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| ((Photo from Pinterest)) |
Now on to the post from my dear friend:
I was a little surprised at our last parent teacher interview when my 10 year old daughter gave us a power point presentation about how her school year was going, what she has been learning and the things that she finds are her strengths (Math, Social Studies, Art, Drama, Making friends) and weaknesses (L.A., Science, Phys Ed, Sitting still).
There were a lot of feelings buzzing around in my head, like I didn’t know she enjoyed history... why would she feel she was weak in science?... how on earth did she do this power point (I was 22 before I did my first one!)... so many thoughts and feelings!! But once I started to think about it as creating a vision board, the more I wanted to try and do one with my daughter. Not only was it fun and insightful, but we have done two more PP’s since. The first was on fashion items (it was silly and just fun girl chat), one was on what she wanted to be when she grew up, and the most recent was on things that she was proud of in her life. I am telling you right now, if you want a little bit of insight into your child’s head, and if anything you have been teaching them is actually sticking... well this is a perfect opportunity to do just that (or at least that is what I found). I will give you an example of how we did one of the PP’s, and the steps that I found make it much easier.
*** #1 – Navigate & Initiate: if your child hasn’t done a PP before, then you will want to sit down with it first and just navigate the basics. You don’t have to sit with PowerPoint for dummies or anything; half the fun my daughter and I had was with her showing me things in PP and being proud to show me her skills. You will also want to start with something that they want to talk about, this shouldn’t be torture The fashion one was a quick and easy one for sure, and we had a blast just looking at pictures and designing her style, my style, her sister’s style and then some funny ones like designer cats.
#2 – Organise your story: as an example, my daughter has talked about various careers that she has interests in, so when we did a PPI brought this up and then she chose the topic – top 10 careers that I think would be awesome! - We made ten slides with the titles (she fancied them up later) just so we knew what to work on. There were some things I let her do on her own (play with the music, the animation, etc) and there were parts that I was very hands on with (like google searching for images), but I let her do all the `driving` with the mouse/keyboard. I feel it’s important that she knows how to navigate in a program sure, but more so I wanted her to know that she was in control here, I just wanted to know more and help where I could.
I highly recommend this subject (what you want to be when you grown up) because you get to hear about your child’s dreams, what they feel they are good at, and their desire to learn. In turn, you can also discuss options to further their journey, like with my daughter one of the items she listed was to become a pastry chef. I didn`t know until that point that she really had any interest to learn about baking other than to eat the final product lol... so this was a good item to know, because I was able to suggest having one weekend a month where we bake and decorate something new. It was pretty simple, but she knew that she was being heard, encouraged, and challenged. She knew that I thought she was good enough (funny how that sounds, but they do wonder) to tackle whatever she wanted to do, and she had the support to go ahead and dream, but to also that we work/learn to achieve. It also let me figure out another way to stay involved in her life... it`s been touch and go as she enters her tween stage of life where she wants more independence but also still likes to have time at home. So the more I can do to encourage her that she can have fun and be herself at home – all the better.
#3 – Unlike the rules of PP in the office/school – go wild with animations and colors and anything else: This is supposed to be fun, and your child will surprise you on what he/she learns and shows you. It`s also great fun to have them present the PP to other family members (should they want to). My daughter is a total drama ham lol... so she wanted to show off all the bells and whistles of her presentation. It was hilarious, and also pretty amazing.
We gathered pictures from the clip art as well as from Google images. This was probably the most rewarding part for me, because while I was backseat driving (you never know what will pop up when you type a word, even with parental controls on your search engine) my daughter was showing me the tools that I had been hopeful that she used while on line. I don`t know about you, but the on line word scares the crap out of me when I think of my daughters in there. So being able to see that she knew, where to look, knew what to be cautious of, and knew when to ask permission – that was just fantastic. That`s it! ***
This subject was a big one, and it took a lot of time- All in all she spent a good three hours at the computer (looking for pictures, playing with the additions, writing out a basic outline for each page). But through that time I cleaned my kitchen, and I made lunch, we ate. It was very relaxed, and the important part (to me) was the open dialogue. The Power Point presentation was just used as a tool to open that conversation, and to have something saved where she should go back and look at her dreams and see if they are still her dreams. It`s been four months now since that PP, and she has already modified one career from her list after learning more about being an Art Curator she has changed her mind on that path and switched to Art Appraiser. It`s great that she can have something to go back to, and the total authority to axe, change, or add to. She also has an art wall in her room (where she can draw, write, post pictures, etc) and this project has made its way into that area of her life too – so she can see her dreams daily. This was not my idea either, this was all her. After we did the PP she was so excited to have all these options open to her that when she would find things (like a fancy stick from a cupcake, or lace material from a Barbie dress that ripped, or a piece of junk mail that had something of interest on it) that she just started taking those things and putting them on the wall with other little designs and words near it.
This topic is great for so many reasons, but another reason is to open the world for them. At ten, I definitely didn`t know what an art curator was, or that there where different kinds of chefs, or that designing clothes would require so much education along with talent. There were a lot of discussions about careers, and what the differences where, and what she thought would be fun. Another part that was totally awesome was that she could change her mind a million times and it was totally okay. She found out that it was totally okay to be a stay at home mom, that it was okay to be a veterinarian that it was okay to be a swimming instructor. Whatever it was that she wanted on the board is what went, and from there we focused on the positives. She talked about being grateful for her grandmother teaching her to sew, for her other grandmother showing her to draw eyes. She talked about being lucky enough to have attended some art classes and thanked me for the lessons. She talked about how strong a swimmer she was, and that she was glad I was there at every lesson to cheer her on. She talked about what she has learned in Karate, how having strength and power doesn`t mean you have to use it, and how sometimes being still and silent is more powerful than anything else.
She really shocked me, and made me so very proud. And now not only do we have a great foundation built where we can talk about something new, but we have this great memory, saved on file to look back on forever. Totally worth it.
Awesome post! My friend also mentioned that ten is a great age to start a vision board with your child. They are old enough to have some real process and thought on the future and also to think Power Point is fun. She will also be encouraging her younger daughter to do a vision board when she's older.
Thank you once again!!
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