One of my favorite things to do when my son was young was to give him the map. It started in a museum, the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester, NH to be precise. The Currier gave out a scavenger hunt of pictures for the kids. The map consisted of a detail from paintings or sculptures through out the museum. The kids were delighted to be looking for something and the adults had an opportunity to follow and look at the whole museum. A win-win!
So look for the tourist map, campus map, museum map and give it to your child and ask: “what do you want to see?” or "where should we start?" With the follow up question: “Great! how are we going to get there?” My son became very good at reading maps, and figuring out ways to get to the sights. To this day he is now my ‘go to’ guy in directions. He surpassed me when he “owned” the subway system in New York City. He got it, he get’s it and I am so lucky to have someone to rely on when visiting.
Maps are fun they can take a little time to figure out, read, and follow. This is a great opportunity to explain the grid of numbers and letters to your child, it has real meaning when you are walking and exploring. When you are on vacation a map is a scavenger hunt looking for the fun sights, museums, restaurants, or even the closest restroom. This is not just fun, reading maps feeds into higher thinking and problem solving skills. All natural, non-contrived, fun manner. Let the adventure begin! Below is my favorite city tourist map, and a picture of one of our favorite finds.
Are you curious? Do you ask questions? Questions about what people are doing, what they are thinking, and what they like? Do you ask questions of your dentist or doctor? Do you wonder what is in your food or where it came from? I hope so!
Curiosity is what drives our brain, our thoughts, our ideas, and our creativity. When we stop being curious, we lose some things. We lose the ability to be creative, to relate, to explore, and to expand and enrich our own lives.
For example, great chefs are creative by pairing different flavors and ingredients to create something new. Now, I am sure not all of the pairings have made it big. I can remember one ice cream store in Florida that sold dill pickle ice cream. It's not what I would choose, and I haven’t seen it in the freezer section of the grocery store, but someone tried something new. Maybe it is a local favorite - who knows? What about chocolate with red peppers? Lindt Chocolate has a popular bar with spicy peppers. My point is: someone asked themselves; "I wonder if this would work?" They tried it, experimented, and voilá! Innovation is driven by curiosity.
How do we teach curiosity? Maybe the question is: how do we inspire curiosity? Modeling is a good way. Modeling is a way of teaching by demonstrating with your own actions. We can start with our children by asking them questions (we get to be curious about them and how their brains think). This can be really fun! Young children have interesting perspectives and great insights. By displaying your curiosity in them, you allow them to formulate responses and to think about what they think.
We want our children to be curious, to explore and imagine. Here are some examples of good leading questions for children:
How do you think that got there?
Where did that idea come from,
What would you do? How would you do it?
Do all ______ work (or think/act/feel, etc.) that way?
The sky’s the limit. Questions are fun, but the answers you get are even better! The best part is that you can ask questions anywhere - in the car, at the grocery store, waiting at a restaurant. It's habit for most of us to pull out our cell phone and check email or send a quick text, but why not relate to your kids, rather than your smart phone? It is very rewarding!
