If You Give a Child a Worksheet

. . . or One Morning in Florida.


If you give a child an alphabet worksheet to color, he'll want a clipboard to go with it.

When he sees the clipboard, he'll want to take it outside.



Once he gets outside and has his baby sister settled near him, he'll notice that the neighbor's sprinklers are on. Of course, he has to get his head wet!



When he head is thoroughly soaked, he'll remember that the scooter is dirty. After washing the scooter, he'll see that riding it back and forth makes trails like the letter X. He'll write in the road for a while.



Sister gets all wet, too, and when she realizes that her towel looks "just like" the bride's dress from Saturday, they have to play wedding for a few minutes.



Then, the neighbor will come out, so the child takes her dog for a walk, while the neighbor holds the baby.



When he comes back from his walk, everyone will discover that a bird is building a nest in the oak. It's a Great Crested Flycatcher, which is new to all of us, so we have to read about it.



Seeing the bird bringing sticks makes the child want to play with one of his own. He finds a really big one, and since it has a nail poking out of it, Baba brings a hammer.



They work with the hammer for a long time, without success, and then switch to a screwdriver. Once they finally make progress there, the muddy clothes from the sprinklers are washed. Since the all-important pants were in there, and they have to be dry by naptime, Baba and the bride take the laundry to a friend's dryer.



The friend is the mother of Saturday's bride, so she donates a real veil! Now the wedding play moves to the backyard, where the child sees a butterfly.



That reminds him to check on his caterpillar. When you all run through the house to do that, you see that it's 10:00, so you put the baby down for a nap, and grab a snack. While the children are eating the snack, Baba gives them a bucket, and asks them to pick the rest of the little grapefruit for juice.



At this point, the camera battery runs out, but you keep going. As you supervise the grapefruit picking, you see that the kumquat tree is in desperate need of water, so you turn the water on for it.

That leads to more water and dirt play. When Grandda invites the children to run an errand with him, you quickly change their clothes and shoes and send them off.

By the time they get back, you're ready for lunch. As you bring them in, you hear, "But Mama, I wanted to color my letters!"


And all that is a very good representation of what a typical preschool morning is like in our family!