It's the most wonderful time of the... biennium? The olympics are here again! Everyone in this house thinks I'm nuts, but I absolutely LOVE the Olympics. I mean, the summer games are my favourite. But the winter games are still wonderful!
The day of the opening ceremony, I was bouncing-off-the-walls-crazy. I waited far too long [read: until the night before] to start planning Olympics-related activities, so it wasn't NEARLY as awesome a day as I would have liked, but I still had a few good ideas ready to go!
We started off by making laurel wreaths to wear around. Or for me to wear around, because someone decided it wasn't "cool" and refused to wear his for the rest of the day. But me? NO SHAME.
I actually forgot that I was wearing it after only a few minutes, and was confused by the weird stares I was getting from other family members as they came home. But WHATEVER, IT'S THE OLYMPICS!
It wasn't until after lunch that I came up with a decent winter-olympics related game. Not having snow to work with outside is tough! I set up a makeshift "mini-curling" court, and we flicked 1 TL coins at a shot glass. I mean, a "toothpick holder." Yeah, that. I painted the tail of half of the coins with a stripe of pink nail polish so they could be easily told apart. Not my best/most inventive creation ever... but hey, it turned out to be rather fun, and we've played it a few times since then!
Another craft was, of course, making gold medals! I would have MUCH preferred to go the whole salt-dough-and-gold-paint route, but lacking any other resources, we just mixed a few different colours of playdough. I made the ribbons using an old friendship bracelet braiding technique, and we were good to go- except for the small fact that it takes playdough FOREVER to dry. One of our medals got a little messed up because someone (hint: not me) decided he wanted to wear it before it had finished drying, and the ribbon ripped right through! Playdough definitely isn't the most successful medium to work with, but it was fun to mix the colours together and see what happened. I think mine ended up being a mix of yellow, light brown, and bright orange; Hakan's was the same plus a blueish-greenish colour to give it that darker shade.
One of the reasons I was up super late was trying to come up with something to do during the boring parts of the opening ceremony. You know, the speeches, or when they spend too long focusing on one country that has, say, 230 athletes participating and takes forever to get into the stadium... those times. I ended up spending FOREVER tracing colouring pages from Activity Village, cursing myself the entire time for not thinking of it sooner so I could actually use a printer.
When it came time for the opening ceremony to start, I pulled up the BBC live stream on my computer, brought out the globes (one in Turkish, one in English), and gave Hakan the colouring pages- I thought we were good to go! I knew the performance was going to be outstanding as always, I had reviewed my geography skills to make sure I could ID all of the countries on the globe... I was ready to go!
And then Hakan got bored 2 letters into the alphabet part of the intro.
"What's this?"
"I don't know, it's in Russian. Just watch, it's a performance you see, not something you have to listen to."
"But what are they saying?"
"I don't know, it's in Russian. Why don't you go ask Leila to translate?"
"No. I'm bored."
"Just wait, there will be more interesting things coming up. There's going to be dancers and acrobats and cool music and all sorts of things going on."
"I'm just going to play on my iPad. You watch."
Then the parade of athletes started. Yay, something interactive AND educational! My favourite! This time, we got 5 or 6 countries in before the boredom started. It was difficult to try and translate the country names, especially since they're abbreviated on the globe. I would know I was looking in the right general area (except for the time that I COMPLETELY blanked on Armenia, then kicked myself 20 minutes later when I remembered that it borders Turkey), but couldn't figure out which name it was- "Is that one a city or a country? Wait, is that the full name or an abbreviation? I can't tell if that "c" has a cedilla on it, so I don't really know how to pronounce this in Turkish..." Needless to say, that got old pretty quickly, and he wasn't too keen on using the English globe. Around then, we were called down to dinner, so I didn't have to worry about it too much anymore.
When we returned from dinner, they were almost to the end of the parade. Maybe 6 or so countries remained. Of course, Hakan wasn't at all interested in watching, and despite my pleading with him to listen to the English-speaking announcers, colour the pages I made, and try to learn a bit of geography, he was back to the iPad. The actual performance started (shout-out to the bassoon player!), and he was still glued to the iPad screen. "Hakan... you're missing it..." "No, I'm playing a game. You watch." "Okay, but this looks really cool..." "No, I don't want to watch."
Ten minutes later, something cool happened in the arena, and I hear a very, very soft "woah" from behind me. Insert self-satisfied smirk here. Several minutes later- "Is that a TRAIN? That's so COOL! Woah, there are people INSIDE those wheels! HOW DO THEY DO THAT?"
MENTAL VICTORY DANCE.
Sadly, besides a few brief flashes like that, I never got his attention 100% focused on the astounding artistic display happening before us. To me, these performances are a fantastic way to learn a little bit about a different culture, of course, but even more basic than that, they're just cool to watch! I could be giving myself too much credit, but I recall finding this sort of thing so fascinating when I was his age. It really bummed me out that he wasn't willing to give it a chance. I had even made a mental list of questions to ask him about the performance- what his favourite part was, what he would make the performance if it were happening in Turkey, what role he would have wanted to play if he was one of the performers... but I couldn't have any sort of conversation about it since he just wouldn't watch. I'm still racking my brain - and Pinterest - trying to figure out what I could have done differently to get him more interested, but I've been coming up blank.
On another note, he is still 100% convinced that the Olympics are an American event. Despite me showing him all those countries on a map, showing him where Sochi is in relation to Istanbul (quite close, actually!), watching a British broadcast of the opening ceremony, and watching some of the sports on Turkish television (which he also got bored of quite quickly, unfortunately). So I don't know what that's about, and I can't think of another way to explain it!
Guys! I made up my own game, completely from scratch! No Pinterest, no Googling "how on earth am I going to entertain a seven year old for another 5 days without being able to go outside (though that happened as well)," no begging others for ideas- 100% me just standing in the middle of my room, looking through drawers, and grabbing/putting away random supplies until I had come up with a decent game and concrete rules. WINNER.
The Lego Game (That's Still in Need of a Name)!
2 or more players
Supplies:
-Crapload of legos. Yes, that's a technical measurement, where did you go to school?
-Dice
-Some way of coming up with a "random" number
1. My method for coming up with a random number was the M*A*S*H spiral trick. One person draws a spiral on a sheet of paper, and the other says when to stop drawing. When you stop, draw a straight line from the beginning to the end of the spiral. The number of times the lines intersect is your "random" number. (Random is in quotes because I'm pretty sure my old stats teacher would just die on the spot if she saw me using the word "random" in that context.) Regardless of your method, that should be step one!
2. Player 1 rolls the dice, and collects that number of legos from the pile. Each player does the same. Repeat this process to equal the "random" number you chose- we had one game where we each rolled twelve times, and another where we each rolled twice.
3. Make something out of your legos!
Some tips:
--> It's a good idea to have a general idea of what you want to build before you start digging through the pile, of course.
--> ...but make sure it's a pretty flexible idea. My first attempt was "tree." That way, I could just make a small brown base, and then start grabbing as many green as I could. So if I ended up rolling a 1 every single turn, I'd still have a passable end product!
--> Decide beforehand what you are going to count as "one" lego. I followed the rules very strictly myself, but let Hakan get away with a lot- he found a previously-built airplane in the pile and wanted to use it.
Those two photos are from our first attempt. The next round, we had only two turns each!
a zombie...
...and a ghost! Apparently we had an unspoken theme going on!
If I had a nickel for every time I've heard "what can we do now?" this past week, I'd be able to retire tomorrow.
Okay, maybe that's a SLIGHT exaggeration. But winter break is hard, guys! Not being able to go outside makes finding things to do SO much harder than it would be in the summer. I've spent more time on Pinterest this week than any other website, just searching for ideas of games, activities, and art projects. My task is made harder by two phrases: "that's for babies" and "that's for girls." Yes, this English learning activity is designed for toddlers, but I've changed it up, and you need the language reinforcement at this level. No, Cat's Cradle is fun and good for fine motor skills. Yes, this word game app on my iPad is designed with light colours and big bubble letters, but I promise, it's just a word game. It's not for babies- anyone younger than 6 or 7 probably COULDN'T play it.
So here's what we HAVE been up to, at least for the first half of break. I decided this would be easier than trying to stretch out each individual craft or game into their own posts- maybe for some of the more complex ones I'll do better posts down the road. We'll see!
First, the "screen-time" activities:
- Minecraft. Minecraft, minecraft, minecraft. All day long, minecraft. However, I've started to be better about drawing the line- we can play minecraft for a short amount of time, IF we're going to use it to actually be creative. Let's do a "quick-build" challenge. Let's play Hunger Games. Let's go into a survival world for once so we actually have to gather our own resources. Lets build an airplane, or a boat. Let's NOT just run around lighting trees on fire and putting TNT everywhere.
-Playstation. This has actually gotten better with the purchase of a new Mickey Mouse game. FAR more appropriate for a 7 year old than GTA5. I had heard GTA was bad... I never imagined it was THAT bad. It got to the point that I wouldn't even stay in the room while he was playing it. I hated the nonchalant violence and dear lord, the LANGUAGE! No wonder there was such a huge movement against this game. But last week, he bought Epic Mickey: The Power of Two and we have been playing that quite a bit. It's hard to keep him focused on completing the set quests instead of running around beating up the townspeople- he IS used to GTA, after all- but if we keep it under 45 minutes or so of game time, the attention span stays on what it's supposed to.
-Youtube. And what do we do on Youtube? Watch minecraft play along videos, of course! We actually have a pretty good channel for that, though. Stampylonghead and iBallisticSquid are two friends from the UK who make videos both separately and together. They're really funny and entertaining, they stopped using any inappropriate language once they got a large following of young kids watching their channels, and what they build is relatively easy! We get a lot of inspiration for things to try to build in our own world from the two of them. Sometimes, they even make up stories with actual plot lines, like they were making a movie instead of just talking while playing minecraft. Right now, Stampy's pet cat was kidnapped by his arch enemy who wants to take over his world! Every once in a while, I find myself watching one of their videos on my own, before I even realize what I'm doing.
-Movies. Though the fight between watching in English and in Turkish is always a struggle. We've watched The Jungle Book, Toy Story 3, and part of The Emperor's New Groove so far this break. (sidenote- I've never seen Toy Story 3 before. RIGHT IN THE CHILDHOOD.) Toy Story was the only one in Turkish (we put on English subtitles for me) because there was someone else visiting and watching with us. The other two were in English, since we were watching on my computer (streaming sites are my favourite!) The Jungle Book was actually better-liked than I expected it to be, but he just wasn't into the Emperor's New Groove at ALL. Once I really started paying attention, though, I realized that they talk VERY quickly- so he was missing most of the jokes.
But even with the changes, those are still the activities I am trying to avoid as much as possible. So I try to dig back in my mind and come up with ANYTHING without a screen that will keep him occupied for another couple of minutes!
-Card Games. Speed, War, Slap Jack, Rat Slap (too complicated!), Go Fish, Old Maid, UNO. We are lacking a real deck of cards, so we're using UNO cards for everything. I just have to keep sorting them out so we have the right number of everything. The black cards serve pretty well as generic face cards for something like Slap Jack! I actually think the UNO cards make it easier sometimes- for a game like speed, you can just focus on the numbers 0-9 instead of worrying about what order J, Q, K, and A come in. I've also taught him Tiddlywinks, but I think Turkish coins are a lot heavier- it didn't work nearly as well as I remember.
-Movement Games. Mother May I and Red Light, Green Light were BIG hits! I also created a game based off something I found on Pinterest where I made 2 dice- one with an animal, and the other with an emotion. They had to try and dance like a "bored spider," or a "crazy giraffe," or a "sad crocodile," and then I just set the rest of the rules up like a freeze dance game. Really good for thinking about emotional expression! Twister is also a popular choice.
-I modified his Jenga game to make it a little more fun/interesting by writing on each block- silly things to do, like spelling your name backwards, doing 5 jumping jacks, or taking your next turn with your wrong hand. Pull a block, complete the task, then replace it!
-Obstacle Courses. Just about every day, we tear apart the downstairs and create a new obstacle course. We sacrificed a ball of my yarn to make cobwebs to climb through, we mark out hopscotch on the floor, we roll up carpets to make balance beams, jump across or over pillows and rugs, turn one side of a Rubik's cube, stack 3 small rocks in a pile, move stuffed animals from one spot to another... it all changes every time! It usually takes us about 3 minutes to complete an entire course. The cobwebs are so hard for me- I try to set them up so it's hard for a skinny 7 year old, which makes it near impossible for me to get through without touching anything!
-Colour matching/Bingo/Scavenger hunt game. I combined 3 or 4 ideas when I came up with this one. I guess it didn't have to be Bingo- I just had some blank bingo cards laying around from something I had planned on doing a while ago that we never got to. I outlined each square in a different colour marker, pen, or crayon, then hid all of those colours around the living room. The first person to find all the EXACT matching colours- no markers filling in where crayon was outlined!- won. It wasn't perfect- a bingo chart had way too many squares, and we had an issue with one kid playing being a lot more meticulous about matching the colours exactly where the other just filled in the closest one she could find, so it wasn't really an even race. But it was a good first try, and a definite foundation to create a better version from sometime in the future!
-We've actually spent a lot of time playing piano recently. Usually, the piano is avoided unless it's during his lesson, but recently I've been playing while we are brainstorming ideas of what to do, and after a few minutes I'm usually being pushed over to make room. Once, we manipulated his favourite exercise from his lesson, playing it in different octaves, faster, slower, crossing our hands over, switching the parts each hand was playing, playing it together or assigning different parts to play together- it's only a little 8 measure piece, but we did so many things with it! When his cousin was visiting, we spent even more time playing- she's a HUGE Adele fan, so I sight read Rolling in the Deep... if I had the piano skills I do now just from goofing around all the time a few years ago, I may have made it in the Music Therapy program! I'm getting so much better at creating accompaniments and just seeing chords and going for it!
-Crafts. I have a bag of random things that could possible be turned into craft supplies in my room, and I've been trying to put it to good use so it doesn't build up too badly like my craft supply collection at home! We made adorable little penguins out of toilet paper rolls the other day, and we made stand up cardboard t-rexes a while back. I sketched out a few minecraft-themed pictures for painting and colouring- and I made sure when I bought paints that I just did basic colours so we could practice mixing. Look at me, saving money AND encouraging artistic skills!
I'm sure there are a few more things that I'm missing, but this is getting pretty long so I'll stop here. Maybe at the end of next week I'll have a whole bunch of new things to write about- there is a whole week left of winter break, after all! Wish me luck!
