Flowers are Red - How adults "map" their frame of reference on kids

A colleague recently shared this video with me and it really made me think about how adults often "force" their frame of reference on children. Many schools and teachers are clearly guilty of this but I suspect many of us Moms are too; especially when our children's frame of reference causes additional mess and chaos in our lives (or our houses!!). As you watch this video and the read the transcript copied below, think about how you can support your children's growth and "free spirit" while maintaining your sanity. For me I guess this means the rocks, sticks and other assorted nature items must stay on the windowsill in the kitchen, the art box must remain within arm's reach even though a mess ensues daily, the Christmas tree must have most of the ornaments below 3 feet, and the chalk drawings must continue to greet our visitors on the front porch. I suppose playing in mud during construction is also okay; they had sooo much fun and used their imaginations to the fullest (see picture above). Of course, it means much more as I carefully respond to their daily questions and conversation starters. Being a Mom is certainly an overwhelming job but simple reminders such as those provided in this song can take us a long way.

Of course, I also think technology can take us a long way by allowing children to create, communicate and collaborate in new and exciting ways. In fact, check out the 21st century skills our children will need to be successful in the world we cannot even predict.



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The little boy went first day of school
He got some crayons and started to draw
He put colors all over the paper
For colors was what he saw
And the teacher said.. What you doin' young man
I'm paintin' flowers he said
She said... It's not the time for art young man
And anyway flowers are green and red
There's a time for everything young man
And a way it should be done
You've got to show concern for everyone else
For you're not the only one

And she said...
Flowers are red young man
Green leaves are green
There's no need to see flowers any other way
Than they way they always have been seen

But the little boy said...
There are so many colors in the rainbow
So many colors in the morning sun
So many colors in the flower and I see every one

Well the teacher said.. You're sassy
There's ways that things should be
And you'll paint flowers the way they are
So repeat after me.....

And she said...
Flowers are red young man
Green leaves are green
There's no need to see flowers any other way
Than they way they always have been seen

But the little boy said...
There are so many colors in the rainbow
So many colors in the morning sun
So many colors in the flower and I see every one

The teacher put him in a corner
She said.. It's for your own good..
And you won't come out 'til you get it right
And all responding like you should
Well finally he got lonely
Frightened thoughts filled his head
And he went up to the teacher
And this is what he said.. and he said

Flowers are red, green leaves are green
There's no need to see flowers any other way
Than the way they always have been seen

Time went by like it always does
And they moved to another town
And the little boy went to another school
And this is what he found
The teacher there was smilin'
She said...Painting should be fun
And there are so many colors in a flower
So let's use every one

But that little boy painted flowers
In neat rows of green and red
And when the teacher asked him why
This is what he said.. and he said

Flowers are red, green leaves are green
There's no need to see flowers any other way
Than the way they always have been seen.

Butterflies, Photography and Kindergarteners

I had the opportunity to chaperone my son’s field trip to the Butterfly Rainforest today. I brought the new Kidizoom camera my other son recently received for his birthday. Most of the children were interested in it but certain children were enthralled. I would have never allowed Kindergarteners to walk off with our $350 digital camera but risking a $60 investment is more than worth what transpired today.

It was fascinating to watch the children try to figure out how to best capture the butterflies, plants, birds, fish and turtles they were viewing. There were a lot of subtle lessons in those moments; lessons that are difficult to capture in whole group instruction and that will most likely never show up on a standardized test. How should I angle the camera to capture the part of my environment I want others to see? What happens when I point the camera skyward toward the sun or other light source? How can I position my body to take a picture of a fish through the bridge? How close is too close when attempting to capture images of wildlife? I could go and on but you probably get the point. Lessons abound in every day living; we just have to take the time to notice them in our adult lives (which seem to get more chaotic as the kids get older).

As I watched these kids engage with nature, with their school curriculum and with a digital camera I thought about how accurate Ricki Goldman-Segall really is when she suggests that we do a great disservice to kids by always taking pictures of them rather than allowing them to document their own thinking through photographs and other forms of multimedia.

There are a lot of things that could happen with these pictures but, given the time constraints of typical elementary classrooms, I simply brought the pictures home and tested out a beta Web 2.0 application called Animoto which creates professional looking slideshows on the fly. It is an interesting operation run by some young, hip video professionals. Videos of 30 seconds or less (approximately 12-15 images) are free while longer videos costs $3/video or $30/year. It is really quite simple: (1) upload your images, (2) pick some music and (3) click finalize.

So, check out the great fun we had on our trip today and keep in mind that the majority of these photos were taken by Kindergarteners. You will notice that the kids figured out how to set backgrounds on the Kidizoom (something that I didn’t even know was possible until today ☺).





I hope you will think of ways to peek into your child’s thoughts through multimedia. After all, we are raising 21st century children and who will prepare them for their digital future if we don’t?

What kids think about nature

My last post about nature deficit disorder really got me thinking about how my boys conceptualize nature. They clearly love to be outside but I realized that we never explicitly talk about the outdoors; it is just part of who we are as a family.

In the following video I asked them a simple question about nature. Then, I asked them to take pictures of things they see in nature. It was a fun process that gave me great insight into what my children think. I learned that they associated everything outside with nature. For example, they took pictures of a skateboard, baseball bat, and gate. As we were creating this movie we classified the pictures into natural objects and objects made by man. (You will see bugs in the pictures of the concrete driveway if you look closely.)

This is a short little activity that could be beefed up in many ways but I am sticking by my new motto: "Sometimes a C+ works." Even so, it provides me with a great keepsake to remember how precious my little ones were. I may need to watch this video repeatedly during their teenage years. :)

I hope this inspires some of you to try something similar at your house! If so, let me know!

Take children and technology outside!

Washington Post writer Donna St. George recently published an article entitled "To chagrin of parents and experts, kids shun nature." The article talks about how youngsters prefer the comforts of the indoors to roughing it on a hike or bike ride. The problem has become so severe that a national movement entitled leave no child inside is gaining steam across the country. This national attention is compliments of a new book entitled "Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder" by Richard Louv. The article also references studies by University of Maryland professor Sandra Hofferth that suggests time outside is down and time in front of the computer is up for children across the country.

I think before too long everyone in America will suffer from one deficit disorder or another but despite our ridiculous infatuation with considering every problem as some sort of disease or disorder, the issue is intriguing.

My boys spend at least 50% of their free time playing outside. They play sports, catch lizards, ride bikes, dig in the dirt, build forts, climb trees, play in puddles, dissect lovebugs and do whatever they can to be as messy as possible. Thus, it hard for me to fully comprehend the dilemma that many Moms may face in this regard.

However, I think there are some ways that Moms can help technology-crazed kids WANT to be outside:

• Encourage children to document their adventures in nature with a digital camera (I recently wrote about a digital camera designed with children in mind.)
• Relate outdoor adventures to your child's curriculum. For example, turn a leaf collection assignment into a digital adventure.
• Create (or have your children create) a digital, outdoor scavenger hunt with an enticing prize package (like pizza and ice cream for dinner)
  
• Encourage children to collect specimens to examine under a digital microscope (I have used the Digital Blue QX3 and plan to research other products in preparation for Christmas shopping)
• Encourage physical activity and health education through the use of a heart rate monitor. Simple ones are available for under $20 and children may have fun keeping track of how their heart rate changes as they do different activities in the great outdoors.
• Use a digital camera, digital camcorder or other recording device to capture the sounds of the great outdoors. Then, create your own music using GarageBand or Audacity.

You know your children better than I but hopefully these ideas help you think about how to bring your children's love of technology into nature. In my next post I will share some interesting things I learned about my boys' concept of nature. Stay tuned!

Mom's overture

My aunt just sent me this video and it is too funny for me NOT to share! I know all Moms will relate!

Lost in cyberspace? Just click Hector!

We keep a laptop computer in our living room so that we can easily supervise computer use. We have the Firefox icon (our Internet browser of choice) set up so that Firefox is easily accessible from the desktop and http://www.starfall.com/ is the browser's home page. But, the boys must still ask permission to use the computer and we monitor how long they work on it at any given time.

Starfall.com may be the most popular website used in schools today and I am always impressed with what my boys learn (and find!) when they are using it. A couple days ago my almost 4-year said, “Mom, do you know today, is Sunday, September 16, 2007?” I was a bit surprised and then realized that he was working within the calendar section of the site. He then proceeded to create a calendar for October and labeled his birthday correctly on October 10. It was fun for me to watch; he was engaged and quite proud of himself.

Then it happened, Danny (a new Kindergartner with a new attitude and a new sense of entitlement) realized that Drew was getting way too much attention so he grabbed the mouse and crazily began trying to do something to ruin Drew’s calendar while simultaneously saying that the site was for babies.

Any Mom with siblings close in age is not at all surprised by these actions but in seconds Danny ended up navigating his way to a site with downloadable video about surfing in Hawaii. The site was not bad (even though the video was entirely too large and froze my computer) but the whole incident really brought home a major concern many Moms have about letting their children use the Internet – where may they go and what might they see?

We have already talked to both Danny and Drew about what to do if they navigate to a place with a lot of words or pictures they don’t understand. We have also told them that just like some bad people live in our world, some bad people use the Internet. So, just like when they see a stranger in our cul-de-sac they are to come tell Mom or Dad if they get on a strange page on the computer. (The UPS man on our street is probably very amused that every time he comes down the street the boys immediately run inside to tell me ☺).

However, an even better solution appears on the horizon. I was recently eavesdropping on my colleague Jeff Boyer’s class when I heard him talk about Hector’s World, an Internet Safety project by the Internet Safety Group. It sounded pretty similar to other initiatives with which I am familiar (i.e. .Cybersmart, i-Safe, SafeKids.com, GetNetWise, etc.) until Jeff mentioned a downloadable Hector the Protector icon that parents can put on their computer screens to encourage safe Internet use. Here is an excerpt about the button from its website:

The button installs swimming Hector in the upper right-hand corner of the computer screen. If something worrying or upsetting comes on the screen, a child can just click on Hector who then covers the screen with a beautiful underwater scene and gives the child a positive message for clicking Hector, while encouraging them to get adult help.

I like this concept because it encourages communication between child and parent and rewards the child for making a good choice rather than punishing him for accessing an inappropriate site (especially if was truly by accident which is usually the case with very young children.)

Unfortunately, the Hector button will not be available for Macintosh computers until later this year but it is available for download on PCs now. Try it out and let me know what you think!!

A Digital Camera for Digital Kids!!

I cannot believe it has been nearly two months since I have posted to this blog. Summer vacation, swim lessons, baseball games, soccer games, a new kindergartner, a little brother devastated that big brother is not at his preschool and the start of another semester have kept me pretty busy! I know –poor excuses - many of you are as busy if not busier than me. I plan to stay on track with at least a post a week until Christmas.

Speaking of, that holiday is not too far away and, possibly, your child would like to open a new digital camera!!! In a previous post entitled “If you give a kid a digital camera..”, I mentioned the possible stresses associated a child dropping, flushing, punting or otherwise destroying a camera worth hundreds of dollars.

One relatively new, reasonably price and durable solution is V-Tech’s Kidizoom digital camera. The camera is designed for young children and includes the ability to connect to a TV or PC, simple photo editing options, digital video capability, a few games and interchangeable faceplates that allow children to change the look of the camera.

Parental reviews on the Internet are positive and many blogs suggest this will be a hot item during the holiday season. As of this posting, none of the toy stores listed in Gainesville’s Yellow Pages are carrying it but I recently ordered one online from Toyrus.com for $69.43 ($59.99 + $5.69 shipping + 3.75 tax).

I am quite excited to watch my boys open this gift on Christmas day and am even more excited to see what they do with it! After all, "if you give a kid a digital camera" he'll probably surprise you with his ingenuity.