The Dancing ManDuh Bonanza

Random update concerning the site itself: As you may have noticed from my inconsistent updates over the last couple of weeks, I’m having difficulty maintaining a Monday through Friday update schedule while juggling everything else. I was thinking about this, and I realized it’ll only get worse once I throw school into the mix as well. Part of this is my own lack or organization and regimented schedule, part is my thoroughly crazy life. So while I try to get better at making more time for writing, I’m going to knock updates back to Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays only (an idea blatantly stolen from one of my favorite webcomics, XKCD). My goal is to be back to updating five days a week by January.

But now on to the fun stuff. Today I want to spread joy. Joy in the form of a pencil.

Oh, but not just any pencil. I’m talking specifically about a woodless graphite pencil. I bought a couple on impulse about a year ago while I was shopping for other art supplies, and for finished graphite drawings, they’re pretty much the only pencil I used now. I may occasionally use a harder lead for layouts, but in most instances the woodless is all I use.

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Lately hubby has been using Google Maps and Google Street View to teach midget #1 about maps and directions. We’ve also been going a lot lately to a local park that has a long walking trail, so there are maps posted every mile or so that midget #1 has become obsessed with whenever we pass them.

So I guess when I walked into his room the other day and the walls and counter top were covered with chalk maps, I shouldn’t have been surprised.

Slight back up/explanation: We really hate white walls and we’re too busy and have too much stuff to re-paint the house, so we paint and draw on the walls and allow midget #1 to do the same when he’s feeling creative. We actually had a Painting Party instead of a Housewarming Party when we moved in and made our friends paint on our walls.

Anyway, I walked in his room and there were chalk drawings everywhere. When I asked him about them, he got very excited and told me in detail where all the “paths” lead to and even had one of his firetrucks drive around to demonstrate. It gets better. When we were talking about one wall, he explained that “this is the path to Na’s house” (Na is my mother) and “this is the rocket ship, it’s taking the path to outer space. And this is Earth, and this is the path to Jupiter. And this is the path to Taco Bell.” It was so amazing! He ever drew a lake in the middle of his counter top map (the park I mentioned earlier, its walking path is around Onondaga Lake)!

I’m continually just so impressed with his mental faculties (but of course I’m a parent, so I know what it’s like to have the smartest, most attractive children in the world). He brought together so many things we’ve been working on…our address, how to read a map, astronomy, and drawing. He made so many connections between everything.

So while I’m fairly sure this isn’t a new idea, any parents out there, give this a try. If your child can sit and hold their attention for a good solid five minutes, try introducing the idea of a map and how to read it, then give them some paper (or a wall) and see what they come up with. I guarantee you’ll be amazed.