articles

This Week's Welcome

September 16, 2014

We are settling into our new (and crazy) routine.  Sean and Shane are enjoying their respective soccer sessions, Sean is already 6 notes into Twinkle Twinkle for his Suzuki guitar lessons, Shane and Siobhan are enjoying their YMCA art class, Siobhan has started her swim and gymnastics and enjoying them.

School continues to go well for both children.  We attended JFK's Kindergarten Open House last week.  One takeaway from the administration's presentation was an experiment on complimenting children.  First, two groups of children were given praise...one for their hard work, the other for their smarts.  Second, each group could do a similar project that was either easier or harder.  The children praised for their hard work more heavily choose the harder project.  The children praised for their smarts chose the easier project.  Further, the children praised for hard work did better on subsequent projects, worked longer, and had fewer meltdowns than their smart-praised counterparts.  

Net/net: start praising for hard work, regardless of the task, regardless of the outcome.  It'll pay back in spades.  


In other news, I tried the new Pottery Factory in Brookfield on Saturday night.  They had a lovely glass fusion class and I made a beautiful bowl.  I'm looking forward to returning for one of their mommy + me classes, painting classes, or even just to stop in and paint pottery, glass bowls, make candles, or one of their other fun activities.  And maybe when Siobhan is old enough, we'll do one of her birthday parties there!  It takes 1 week for them to "slump" the bowl.  I'll post a pic next week of the final product.

Sunday we had Siobhan's birthday party at Tot Town in Brookfield.  Aside from a really bad bump on Shane's head before the party even started (sigh), we had a lovely time.  Can you believe the cake that Cakes by Angela did?  Wow.  She never ceases to amaze me.      

My Tower Garden's greenhouse arrived.  The plants are continuing to thrive, and I'll be making my own salad by the end of the week.  It's just amazing how much quicker I can grow these plants, without weeds or weeding might I add, AND in 3 weeks I've only added 30 LITERS of water.  Absolutely amazing.

Okay, enough babbling!  Have a great week in Putnam.  

 

~Sabrina