When was the last time you stopped being curious?
Do you remember wondering, reflecting and…?
Walt Disney Quote… when you are curious, you find many interesting things to do… we keep moving forward, opening new doors and doing new things, because we are curious and curiosity leads us down new paths. !
Spring cleaning… it’s time to empty out the stuff you haven’t used or read in a while and store it in the garage, donate it, or sell it. We have all these Curious George books and the memories started to flood us. There’s no way these books are going to sell for a dime at the garage sale. We keep them for the next generation.
We have learned a lot from George. George was our friend when the boys were little. We had George posters, lunch boxes, DVDs, books and toys. Through George, we learn:
1. Adventure. Life is an adventure. Everything is worth trying in our big world. George travels the world with his friend and is never shy about trying new things. Everything fascinates the explorer in it, the familiar and the unknown. George even tried to get on the hot air balloon alone. It is through trying that George learned his lessons from him.
2. Practical experiments and discoveries. George takes things apart; he studies them and tries to put them back together. George understands how things work after taking them apart.
3. Fun and enjoyment of learning. George knows where to look for fun. He has no reservations about wanting to do things. He went to visit a chocolate factory and tasted chocolate in all shapes, sizes, and flavors. When offered more, George had enough.
4. Helping hands. George is ready to rescue and help. He helped rescue a toy train for a boy from the train tracks. The boy could have been killed and the trained toy destroyed had it not been for George’s help.
5. Friendly and nonjudgmental. George is friendly with everyone. He seems to cause trouble, but at the end of the day, he is the one who saves the day!
George shares his life with The Man in the Yellow Hat. This man exemplifies a best friend, mentor, comforter, teacher, and provider. She is always there for him, in the bad times and the good times. He teaches George life lessons after every incident and never yells or judges. He is the father we can model.
Every child needs a mentor like The Man with the Yellow Hat is George’s mentor. What do you think?
Along with his mentor, George has Hundley, the unadventurous dog, and his owner, the friendly doorman who always has a suggestion for George. There’s Chef Pisghetti, the owner of an Italian restaurant where the Man in the Yellow Hat loves to dine. Professor Wiseman, a good friend of The Man with the Yellow Hat and who loves to hear about George’s adventure. She is another great cheerleader for George.
Through George’s community of friends we learn the importance of diversified friendship. George has friends who do not condemn his curiosity. He has friends who don’t share his passion but still enjoy each other’s company out of mutual respect. What about your children? Do they have friends who respect them and their friends?
In our world of traditional education, students of all personalities and learning habits are placed in the same class to learn and memorize facts and figures every day.
Do you think that this way of learning has dampened the curiosity and creativity of our students over the years? By the time they graduated from high school; most of the students lose their learning habits from Curious George. Are they conditioned to memorize and regurgitate what they have and not know exactly what they learned?
Where are the learning practices and procedures? For example, how to balance your checkbook may be a skill but not which of the following was the most industrialized country during the 19th century?
While the market has been churning out an endless supply of children’s books over the years, Margret and HA Rey’s Curious George books are still going strong after 70 years.
For fun we are going to see a little children’s show tonight. We have a DVD from the library called Curious George Goes on Vacation and Discovers New Things. We find that sometimes simple children’s stories can teach us basic life lessons and a great reminder to live a curious, adventurous and risk-taking lifestyle.