I just spent a great weekend near Duluth, Minnesota visiting my daughter and her family. Yes, we had 14.5 inches of snow there on Saturday. I heard that they received an additional 12 inches today. My grandchildren there are 2, 6, and 9. The 6 and 8 year old boys were fascinated by some of the pictures and maps I showed them online. The 2 year old girl always wants to see the pool pictures on my computer. These are pictures of the three of them at a Duluth indoor water park we went to last March when they had the previous big storm.
On purpose I also showed a slide show of older family pictures. The boys were curious about the names of the people and how they connected to them. Their attention span is not great, but the slide show on the computer kept them more interested than showing them paper photos. They also wanted to know where the people lived. That brought out the globe. A great way for a family history and geography lesson. Then I showed the 8 year old daily and historical newspapers online. He was furiously writing down the URLs. Then I showed him some sites with digitized books. Thankfully, these boys also like to have books they can hold and read. But it was fascinating to watch them looking at me like I was a font of knowledge. Yes, I enjoyed that.
© 2007, Paula Stuart-Warren. All rights reserved.
