Saturday, September 8, 2007

Still learning...

We took our 3-year-old, Connor, to an "organized" playgroup with native Chinese speakers yesterday to see if he would have fun. Sort of, it was okay, he actually said his name aloud to the group and seemed comfortable clapping and singing in Mandarin. We'll be back there next week to give it another try.

Today we went to an "organized" pre-school soccer group to see if he would have fun. About halfway in to the 40-minute session, he sat on the side while other ran around and kicked soccer balls. No fun, but we'll be back there next week to give it another try, since one of his buddies is also going.

After soccer, we went with a friend to Mount Philo, a local 980' hill, and walked the trail (carrying Connor part of the way in a child carrier backpack) to the summit. After a little picnic, we met an ornithologist who was watching hawks migrating south. He had cool binoculars, and Connor loved looking for birds in the sky (even though he didn't get to use the binoculars), and the ornithologist was happy to talk to us and point out turkey vultures and kestrels (and some other flying things, like dragonflies and swallowtail butterflies :-). We didn't see very many while we were there, he explained to his enraptored audience, because the winds were blowing out of the south, so it was bad weather for winter migrating. After looking for more birds (and the ornithologist was impressed with the fact that Connor found one before he saw it!), and sighting a couple of pirate ships on the lake, we went back down the hill and back home.

So what we've discovered again today is that the best thing to do is to simply go hang out where cool people are and not worry too much about "organizing" fun and learning.

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