January 4 - 10 // Snowflakes, Mise en Place, and Hexaflexaflakes (if you dare)
This week we will get really good at a classic winter craft and talk about being proactive, the Eagles' Eyrie, and living in your season.
Hello! This week we will be getting really good at making snowflakes. Sometimes it’s hard to believe we live in a world with something so magnificent, isn’t it?
January's Theme: Becoming Purposeful and Productive
Activity: Crafting Snowflakes (and Hexaflexaflakes!)
Parenting Pep Talk: Mise en Place
Thoughtfulness: Chaotic Snowflake Message
Mini-Challenge: Daily Meeze
Book Club: Lazy Genius Way
Older Kid Book Club: The Hobbit, Chapters 4-7
Picture Books
Activity: Crafting Snowflakes (and Hexaflexaflakes!)
Snowflakes are a marvel. Take the time this week to ponder the majestic precision of snowflakes and be amazed together.
You can get The Art of the Snowflake by Kenneth Libbrecht from the library, or look at his photos online, or watch this 18-min video, which explains more about snowflakes than you knew there could be to learn. (A more accessible 3-minute video is here.)
Here are some ways you can do snowflake crafts at home:
Make snowflake window clings by tracing snowflakes onto wax paper with hot glue, then sticking them onto your window. You might need some dabs of hot glue to make them stick, but it should peel right off. This video shows it done well. (We did this activity but forgot to take pictures 😬)
Create the very best paper snowflakes you can. You and your kids have probably done this before, but with the magic of Google—search things like “intricate snowflake template”—you can find all kinds of cool templates and make unique art with them. Watch this video if you need some guidance; remember to start with a square!
You might find that you prefer to make them with coffee filters—which is easiest for little hands—or tissue paper since it’s larger and the thinness makes it easier to cut fine details.
These templates are super good. You can also find tutorials for “geeky” snowflakes such as Groot, Legos, Harry Potter, etc. here.
Design pattern block snowflakes by cutting out shapes like these, starting with a hexagon in the center, then letting your kids go crazy making patterns. All you need is glue and paper, and the only rule is that it has to look the same on all six sides. Even kids who don’t like crafting might enjoy this a lot. See this tutorial for inspiration.
Make a hexaflexaflake! (That wasn’t a typo, but it is as complicated as it sounds. This is a good activity for teens.) Youtuber Vihart is probably a literal genius and teaches a complex way to make a snowflake you can fold in on itself again and again. It looks like a magic trick. Bologna snowflakes are also involved? 😅 You’ll want to watch her hexaflexagon video first. There’s also a hexaflexagon printable on Vihart’s website. It’s a very satisfying and math-y fidget toy.
Thoughtfulness: Send a Snowflake Message
Make a paper snowflake, then write a message on it to someone with a good sense of humor. It will look convoluted and chaotic, but that’s part of the fun. You can write on the envelope something like “start at the yellow star” so they’ll know how to follow your message.
Pre-literate kids can just doodle on the snowflake, and you can attach a post-it that says “With love, Zay-Zay” or something like that.
Parenting Pep Talk: Mise en Place
Last week we talked about casting vision and figuring out the “why” for what your family is trying to do, so this week let’s talk a little about “how.” We’ll get even more practical in weeks to come. Work Clean heavily inspires this week’s pep talk. Here’s a podcast interview with the author.
Have you heard of mise en place? It’s the French term “putting in place,” and it’s apparently like the air that chefs breathe. It’s critical to a chef’s success to first learn to get their ingredients in place, keep their workstation clean, and have everything cooking in the order it needs.
For example, if a chef forgets to start cooking the brown rice—which takes 2 minutes to start—until after everything else is only 5 minutes from being done, it doesn’t mean he lost 2 minutes. Brown rice takes at least 45 minutes to cook, which means his whole dish will be late or cold, and things might need to be trashed and restarted.
In the same way, it costs us exponentially more time to put off tasks that we’ll have to do at some point anyway.
For example, you're not saving any time if you leave dirty dishes on the counter. That’s not how clutter-math works since clutter is magnetic. A few dirty dishes attract many more items that don’t belong, and before you know it, cleaning the kitchen is an hour-long project.
Our brains get cluttered too, and if we don’t regularly make sure certain areas are “set to zero” and ready for a fresh start, we will always feel behind.
What’s the solution? At the end of your day, take 30 minutes to prepare for the next one. Reset what you need to reset, so you get to begin with a fresh start. This will do wonders for your creativity, productivity…and patience.
Imagine beginning your day feeling proactive rather than reactive. Train your brain to believe that preparing for the next day is self-care, not a chore. What a wonderful thing it would be if the kids in your care would be able to describe you as available.
Mini-Challenge: Daily Meeze
Set a 30-minute timer at the end of the day to get ready for the next one. Some suggestions:
-Clean your desk (or shine your sink, or optimize whatever functions as your command center right now.)
-Adjust your to-do list and move anything you need to get done to tomorrow’s list.
- If you’re in a particularly sleep-deprived season, 30 minutes might not be possible. But even five intentional minutes to get ready for your next day will have an impact.
Grownup Book Club: The Lazy Genius Way, Chapters 4-6
We’re working through The Lazy Genius Way by Kendra Adachi this month. This week read the chapters titled Ask the Magic Question, Live in the Season, and Build the Right Routines. Here are some favorite quotes from these chapters.
The magic question is, “What can I do now to make my life easier?” (pg 48) That goes perfectly with what we discussed about mise en place. So, in the most critical aspects of your life, what are some things you can do now to make your life easier?
For example, cook double portions and enjoy the leftovers later, so you have to do less cooking/fewer dishes. It’s not that much harder to do that now, but it’ll make your life a lot easier later.“Pursuing the ideal forces you to either try harder because your season isn’t enough or give up because it will never be enough. Instead, live in your season and be content where you are.” (pg 70) In what ways do you tend to chase or expect the ideal? How has that been harmful to you? What could “living in your season” look like for you right now?
“Create a routine for any task or time of day, but begin with what matters to you, not with the steps to get there.” (pg 86) What do you want to prioritize when building your routines? (Psst…next week’s Parenting Pep Talk is going to be about this topic!)
Older Kid Book Club: The Hobbit, Chapters 4-7
“No great leap for a man, but a leap in the dark. Straight over Gollum's head he jumped, seven feet forward and three in the air; indeed, had he known it, he only just missed cracking his skull on the low arch of the passage.”
Do you ever feel like you’ve had to make a leap in the dark to get out of a bad situation? When is a time when you discovered more courage than you thought you had?“We must be getting on at once, now we are a little rested, they will be after us in hundreds when night comes on.”
After so much action, it must have felt nice to have a moment of peace in the Eyrie. What is a safe place of rest for you? How can you be like the Eagles and create that kind of respite for others? (By the way, can someone please make some artwork depicting the Eyrie? I just love the idea of it so much.)
Picture Books
Links are to Youtube videos of these stories being read. Each story is, of course, better read aloud in person and worth checking out at your library. Check out Sarah Mackenzie’s picture book recommendations for January here.
One Snowy Night by Nick Butterworth and Mick Inkpen is deeply beloved by kids because it just makes them feel cozy, safe, and welcoming…and who can resist cute woodland creatures? Plus there’s a 25-minute video version. You can have lots of good conversations about welcoming others into your warmth and safety.
The Tomten by Astrid Lindgren is a Scandinavian legend about a little gnome who cares for farm animals in the winter. It’s a fairy-tale that might shape its readers to be a little more tender-hearted.
Snowflake Bentley is a true story about a unique, misunderstood boy who wanted to study and share the majesty of snowflakes. He ended up becoming a pioneer in microphotography and you might be able to find one of his books at your library.
The Story of Snow by Mark Cassino and Jon Nelson explains all about snow. The details make it more enjoyable for older kids.
Strega Nona by Tomie dePaola is a book we recommended last week, but read it again if you haven’t already because January 4th is National Spaghetti Day. If you love the characters (and pasta) there’s a whole series 🥳
Planning Ahead
Next week is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. You might want to reserve some books about him from the library. Here’s a list of 22 picture books about MLK; Martin’s Big Words by Doreen Rappaport is a great one.
From the Heart
Dear parents and caregivers of children,
May you experience wonder and delight alongside your children as you enjoy things like snowflakes and spaghetti.
May you have the strength in the evening to do one last push of intention before your head falls on its pillow.
May your days—and your whole life—be proactive and not only reactive.
May you enjoy the gratification of seeking out what needs to be done before it’s overdue.
May you have margin in your life so that your kids would describe you as available.
May you enjoy the precious conversations, laughs, hugs, and cries that are hidden in those margins.
I am praying these things for you.
From the heart,
Hope from Family Scripts
P.S. Here’s a wallpaper for your phone or Stories!
