I Want My Four Dollars

We ended up having another field trip yesterday. After a couple weeks of being carless (and having frequent car trouble for several weeks before that), our cupboards were decidedly bare. And I'd already used up the black ink cartridge in my new printer; not by printing scads of super fun school materials, but by printing out menu covers for my husband's restaurant. A trip to St. Thomas to do some big-box store shopping was unavoidable. So I skipped my morning walk yesterday, loaded the cooler in the car and drove down to ferry dock instead (with Parker ensconced in his car seat, of course). My shopping list was four stores long (Home Depot, OfficeMax, Kmart and Cost-U-Less, St. Thomas's Costco), and I always get a little harried when I'm hurrying to catch the ferry (for no good reason, since there's always another one arriving within a half hour), but I did remember to grab the four dollars Parker received in a birthday card from his grandparents. (My in-laws didn't just give him cash for his birthday. They sent him actual gifts, too.) Aboard the car barge, on our way to St. Thomas, I gave Parker his four dollars--he'd already declared his intent to use it to buy (toy) cars--and told him he could spend it while we were shopping, if he saw something he liked. I figured we could do some "unschooling" on St. Thomas with those four dollars. Parker and I would have to talk about money, math (what does four dollars buy?), limited resources (it doesn't buy much!) and how to conduct a financial transaction. I intended to give as little input as possible; I wanted the whole episode to instill in him a sense of independence.

Parker asked if we could go to Kmart (or, as he used to call it, the "car store") first. I guess those four dollars were burning a hole in his pocket already. The toy car aisle is all the way in the back of the store, and he fairly ran there, he was so excited. The conversation about limited resources started almost immediately; Parker kept selecting big ticket items, like Hot Wheels tracks and Cars (the Pixar movie) characters. He'd see something he liked, then ask me its price. We talked about "more" and "less"--for instance, if something cost eight dollars, I'd ask Parker whether he had enough money to buy it. "No, Mommy, I need more money for Snot Rod." He did find finally find a few toys he liked, each of which cost about four dollars (thankfully, there's no sale tax here so I didn't have to try to calculate that in), and was having trouble deciding which to buy. That's when I said, "Hey, Bubs, did you know that these Hot Wheels cars each cost only about one dollar? You have enough money to buy three of these cars." Good thing we got an early start yesterday, because that occasioned much more debating and dithering. I could definitely see the wheels turning in his little head as he tried to wrap his brain around the fact that he could use his four dollars to purchase either one single toy or three other toys. Value is such a crazy, intangible concept, is it not?

Well, in the end he decided to buy three Hot Wheels vehicles (one race car, one truck, one plane). He loves those little mass-produced toys so much that I'm sure he would have gladly spent all four of his dollars to buy just one. The fact that he could purchase three obviously elated him. We made our way to the registers and proceeded to practice waiting patiently. It always (always!) takes at least 15 minutes to get through the lines at the St. Thomas Kmart; poor Parker was ready to burst by the time it was finally his turn to pay. He conducted the transaction by himself, and was ecstatic when the saleslady gave him thirteen cents back, in addition to his new toys. It was pretty fun to watch. I wish the rest of the shopping we did yesterday had been as amusing.

In the car, on ferry, clutching his four dollars.

OK, I'm ready to go pay!

Making propellor plane sound effects.

Postscript: The North American Montessori Center's Montessori Homeschool Program is giving away one free program. I'm linking to their site here in order to try to win. I've never ever won anything in my life, but I'd sure like to win this. I mean, I'm having fun getting all crafty and creating our homeschool materials, but man would it be awesome to have the real thing to help me educate my son.

Sur la Table!

TODAY'S ACTIVITIES:

• Using a Dropper
• Transferring
• Using Chopsticks
• Bead Stringing
• Dusting

My son and I are three weeks into our homeschooling adventure, and we finally have a table upon which he can do schoolwork. It's not the beautiful, well-crafted, small wooden table (with matching chair!) I'd been envisioning, but it'll do. One of the lesser known precepts of the Montessori method is that children should be surrounded by objects that are not only aesthetically pleasing but also finely made. Needless to say, there's not a lot of plastic furniture in most Montessori schools. Of course, I could have paid an arm and a leg to get lovely wooden shelves and a beautiful wooden table and chairs set shipped here to St. John, but I balked at the thought of such exorbitant spending. (I did order a cute Little Tikes plastic table and chairs set from Amazon a month ago; when I called customer service several days ago to ask why the set had yet to be shipped, the Amazon agent informed me that they wouldn't be sending it until mid-July at the earliest. I cancelled the order. At that rate, we most likely wouldn't have received the table set until September.) My husband, my son and I went to St. Thomas to see the new Toy Story movie this past Saturday, and quickly stopped by the Home Depot there on our way back to the car ferry. You can always count on a box store, even in the Virgin Islands: I found a little red plastic table (I think intended as patio furniture) for $8.09. It's not aesthetically pleasing or well-crafted, but it'll do.

I'm feeling a wee bit ho hum about having to spend another week (or more) repeating practical life activities with Parker. I know that he's getting a lot out of the repetition--mastering the materials and becoming more comfortable with the homeschool concept--but doing things like transferring rice and stringing beads doesn't exactly make me fall out of my chair from sheer excitement. As we progress through the Montessori curriculum, school will most definitely stimulate me more and more. Up next are the sensorial set of activities; we'll be experimenting with varying temperatures and textures and sounds. After that, we'll begin working with numbers, then letters. The awesome part about embarking on this education journey with my son is that the sky--no, the universe!--is the limit. Eventually, we'll be learning about physics and biology and geography and geology and cosmology and all sorts of stuff. But we have to start somewhere; Parker needs to figure out the intricacies of daily life before he can tackle the big, abstract concepts. So we'll stick with activities like pouring water for now. We're in no rush.

I was hoping to have completed the dressing busy board (buttoning, buckling, lacing, tying, etc.) by now, but that thing is taking me forever to finish. Since I couldn't introduce a new activity (darn busy board), I looked for other ways to add a little intrigue to school today. I put a drop of food coloring in the water we use for the dropper activity, and I replaced the rice in the transferring activity with a mix of dried beans. (Technically, you're supposed to have your kid do the beans first, then the rice--thereby progressing to transferring smaller, finer objects--but oh well.) Using tongs is another recommended practical life activity, but I'm still awaiting the set of small tongs I ordered (yes, from Amazon). In a moment of inspiration, I broke out the kiddie chopsticks I bought at a Sur la Table store in St. Louis last fall and let Parker have a go at picking up the beans with those.

Postscript: Apparently, in Parker's world, anything that can be poured must be poured, so there's always pouring performed at some point when he's doing the transferring, bead stringing and using a dropper activities. I wondered for the longest time whether I should lay down the law and say, "Hey! No pouring! Only transferring!" I recently decided that I'd rather remain quiet and allow him the freedom to explore the materials. I'm sacrificing structure by doing so, but encouraging initiative. Or something like that.

Let the Scavenger Hunt Begin

Sometimes I think the weather forecasters err on purpose, just to keep us on our toes. As you can see, it's a beautiful morning here, so we'll soon be crossing Pillsbury Sound to do some school supplies shopping on St. Thomas. There will certainly be times when we feel as though our quest to find every item on our shopping list has degenerated into a wild goose chase. In light of that, I'm hoping we have extra reserves of energy and patience in our back pockets today.

Location:Prince St,Cruz Bay,US Virgin Islands