Mud Pies & Minivans: Just Snakes & Birds

The beautiful thing about this age group (2-4 year olds) is that they are so inquisitive & eager to learn new things. It does not take much to totally thrill them & they do not take the lil' things for granted. It is not until later on in life that a lot of kids tend to pick up a know-it-all attitude or the opposite when their inquisitive natures have been snuffed out by adults who got tired of all the questions.

Now, let me not be the 1st one to cast a stone here. It has been reported that the average "4 year old child asks 437 questions a day". Yeah, that is a lot & I feel like for myself this lil' fact is multiplied by say 3 (lol). Its easy to get overwhelmed by all the questions & to need a lil' "quiet time" every once in awhile, but for the most part we need to try & just embrace their sweet inquiring selves because it won't last forever & we will miss it believe it or not.

Recently, my speculative bunch had been asking a lot of questions about snakes (random, I know). So, I decided to read them a book, "Reptiles" from the Smart Kids series. It introduced the girls to a lot of fun new reptiles that they had never heard about before along with answering some of the questions they already had asked about snakes.

After the book, I found a cool video of a snake shedding his skin. The girls were absolutely fascinated by this process & after the video was over they got down on the ground & began acting like snakes shedding their skin, lol. I further explained to the girls how some snakes are dangerous & some are not, what they eat, where they live, & so forth.

After nap time, the girls woke up to a snake farm I had created with some of our rubbery lil' guys from 1 of their play rooms. They loved naming them, pretending to feed them mice, holding them, & etc. When their dad came home from work, they were very excited to retell everything they had learned & showing him how snakes shed (Apparently, that video was the highlight of everything).

They enjoyed the lesson so much that they asked if we can get our own snake for a pet now. The answer from me, a very emphatic "NO!". Ha ha.

Another lesson I did with the girls recently came about from a "Max & Ruby" episode. Ruby was going on a bird hunt to try & identify various birds in hopes of earning a Bunny Scout badge of some sort. Ever since that episode, Aidann has been asking me what every bird she sees is, every bird, lol. Eventually, I decided we needed to take that kid out to get her very own bird watching book so she could start trying to identify them for herself too. We went to Lowe's & checked out the different bird houses & feeders & then we got a lil' bird scouting pamphlet of birds from around this area for Aid. She was completely thrilled by the lil' thing & felt so empowered. She went to work as soon as we got into the parking lot identifying birds, lol. She actually did identify a dove on her own, impressive.

For the lesson, I began with a book as usual. I went the more fun route & selected "Are You My Mother?" By Dr. Seuss. After the book, I took some time to first ask them what they already knew about birds & then I filled in the blanks. During play time we took binoculars we had made from toilet paper rolls & bead necklaces & began our bird hunt. We pretended to find birds up high in a nest that were missing their mother (Aid informed me that she was injured by a dump trunk..Hmmm) & pretended to dig up worms out of the ground for the babies. The girls then pretended to climb up the tree (aka slide) & feed the birds their worms. We also pretended to rescued some birds & put band-aids on them, held baby eggs, & built birdhouses. The girls really enjoyed using they imaginations & binoculars & are looking forward to our upcoming field trip to the zoo to see & learn more about birds.

Kiddos definitely can ask a lot of questions, but instead of letting it annoy us, we should embrace it. That is an admirable quality to feel free to ask questions & not feel embarrassed about being "wrong" or feeling stupid. If we nurture this in our kids & build up their confidence to ask when you don't know will help to create some great & very teachable students/people in the future.

-M&M Momma