Challenges

One of the very few good shows left on PBS for kids (now that they've taken off Mr. Rogers) is "Fetch!" It's a game show where real kids have to complete challenges and answer quiz questions for points. At the end, the host doles out bonus points. We love to watch the show and then act it out ourselves. I'm the host, handing out challenges and making up questions. At the end, I distribute the points and declare the winner. Today I had a few things I needed to get done, and the kids were hounding me to play Fetch. It struck me that I could kill two birds with one stone. One thing I needed to do was clean the cricket cage and feed the crickets and the frog. I usually do this job myself, because it's pretty tricky, but today I turned it into a Fetch challenge for the kids. They loved it and did a pretty good job. A couple of the crickets escaped but the kids caught them and got them back into their cage. I also wanted to make cherry turnovers, so I broke the recipe down into simple steps that Noah could read to Sarah. Their challenge was to make the cottage cheese pastry dough. They made a huge mess, of course, but they actually did better than I thought they would! As the dough was chilling, they gathered around to hear the results. Noah won the cricket/frog challenge, and Sarah won the cooking one. Here are some of the bonus points I awarded (5 points each):
N-catching the escaped crickets
S-knowing where the measuring cups/spoons are
S-using good manners
N-finding the wooden spoon
N-knowing what a pastry blender is and how to use it
N-figuring out that the tablespoon makes a good cottage cheese scooper
S-sharing and being generous
The next challenge was a very difficult treasure hunt. They're used to treasure hunts, but this one had a new twist: the clues were written in code. Noah very impressively decoded the clues and read them to Sarah, who was very good at finding them. The treasure was a painting activity, which they did while I washed dishes. During the painting, Sarah was rushing through it and said, “I want to get this done so I can go to DQ!” (we’re going to DQ tonight to celebrate her Gotcha Day). Noah told her, “Take it easy and enjoy this time in your life. Someday you won’t have this kind of life. You’ll grow up and be an adult and you’ll have to work and then you’ll die.” Sometimes he's so wise and profound! They learned a lot, and I learned that they are capable of more than I realized.