Every year, a large two day music festival is held in our city park and the two days leading up to it herald a large arts & crafts festival for the younguns. It's certainly interesting and there are two ways to experience this. One, you can preregister your little darlin' for access to group activities (yellow tents), a tshirt and a nice lunch as well as the assorted craft booths (blue tents) or you can be a "walk-on" and register for just that day or even both days with the difference that you get none of the above except the "blue tents". If you are signed up for group activities you go either with the older children who are then seperated into several groups that rotate through the yellow tents every 45 minutes with time to spend in the blue tents as well, or the little ones go to the preschool group.
Hrmmm.........Where to begin? Last year, only my boys were old enough, both went to the preschool group and we registered for only one day. I was vaguely dissastified last year although I wasn't really sure why until this year. In some ways it was better last year. The provide lunch was awesome (donated by Applebee's) and they also took into account vegetarians, which seem to abound in my local progressive University town. This year was a huge let down on the lunch, but I get ahead of myself. Last year I was upset because although we preregistered months in advance (and Carey's parent's winery also helped sponsor, which they do every year) there was no room for us. Literally. There were no seats at the tables for the boys to do their crafts at all so we were actually released early for the craft tents. That always happenes. We scrap the money together to take our kids to a fun event, register when we're supposed to to reserve a spot, arrive on time and "walk-ons" have been given preferance and taken our spots. :( Which is why we have stopped doing a lot of this type of stuff. That's sad because there's a ton of really cool activities done every year that we don't bother with anymore. But, I feel myself getting on a soapbox so I'd better put it away.
So, this year with the three children, well... this year was certainly busy. The older children (which James was a part of this year) start a whole hour earlier than the littles so I had to have him there before 9 to make sure he was signed in. So, after leaving Kitty with a neighbors daughter, I left the other two with a friend that literally lives right beside the park that planned on joining me latter with her two preschoolers. So I thought, perfect, I'll get to spend at least 45 minutes with James making sure he was settled and comfortable with his group before having to leave him to escort his brother and sister around with their group. Unfortunately, that's where things started going wrong. Deedee, who had returned only the day before from an extended visit with the grandparents was frantic that I wasn't there so they had to come and get me to console her while my friends husband stayed with James. I was unable to console her so back to the park she came and then amused herself taking pictures of everything in sight while I spent time with James. Sigh...... For those that have read this off and on for the past year or so, you'll know that James just doesn't do well with a lot of people. Sometimes he settles right in and I was happy to learn that the son of another homeschooling mother was in the same group as James and hoped it would help. James can follow orders well enough and in fact he's become quite the little helper around the house lately, especially when it comes to little Kitty. He's becoming more comfortable with crowds and even greets people properly now! But when it comes to arts and crafts, a child needs to have artistic liscence. However, in his very first group activity, this is exactly what he didn't get.
He wound up in the worst possible place for his group's first project. They were making bday cards and I thought, awesome, Carey's big day is coming up in just a few weeks and what could be more special than to give Dad a card you made yourself? Well, it started out ok but the instructor was too rigid. She actually expected the kids to make it exactly like hers (five candles of varying widths and heigth on the outside on the card; no more, no less and certainly none on the inside) and I actually heard her correcting children! James saw this, and got upset that he was going to have to change his card which got him asking could he go play bubbles and when at first I stalled because I didn't know what to do (we had paid for him to do the group activities after all) he got upset and started yelling he wanted to go home which froze me in the dilema even more. On the one hand, we had paid for him to go with the group. On the other hand, what was the point of paying if he didn't want to stay and have fun? While one must learn how to take orders (that is the way of the world) there is still a place and a time and in the end I decided this really wasn't a battle that I needed to fight. So, instead, I let his group leader know he was going to be with me and we met his siblings at the preschool area. And you know, that was the best decision that I ever made.
For the most part anyway. Both my friend and I were annoyed that the preschool group was planned to read three books with corresponding crafts before being released to do the blue tents (at least an hour but probably more; you know how slow preschoolers move). I was lucky I got them to sit through one story and craft when all they wanted to do was bubbles! (as always, there was a big bubble station set up) In the end, we left that group early as well and wandered around wherever the kids wanted to go which suited them a lot better although, they still had to work on patience since there were lines at some booths.
We spent the first 20 minutes or so of both mornings at the bubbles and they had an absolute blast making big ones and little ones and getting absolutely drenched in the solution. There were also little buble cups that could be made. Small plastic cups with wide mouths had a hole punched in the side for a straw to go through, and a bit of washcloth secured with a rubber band. Then, a bit of dish soap is squirted on top and water is sprayed on until you could blow through the straw and make bubbles come out of the top. It was all great fun for them and I'm sure those cups will float around at home for quite some time.
From there, we were everywhere. The snack art booth (that I didn't like because it was a huge waste of food since most children threw their sculptures away instead of eating them), tie dye, face painting, flag making, more bubbles, string art, meeting the Avista dog (local utilities company), etc. My kids had a great time and never once did they ask to rejoin their groups even though I gave James plenty of options to do so if he wanted. I'm very proud of my little ones. They were very creative in their artistic endevours and they made an impression at most booths they went to. I was also thankful that the booths were relatively small and placed close together which allowed me to park one or two at the bubble station so I could spend one-on-one time with the third child (and still keep an eye on the others). I really enjoyed that time and I hope they did as well. The one-on-one time was spent with them the second day since the first day we stayed with some friends (who only registered for one day).
The kids did great at the flag making booth. Most children chose a piece of fabric from a huge mound and made a basic flag shape to decorate. Many children scribbled something on them real quick and called it good; not my children! Both Deedee and James chose the same basic orange polyester but they were radically different. Deedee had tons of little streamers fashioned from scraps of bright, vibrant (and clashing) fabrics and lace while James' actually coordinated. He had a main streamer of navy blue with bright swathes of gold, burnt orange and cream but then he choose a pretty gold fabric for his smaller streamers. And Charles... well Charles' was a lot more simple with a wild paisley print for the main fabric and fruit print for the one streamer he chose.
They did well at the tie-dye booth although Deedee went way overboard with the dye on her bandanna. You can see a pattern but it's quite dark. In fact, it was so dark that at first it was completely black and I thought that she'd get no design at all! When it had been washed a couple of times, it actually didn't look too bad. Charles wound up making two. Another homeschooled child couldn't make it (her mother was sick) so we got her little bag with her tshirt and then each child contributed a craft kit (Deedee an Ojo de Dios, Charles the tie-dye bandanna that she can wash out herself, and James threw in a bubble cup kit). They were very thoughtful about that.
They had a blast having their faces painted. Deedee asked for a green dino, James a dragon and the girl was quite relieved when Charles wanted a simple apple. :D However, they were a little dissapointed at the last booth we hit at the end on Friday. It's one they'd been wanting to do but everytime we went it was too full. So, of course, just as we got there they ran out of supplies. They were supposed to make alien gloves (latex surgery gloves stuffed and decorated, pretty cool looking) but there weren't any more gloves. So they were actually given the displays to use and they had fun decorating them instead.
At the string booth, they were supposed to be making an Ojo de Dios (God's Eyes) but that quickly turned into luanching airplanes. From there they wandered over to the snack booth and proceeded to load up on goodies, made themselves comfy under a tree and stuffed themselves. One woman complained that the children had more than their fair share. I asked her if her children would be eating their sculptures and she said no, of course not and looked at me as if I had two heads. She complained that my children weren't actually making things with their food so I gave them pretzel sticks to stick in their fruit to eat it with. While on the one hand, she was certainly right, in some aspects my littles did have more than their fair share but on the other hand they were hungry and how do you explain to a preschooler that they're not allowed to eat the yummy melon or olives, crackers with strawberry cream cheese or cheese sticks with cranberry eyes simply because it's supposed to be "art"? You can't. And when I thought of the children who didn't have this bounty, I certainly wasn't going to make them put it back, which they couldn't anyway because they'd "contaminated" it. Bleh... So they had a nice midmorning snack, which was good considering the miniscule lunches they got!
Based on last years spread, I was expecting something really yummy and I was looking forward to the lunch time entertainment (a play on Thursday and a magician on Friday) and you couldn't imagine my shock when the kids came back with a bag lunch and a milk. Still, I shrugged thinking that there was probably a sandwich in there, with perhaps a bag of chips, or a cookie or maybe even a piece of fruit. Wrong! All that was there was a teeny tiny sandwich with a piece of meat and a slice of American cheese slapped between it; ketchup and mustard were provided at a nearby table. That was it. And this angered a lot of people. Not because the sponsor had been so stingy and cheap this year but because no allowances were made for vegetarians. The family I stayed with the first day are vegetarian and when thee inquired about a vegetarian meal the woman in charge of the lunches was quite rude when she said there werent' any. Now, my friend was lucky (remember I mentioned she lived right there) she she ran home real quick and grabbed something for her family to munch on while watching the show. But imagine how many children went hungry that day because they didn't have that option? Most children were dropped off by their parents and picked up again at about a quarter to one and lunch was technically paid for and expected but not received.
It wasn't all fun and games for me. Deedee really got my goat twice. Once, she disappeared only to be found happily stuffing her face after making herself comfortable under a tree and the second time she told me she'd buried her sandals in the sand only to remark that she'd actually left them across the street at my friends house after I dug for over 10 minutes! Grrr...LOL
The thing that made me the proudest of my children: We wound up sticking around a little longer because I was talking to another homeschool mom I hadn't seen in about 8 months. We heard an adult thanking someone for their help, turned around and here were my four (yes, four, Kitty rejoined us for lunch) little monsters that had volunteered their help to the lady cleaning up the stage area. Tarps had been laid out over the dirt and large cases of water had been set out, not all of which were empty or even opened in the first place. And my kids were the only ones there helping! Even my tiny itty bitty little Kitty got in on it by grabbing the biggest thing she could get her little hands on which turned out to be an unopened case of water bottles that had to weigh at least half as much as she did but she hauled it about two feet before the woman took it from her. Now, why can't these guys be this cooperative at home?
Next year, I'm going to make some changes. I'm not going to bother preregistering and will just go as walk-ons. I also plan on taking each child only one day, instead of both. So I'll take the boys one day, and the girls the other. I figure it will be much easier to heard only two little ones around and have fun with them vs. all four. It was a lot of work with just the three of them this year. I also see no point in an extra tshirt (theirs are trashed already; they're covered in dirt, chocolate milk, smears of paint and dye and smell strongly of bubbles) and with the extremely crappy and unhealthy lunch this year I certainly wouldn't rely on that next year and would be bringing my own anyway. And, since my children refuse to "conform" to the normal state of things and join a group, theres no point in paying for that either. There were too many children I saw that were technically part of a group that weren't able to enjoy the smaller blue tents. Inparticular there were two girls I kept seeing in line at the face painting booth only to get up there and be rounded up by their group leader for a "group project". Eventually, I saw the painters heard them to the front of the line, which was really nice of them. So while the group activities really did look like fun, they also seemed to take some of the spontaneity and joy out of the process. I also saw a few mothers inhibiting their children. One woman really amazed me when she pretty much told her daughter that what she was making didn't work and wound up doing the whole thing herself! And another woman stopped her daughter at the tye dye tent. Not because she was drenching it (like Deeder's did) but because she wasn't making it "perfect" as in each little wedge have one color, etc. What's the point in tye dying something to be "perfect"? That's just such a huge misnomer!
The whole organized group aspect of it really bugged me. It really reminded me of school, or even a factory when a certain amount of time is spent on something and then you move onto the next station regardless of whether if was finished to your satisfaction or not. Does anyone else have thoughts on this? Was I being really silly about all of these, and should I have made my kids "behave" and stay with their groups? Or was this the right decision? My FIL especially came down on me about it on the whole aspect of "being in a group" that James has to work on if James will be sucsessfull in school this fall. (For those that don't know, James' father has decided to enroll him in kindergarten this year, so we'll see how it goes.) Things will go on as usuall for my other kids with the FIAR curriculum this fall. Deedee especially is excited about this and keeps calling it her "schoouh (she drops the L's on all words like this and I have no idea why).
The musings of my childrens journey in the wonders of love, life, and spirituality. Love, Live, Laugh, and Learn. That's what it's all about. Welcome and blessed be.
* Carey ~ Beloved husband that puts up with everything.
He's majoring in history, loves to read, play D&D and Mech Warriors.
* Ami ~ Me. Busy teacher and housewife. I love to spend
time with the kids, read, garden, cook, knit, sew, make my own soaps
and salves.
* James ~ Our oldest at five. He loves to build with blocks, enjoys the guitar, adores robots and believes he
can't live without his trucks (and skateboard).
* Charles ~ My little monkey! Our youngest son at four, he
is the most precious gift ever recieved on a birthday.
He's a wonderful, sunny little guy that's very inquisitive and artistic.
* Meradydd ~ Our oldest daughter at three.
An opinionated and exceedingly bossy little girl with a temper to match her copper hair.
My little fashion diva that loves shoes, furlies, & hair pretties.
* Kathrynn ~ Kitty is my 1 year old little angel. She's a beautiful, mellow little girl that's extremely patient but is also starting to show her claws.
Abraham Lincoln ~ You have a Bible and a library card what more could you possibly need? You prefer the Charlotte Mason Method of reading living books for everything: historical fiction, biographies, real histories, nature guides, etc. No soon-to-be-outdated textbooks for you. Visit my blog: Guilt Free Homeschooling Take this quiz!
