Interests Du Jour

Lately August has been carrying around a laminated, teaching brochure on Texas spiders. She carries it everywhere. She had previous been toting an educational brochure on Gulf Coast sea life. She has a special love for ephemera. Since she was a baby she's been holding on tightly to postcards, business cards, brochures, instruction manuals and flyers with the same affection she has for her stuffed animals and dolls. One of her most loved objects to carry under her arm is the Carson McCullers' book, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. She's been loving it for two years now.

A new favorite pastime for her is going over the brochure and having me or her Papi read the names of the spiders. She can now pick out the orb weavers from the jumpers. We have visited the community garden looking for spider webs and hoping to find spiders that are in the brochure but our visits have been surprisingly unsuccessful thus far. In collecting ingredients for her fairy potions we have stumbled across other insects and look at them under the microscope or magnifying glass. She tells me insects have six legs and spiders eight. Recently we watched a documentary on spiders and I found books at the library that had new spider photos, names and facts. All this spider study has educated me as well. I have a new appreciation for the spider's silk, a truly amazing material.

In addition to spiders there has been a huge interest in sea creatures. It began with the collection of Jean Painleve DVDs I have and then the Octonauts cartoons. She is able to repeat the facts that are given about each featured animal on the show. She loves for us to go over the sea life brochure with her. Again,sea creatures are something I have never become truly familiar with outside of a very basic knowledge. I follow her lead and wonder what else I will find myself researching and studying along with this curious little mind. She is the little guide who is teaching the teacher and it's been terrifically fun so far.