that a daddy helps to grow).  But they also know because they’ve learned through real experience.  I’ve shown them the scar on my lower abdomen from which my oldest son was born by an emergency operation.  They also know that babies are usually born through vaginas, and that my younger two boys were born this way.

My older boys were there when the midwife listened to the baby heartbeat in my belly, and listened to it to.  They climbed the stairs and into the master bed to say hello to their baby brother a couple of minutes after he was born at home.  The midwife showed them the stretchy placenta, and my oldest, then five, helped to cut the umbilical cord.  They saw a lot more of birthing than most children (and many adults) do, not because I was trying to push their sex education along, but because that was what was happening in our lives then.

But in other ways, I haven’t felt yet felt the need to explain that much more about sex itself.  I don’t think I’m avoiding it, it’s more that it isn’t a real curiosity yet.  My oldest loves telling me about how the girls chase him and the other boys at recess, but I’m not sure he really knows why he loves it.  I’ve asked him if he knows why the girls are chasing him, and never seems to answer me because it doesn’t seem to matter.  Pry as I might, he just seems happy to find the chase thrilling, whether or not he knows exactly why.

That’s the stage we’re at now; I’m sure it will shift soon enough.  As with every other aspect of parenting, I’m trying to keep my eyes and ears open to my children to know when it’s time to take the next step.  I’m pretty sure they will let me know.

But I Don’t Even Like Eggs!

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Not to brag or anything, but when I got married I knew a thing or two about the penis.  I grew up in a liberal minded family and not too much was considered a taboo subject.  I shared a washroom with my younger brother and shy, he is not.

During my university days, I rented a room in a co-ed house.  The guys talk of “ball-itch” and “balls sticking to thighs” among other things, ignited shrieks and looks of terror from the other female residents whom only have sisters but I barely raised an eyebrow.

I learned a lot about men, sex and penises living with my brother, my university roomies and later my husband (who had more a shock living with me after growing up in a house full of men) through the years.

But nothing prepared me for being a mother to three boys.  That’s a lot of penises.

I knew my fair-share about men but boys are an entirely different lot.  Little boys need their mothers to take care of them – all of them.

My crash course in “the penis” began just after learning that I was going to have a boy.  The little fetus growing inside of me had a penis.

“But the testicles haven’t descended yet.” The ultrasound technician reported matter-of-factly.

Descended? 

“Make sure that you read the circumcision after-care instructions thoroughly and be sure to come back in if you suspect an infection.”  The doctor firmly stated passing us a limp sheet of paper that he had fished from a stack.

Infection?

And then slowly it happened over six years.  While learning about formula and sleep positions, the croup and cradle cap, I learned about teeny erections hidden under diapers, painful rashes that spread past the bum, and pushing back foreskin.

I knew that I must have reached some guru-like status with my friends when they would call me for penis care tips.  My one friend, after having two girls gave birth to her son, called me in sincere shock to report that her son’s teeny penis had angel-fine fuzz, (“Is this normal!?”) and to ask why had I not told her that poop likes to settle into the wrinkled skin of the scrotum.

But the tables are starting to turn and my curiosity is beginning to wane while the boys’ wonderment about their own bodies, and why mine is so different, is growing every day.

I walk the fine line between educating them about their bodies and human sexuality while keeping it age appropriate.  On a recent car trip, the oldest asked me how babies get out of a mommy’s tummy.  I asked him to tell me what he thought.  He went on to describe a c-section in vivid detail.  I nodded and said, “Yes, that is one way,” but before I could even get into explaining the other way a baby exits the womb, he asked how did a baby get into a mommy’s tummy?

Deep breath.

“An egg.  All mommies have eggs in their body and when she is ready for a baby, a tiny egg grows in her tummy and the daddy helps it to grow.”

We sat in silence and I waited for him to ask how the daddy helps it to grow but before he could, his younger brother piped up with disgust and spat out:

“Eggs!?!  Eggs!?!  We come from eggs?!  Ugh!  Gross!  I don’t even like eggs!”

I figure that eventually we will work our way back to the conversation.

Like Nathalie, I believe that books are always a great jumping off point for serious discussions with kids, regardless of the topic.

Although not a traditional book, my interest was piqued when 4Mothers received an email from Vancouver based GoTo Educational introducing a new app for parents and kids called Birdees, explaining the birds and the bees.

Birdees has age specific modules for children as young as two years old and the modules provide information on body parts, detail appropriate behaviour, communication and safety while being interactive and easy to use.

There is no denying that the boys love a good book but iPad time is scarce in these parts so anytime they can get connected they are happy to do so – and when I have control over what they are playing, it’s the perfect set-up for continuing our conversation about the “birds and the bees”.

The Birds and the Bees and the Bulls

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When he was a young lad, my husband was in the car with his dad on a long drive.  They drove past a field in which a bull and a cow were getting it on.  Then the uncomfortable silence in the car began.  My husband sank lower and lower in his seat as his dad kept looking over, taking a breath, clearing his throat, and then not speaking.  Finally, his dad said, “Do you know what those animals were doing?”

“Yes, Dad.”

“Good.”

And there ended the sex talk.

We’d like our boys to be somewhat more fully apprised of the facts about the birds and the bees (and the bulls).  We’d also like never to have those long stretches of uncomfortable silences.  We want them to feel like they can ask or say anything, and so, from a very early age we’ve just given everything a proper name and kept the doors of communication open.  No question is ever rebuffed.  I never used this advice when it came to sleep training, but in terms of sex, I firmly believe that you should “Begin as you mean to go on.”

normalA penis is a penis because when you are 13, do don’t want to call that part of your body a “pee-pee” anymore and you need a word that is and has always been comfortable.  Erections are normal and natural, and are to be enjoyed in private.  We always asked permission before washing their private bits in the bath, and they know that permission must always be asked for and granted.

From day 1, we have always referred to the boys’ future partners as him or her.  I never want there to be an awkward coming out moment for any of them, or for them to ever feel like their love for a man would be anything to reveal to us.  We’ve never assumed those partnerships would be marriages, necessarily, and Family comes in all shapes and sizes.

They know the difference between a tummy and a uterus.  They know the difference between procreation and recreational sex.

I’ve even begun a discussion about the exploitative nature of most pornography with my eldest.  It was theoretical, but I figure I’m laying some ground work.  File it under media studies.

Two books on our bookshelves have helped when the boys have anatomical questions.  Boys and Girls and Body Science by Meg Hickling is good for younger children who are curious about where babies come from.  I find it a bit earnest, but it gets the job done by presenting all the information as good science. body

It’s Perfectly Normal is another classic, and I like it for the variety of body shapes it depicts.  The illustrations are all cartoon-like, but frank.  I think there is probably something more up to date out there, but I have not felt the need to go looking.  (Suggestions welcome, though.)

Really, the books are only starting points for quick questions or long discussions.  These days, we get a lot of questions about the definition of slang words.  They ask, I answer.  (When I can.  Sometimes I need to look things up.  Sometimes those things surprise me.)

Hookey or Home?

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055There were clues.  The first was that my six year old didn’t eat breakfast:  no hot cereal and no eggs.  When asked why, he said he was tired.  The second and third clues were screams of anguish over small things, small enough that I can’t remember them just a day later.  And on the way to the car, my son yelled to his father who would be driving him that he didn’t want to go to school!  No!  No school!

Guess what we did?

I told his father to leave our son at home, and go forth with other errands.   And when my husband without a word did just that, my son let out more screams:  Actually I want to go to school!  I changed my mind!  I want to go!  Daddy!  Daddy!!  Then he collapsed in a heap on the deck.  It didn’t seem like a good time to talk, so I went back into the house.

I peeked out the window to check on my boy a few minutes later.  He was still sitting, but had found a stick and was silently drawing with it on the wooden boards of our deck.

A few minutes after that he came into the house.  Different, calm.  He saw me and smiled.  ”What are we going to do today, Mommy?”

A few years back, I read Simplicity Parenting:  Using the Extraordinary Power of Less to Raise Calmer, Happier, and More Secure Kids  by Kim John Payne.  As I recall, I didn’t read quite to the end, but his main message (see subtitle above) resonated with me.  I remember him likening the remedy for a child who is out of sorts, withdrawn, or unusually moody to the remedy for a physically sick child.  And that’s to slow everything right down, and rest.

I don’t know why I was certain that this is what my son needed yesterday, but I was.  We had not been noticeably more busy than usual, with the exception of a new basketball practice, and he had been sleeping enough and well.  He has been ravenous lately, so maybe he needed some respite from all the growing his body is doing.  I’m not sure.  But I do know that the boy who always eats a good breakfast and who looks forward to school and who was falling on the back deck was not himself yesterday, and I was sure that some downtime was the remedy.

We ended up ditching school for the whole day, and reading club after that.  He came along for the ride when I dropped his brother off for a half day of afternoon kindergarten, and asked to get out to say hello to his brother’s teacher (and his former kindergarten teacher) “because he doesn’t get a chance to talk to her”.  He popped out, said hello, showed her a rock he had in his pocket, and got back into the car.  I asked if he wanted to go to school in the afternoon, although I knew the answer.  ”No,” he said.

What did he do?  I just followed his lead.  First, he asked to make a pillow for a beloved stuffed friend.  He chose the felt rectangles, the embroidery floss, and practiced the running stitch that he’s learned recently at school.  I couldn’t find my bag of stuffing for the pillow, so he used small pieces of scrap fleece to stuff the pillow.

Turns out the present of the pillow was for the stuffie’s birthday (just a day away!), so he needed to make a cake.  He often makes food on his own in the kitchen, and yesterday he made a cake with no recipe or input for me, following only his own sense of what should go in a cake (we bake and cook a lot together, so he has a sense of these things).

While I was putting his baby brother down for his afternoon nap, I fell into a deep sleep, not realizing how tired I was.  I tried to wake myself up from the nap, but I couldn’t will my eyes to open.  Finally, after an hour and a half, I struggled out of sleep to check in on my older son, thinking he might be disappointed at losing time alone with me.  I found him in the bathroom, washing something.

“How are you?” I asked.

“Fine!” he replied.

“What have you been doing?” I asked.

“I worked on my Lego fire truck, and now I’m washing my rocks.  They need to be washed every week.”

And the day went on like that:  pleasant, easy.

When he saw me this morning, he said, “I feel better today.  I want to go to school.”  And he did.

When he came home, he made the icing for his stuffie’s cake, and decorated it with sugar he coloured with food dyes.  We sang a warm happy birthday to our stuffed animal friend, and ate cake.  It was nice to round off the doings of the previous day with this little celebration.

I’m not worried that I’m instilling bad habits or a slack attitude in letting my son stay home yesterday.  I think many of us, no matter how old we are, can benefit from a well-timed day of downtime, after which we go back to our routines refreshed and rested.  Sometimes we can’t do this, but sometimes we can, and I’m glad we did it yesterday.  Some people call it hookey.  I call it home.

Chess Moves

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I read this wonderful article about chess ages ago, and it has stuck with me.  When things stick with me, I like to write about them, tease out what has gotten under my skin in good or bad ways.  In this case, it’s all good, and I want to share.  The article is about how chess has transformed the students in a Brooklyn school, and how it has given so many of them the sweet taste of success.  The school, a middle school, won United States Chess Federation’s national high school championship, beating top-ranked high schools.

I should start by saying that I cannot play chess.  I actually have no interest in learning.  (Oddly, I do covet all manner of themed chess sets, but that’s a love of the visual and of the stories that the themed sets represent.)  My five year old regularly beats me at checkers, so I don’t think my chances are very good if I take up chess.  My brain simply does not do well with spatial logic, and I lack the particular brand of patience required for strategic planning.  But I did grow up with there being a deep love of chess in our household.  I associate it most profoundly with my father’s few relaxed hours, with my father challenging family friends or my brother to a game on lazy Sunday afternoons, the enforced hush around them in reverence to their concentration.  We moved from country to country every few years, but one constant was my father’s cream-coloured wooden box with his chess pieces, a box that was, frustratingly, just slightly too big to fit into his briefcase no matter how hard he tried.  I can hear the pieces now, rattlling around as he carries them to the board.

Chess is one of the activites offered all through the year as an after-school activity at the boys’ school, and my eldest, who is in his last year of elementary, has been playing chess since Grade 1.  He loves it, and I love to see that his grandfather’s passion for the game has passed to him.  I love it even more when he beats my father, fair and square.  There are not many playing fields on which children and adults can meet on equal footing, but chess has proven to be one of them in our family.  The two kids who play (11 and 7) are capable of beating their father, grandfather, uncles and friends.  I love what that teaches them about the value of patience and persistence, about the chances of the little guy.

But it’s not just their performance on the board that makes me wax lyrical about the benefits of the game.  Indeed, if there is one thing the head chess coach wants to plant firmly in the minds of his young charges, it’s “Think before you act.”  There are limitless possibilities to the applicability of that wisdom, and I think I’ve uttered it more than a thousand times in my parenting life.  And that is why I lit up when I read this part of the article:

The walls [of the classroom] are plastered with chess tips that read like maxims for living life: “When you don’t know what to do next, improve your worst piece” reads one, written in felt-tip marker. “If you’re winning, play safe and keep the game clean and simple. If you are losing, take risks and complicate the game.”

When my eldest tried out for competitive hockey, the coach said, “I can tell that he is a chess player.  He’s always steps ahead of the play.”  What joy to hear that the maxims that the chess coaches were teaching him were translating to other areas of his life.  Chess does move in mysterious ways, its wonders to behold.

Educational Apps

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Fresh-Paint-Windows-8Nathalie’s Picks

When we went on our March break trip to NY, the boys had a blast in the hands-on section of the Museum of Modern Art.  Of course, they very quickly gravitated towards the computers, and all three boys (aged 4, 7, and 11) spent half an hour on MOMA’s pick of the best art app: Fresh Paint by Microsoft.  The museum staff told me that they had tried out many apps for making art on both conventional and touch-screen computers, and Fresh Paint was their favourite.  The boys loved it, and would easily have spent a lot more time there, but we had to leave to meet friends.  There is a wonderful palette of colours to choose from and blend, the choice of many media, and my kids loved how they could use the paintbrush to blend and feather their paint strokes.  That MOMA had given it the thumbs up after testing what’s available just sealed the deal for me.

I will give another shout-out to the Handwriting Without Tears app for the i-pad.  It really has been effortless for my youngest to learn how to form his upper case letters with this app, and I feel so assured that he is off to a really positive start with his writing skills.  As is the case with all HWT teaching materials, the app appeals to all kinds of learners: visual, auditory, tactile and kinetic.  The narrator is really speaking to young children, though, so for older kids, it might be best to mute the sound.  It can get annoying!  The app visually prompts the correct stroke order in any case, so the auditory prompts are not necessary for learning.

My older two boys do a math enrichment class after school called Spirit of Math.  An essential part of the curriculum is drills that help students learn to do addition, subtraction, multiplication and division quickly and accurately.  Spirit of Math has an app for the i-pad that is really versatile and user-friendly.  There are multiple ways the user can key in the answers to the drills, which is so important for i-pads because location really does determine how you will hold and use the i-pad, and it may change from lap to sofa to desk!  It’s also lefty-friendly.  (None of us are lefties, but it makes me so happy when I see lefty-friendly thought go into design.  I’ve used lefty scissors, and it’s really hard to use them!  I’m glad someone’s looking out for lefties in the digital world.)  Kids can track their own progress as they get faster, and multiple users can use the same app.  The math skills cover all age ranges, so this is not one the kids will out-grow quickly.  I’m a great believer in drills to help promote speed and accuracy with math facts.  It’s just great to see the kids so confident with their arithmetic.  Since each drill takes only five minutes, it’s a quick and painless way to have a learning “ticket” to the games on the i-pad.

Last, but not least, we’d like to give a shout-out to Kidipede, a kid-friendly and safe site for children 10-14.  The site focuses on history and science.  Karen Carr, the founder of the site, wrote to 4 mothers to tell us about her project:

My students and I started the project that grew into Kidipede way back in 1995, when there was just nothing online at all about the ancient world – it was so long ago that when we wanted to be listed in a directory, I called the lady at Yahoo on the phone, and asked her to add us to the list of websites they had! That was before Google, or Wikipedia, or anything… at first, I remember, we were the only result for “Plato”.

Imagine a day when you spoke to a person from Yahoo on the phone…..

Beth-Anne’s Picks:

BigZooFun_PrintImage_BG_Splat_3The iPad and iPhone are great organizational tools and lots of fun to game with, but are also conduits for reading and early literacy.  I like to balance our iPad with thoughtful stories.  One story that I was recently introduced to is Big Zoo Fun

Big Zoo Fun is a new animated children’s book that is available for the iPad and iPhone.  Follow along as a family takes an exciting trip to the zoo where they encounter all sorts of animals who like to show off their special talents.

While it’s rated 4+, my 2.5 year old son has enjoyed sitting with me on the couch and reading this story over and over.  The animation is both engaging and enjoyable to watch as the zoo animals showcase their specialties.  The disappearing chameleon continues to elicit delightful squeals while the tiger’s roar is often mimicked.

After discovering this app, I contacted the creator Thadeus Rankin, and asked him how he came to create an animated book app.  While he does not have children of his own he says that he has always been inspired by the quality of work drawn or painted by a multitude of illustrators and animators.  As a child he always envisioned the movement of the characters within the stories he would read.  This admiration lead to a mission to one day continue that captivation and to pass down onto others that same level of awe and excitement that he was so fortunate to experience in his youth.

Rankin’s love for animation, childhood and storytelling is evident in his loveable story, Big Zoo Fun.

My boys are getting older and outside influences are starting to make their presence known.  There have been talks in our home about words that are not welcome.  Instead of droning on and on about how these words are “bad”, I tell the boys that these words are not only inappropriate but they are not smart.  I tell them that people use those words when they aren’t smart enough to think of a better word to describe how they are feeling.  Enter the Thesaurus Rex by Dictionary.com.  This app allows kids to find the perfect words to strengthen their personal lexicon.  Do not be obtuse!  Edify yourself and expand your intellect!

A few months ago we received an email introducing 4Mothers to the on-line interactive math game, Prodigy.  While my boys are fans of IXL, this math game does look like it would appeal to them.  After watching this pre-view video, I have book- marked the site for use over the summer to keep those math skills sharp . . . under the guise of a game that blows things up.  I am fairly certain that will earn me top marks from my boys!

Felting Eggs and Changing the World

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019I volunteered in my son’s class last week, when the grade 1, 2 and 3 students made felted eggs last week in honour of spring (which actually felt like it visited us in Toront last weekend!).

Wet felting is a really tactile and accessible form of handwork for children.  The children started with two pieces of wool roving, which is a piece of wool that has been combed and twisted a bit.  These were layered in alternating directions around a plastic Easter egg (the first piece wrapped around the egg vertically, the second wrapped horizontally).  After each piece was wrapped, the wool was moistened (or dunked!) with warm soapy water, and then gently (or vigorously!) massaged until the wool firmed up around the egg.  The heat and friction of the rubbing causes the wool roving to felt, creating a cover for the object inside.

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After the kids were done, the teachers took the eggs home and tossed them in the clothes dryer, where heat and friction causes the wool to tighten and felt even more.  The felted egg covers can then be cut away from the egg, and in our case, were finished with blanket stitching around the opening.

The felted eggs were sweet enough, I thought.  But I was dumbstruck to discover that each of these eggs was to house a little peep of its own.  A parent volunteer extraordinaire, hand-stitched over 40 little chicks to go home with our children’s felted eggs.  I watched her make one, working nimbly with tiny pieces of wool felt, as a baby bird emerged from her fingers.

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My son came home with his egg and chick, and played with it, along with a nest he made during an outdoor trip two days after the felting project.  It was a bit out of character, as he doesn’t usually play with little figures or dolls.  Something seemed to have engaged him in the making of these projects, or maybe it was just the beauty of them.  I’m not sure, but everything soon found its way to our nature table, the safest place for our treasures.

That should be the end of that, but I keep thinking about these little birds, and the woman who made them.

When I was younger, I had a fairly specific idea of what was “noble” work, which tended to revolve around “serious” issues.  As I get older, I find these notions falling away from me.  I still recognize the import of the big things; I still know how vital and painfully difficult it is to work on these matters.

But I’m also beginning to recognize other things that matter too, like how vital it is to give freely of ourselves whatever it is that we have to offer, and how difficult that can be too.   I think about how the maker of these little birds, who routinely makes huge contributions to the school, said that they “only” take her about 10 minutes to make (it would take me at least half and hour).  Multiplied by more than 40 students, though, equals over 400 minutes.  And I know she spent two hours cutting out the pieces first, to say nothing of sourcing the pattern and materials.  She did this for all the kids, even though she doesn’t know many of them and they not care for her work.  Projects like these distract her from her store, where she sells her handicrafts for money.  ”But I don’t really care,” she said.

It’s clear what she does care about, and I’m moved by her expression of it.  It’s not the crafting; it’s the giving.  Anyone who doesn’t think one person can change the world ought first to consider these little chicks and their maker.  Forty young worlds (and an older one) were changed for the better last week alone.