Hellobee

A long time ago I wrote about sharing my passions with my kids. At the time that seemed tricky because I had to take my lifelong love of science and bring it to a toddler’s interest level. I loved it and had a great time doing it, but my children have gotten older and are now entering elementary school. As they meet new people and hear more stories, it has become clear they are definitely their own little people with their own interests.

When they show an interest in learning something new, I absolutely love it. It’s the teacher in me — I can’t help it and I can’t turn it off. When they ask me questions about new subjects, it immediately sets my brain in motion to try and figure out how we can investigate these interests further. I am constantly trying to figure out how we can learn more and have fun doing it. Sometimes it’s easy. Right now my twins very much align with things that I love. One of them is obsessed with dinosaurs and fossils and the other wants to know absolutely everything about animals. I can always find things to read or talk about with animals of today and the past.

My oldest and youngest are the ones that like to throw me curveballs. James is a history nut. I am pretty sure I created this little history monster when we took him to a battlefield while visiting my sister in DC last year. No matter how it started though, it is very clear that is what he is interested in. He wants to know every fact about every battle in every war ever fought throughout the whole of history. My daughter has also decided that she loves ballet and art. Doing art projects and home is fun and easy, but I know zero about dance.

So while I find it easy to help my twins develop their interests, I had to really set up a system for my other two so that I could help them find things that they love. Here are the six things I make sure I do for each kid and their current interest.

B O O K S

This is my number one go-to thing for anything. If I want to teach I have to learn, and if I want to learn I pick up a book. We frequent our library, but unfortunately our closest library is very old and has a limited selection, so the kids and I love to go to the bookstore. Sure they love the idea of buying a new book, but we go and spend well over an hour perusing the books and looking through them to pick out just the perfect book.

Right now we are hooked on a few series. The kids want me to read whole chapter books every night and they don’t understand why I can’t read for three hours straight.

James is 6 years old and loves the Who was series. We have read Who was Abraham Lincoln?, Who was Ulyses S Grant?, Who was Robert E Lee? and What was the Battle of Gettysberg? I don’t know if you can see a trend in his time period of choice, but he picked Who was Walt Disney? next so at least I get a little break from Civil War books.

Lilly is 3 years old and has chosen the series called Ella Bella Ballerina by James Mayhew. We usually read one at least every day and her favorite is Ella Bella Ballerina and Swan Lake.

The twins are 5 years old and although they aren’t really interested in a series right now, they will read any book every written about animals or dinosaurs. Nick’s current favorite is Dinosaur Wars by Phil Manning. Each section is a proposed scenario and the reader has to decided based on the situation and the dinosaur characteristics which one would win the battle. Joe loves anything from National Geographic for Kids. He loves the real pictures and all the facts.

A T  H O M E  A C T I V I T I E S

This is when I look towards good old Google and Pinterest. I simply search for whatever the topic plus kids ‘activities and there are countless ideas that come up. Sometimes it is as simple as printing a coloring sheet and letting them paint or color. Other times I find science experiments or activities such as making our own fossils, or making a paper plate Abraham Lincoln. Now that the boys are in school full time these activities are a little more limited. I tend to save them up for the summer and make fun theme weeks for us.

S C R E E N  T I M E

I know that screen time should be limited, but sometimes I really think there is a time and a place. I love watching documentaries or movies about science, so I know my kids would feel the same way if there are shows that cover topics they love. We don’t have cable so we have to rely on what we can find on Netflix, various apps or DVD’s. They aren’t really interested in documentaries yet, so I have to fInd fun cartoons or shows that give great information and entertain. I try to get a good mix of shows and movies that represent each of the kid’s interests.

Animals and Dinosaurs are definitely easier to find good shows. The kids are currently obsessed with The Wild Kratts on PBS. There are two brothers who go out on adventures to learn about new species, and then their friends make them power suits that have the specialized adaptations of the animals they are learning about. There is enough action and adventure to make it exciting for them, but it is also packed full of information.

I have had more trouble with History and Ballet. We watch Angelina Ballerina every once in a while but it is not top of our list. We rented the Nutcracker Suite at Christmas which Lilly enjoyed, but the boys got bored. I think History has been the hardest. James wants to know about wars and battles, but a lot of those movies are still a little much for a six year old. I wish I could find some great cartoon series that went back and talked with famous people, but I haven’t found it yet. He did really enjoy Mr. Peabody and Sherman, but I think he is a little more interested in American History.

C L A S S E S  &  O T H E R  E X P E R T S

I have the science stuff down. We are all our own experts of something, but I know my limits and that I need to call in the specialists sometimes.

My history expert is definitely my dad. He and James are buddies when it comes to museum days. I just make sure that my dad can come with us on days when we are going to museums or exhibits about history. Not only does my dad have a great time sharing in our family outing, but the kids get to learn from his wealth of knowledge.

Museum buddies talking about the world leaders during the Reagan administration.

I also know nothing about ballet, so we signed Lilly up for classes at our YMCA. She was ecstatic and now she will be performing in her first recital in a few months. I have cried at every school performance thus far (I can’t help it, I am a crier). I am pretty sure watching my little girl with all her little friends dancing in their first recital is going to make me ugly cry right there in the auditorium.

My tiny dancer.

F A M I L Y  O U T I N G S  :  M U S E U M S  ,  Z O O S  &  E X H I B I T S

On the weekends we love to do family outings. Mr. Train is off of work and the kids get to relax. One of our favorite things to do is to visit museums, the zoo or other fun attractions around Los Angeles. I try to make decisions for our family outings based on what the kids are currently interested in.

My first choice is always free places. We were obsessed with trains for awhile and spent many days at Travel Town, a free museum with a ton of old trains to look at and go inside. We would spend hours there followed by lunch at a restaurant that is built in an old train car. Our train days are not as frequent anymore, but we still go occasionally and the kids still love it. When they were interested in the planets we went to the Griffith Observatory and the California Science Center, which all had no costs for admissions.

If I can’t find a free location I try to find ones that have family memberships since it can cost and arm and a leg to get into some of these places with our big family. We currently have memberships to the Natural History Museum (that’s for the twins and the love of animals and dinosaurs), The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (for my little artist and dancer) and the Reagan Library (for my little history buff). Even though they are not free, if I can budget the once yearly cost then at least for the rest of the time I don’t have to add that into our monthly entertainment budget.

We could stare at dinosaur bones for hours.

What I have loved about our family outings is that not only does the child that I picked the outing for get to develop a passion, but my other kids get to enjoy and share the experience with each other. I want them to grow up close to each other, and I hope that finding joy in each others’ interests will help with that. The most recent outing we did was to the Reagan Library. Lilly is not as much of a history fan and she is a little young for the Reagan Library, but there was an exhibit of cars which included a pink race car from one of the Fast and the Furious movies and she couldn’t stop talking about it. Nick and Joe loved Air Force One and Marine One, and of course James was just thrilled to learn as much as he could.

The kids liked practicing their presidential wave.

B I G  F A M I L Y  E V E N T S

I think these are the things the kids love the most. These are bigger special occasion outings that help my kids develop their interest. Sure it seems like we are just doing something awesome as a family, but usually it has come with special care and consideration to come up with or find the perfect thing. These are usually traveling events or bigger more expensive day trips that we can’t do all the time. It might be once a year or even just a one time thing. These ones take some more investigating and digging around to find the perfect event and the perfect timing.

Recently there was a road show with National monuments made out of Legos. I don’t know if we will ever see these again but it was certainly fun.

Last year for my oldest son’s 6^th birthday we took him to a Civil War Reenactment that happened to be taking place on his actual birthday. We are on the west coast so there are not many around here. When people asked me what we were planning I got an awful lot of weird looks, but let me tell you that little guy was beside himself. He got to meet Abraham Lincoln and watch him deliver the Gettysburg address. He got to watch two battles play out on a field in front of him. I thought he was just going to keel over with excitement.

Wait… meeting Ulysses S Grant isn’t what every 6 year old dreams about? For my little James this was fantastic.

We have done things like taken our kids to plays so our daughter can see more singing and dancing.  There is a little theater near us that does a fairy tale kids theater that it absolutely fantastic and she loves it. We took the kids to see Walking with Dinosaurs when it came to town as a holiday treat. What did the Train family do at Christmas time? Oh yeah we hung out with some dinosaurs. Isn’t that a normal Christmas tradition?

I am always so excited to find new ways to encourage my kids to follow their interests and find something they are passionate about. They might lose interest tomorrow or they might go on to find their careers. Who knows? I could have a zookeeper, a paleontologist, a dancer and a historian on my hands. I can’t tell for sure right now, but I am going to enjoy exploring their interests and encouraging them to learn more. Tomorrow it could be a new topic and I will be back at the beginning looking for some books and coming up with activities.