Goldwaschen

At one point I heard, in passing, that panning for gold is a thing here in Switzerland.  And given my kids' love of searching for little things, and treasure, I'd tucked that idea away as a possible adventure for the kids.  But then I decided there was a much better alternative to spending a precious day and a upwards of hundred francs to take the kids on a Goldwaschen expedition.

When we were in Slovenia, I found some little decorator plastic that was painted gold and silver, at a few dollars for an enormous jar.  And today I bought myself a few quiet hours in the sunshine with that gold and silver, having sprinkled and buried it in our sandbox.  I gave the kids some bowls of water and our sand sieves, and they took it from there.

The kids had a ton lot of fun, even after they began to doubt the authenticity of the experience. Apparently the sand rubbed off some of the gold and silver coating on the bits of treasure, causing the kids to readjust the market value of their findings.

As I walked away to get myself a cup of coffee, I overheard Ella say to Alex "I hate to say it, but I think that mom is really sneaky."

Guilty.

After my treachery had been revealed, Alex lost interest in the game.  Rather, he noticed that he and Ella were being stalked by a Joey-sized dragon

and decided to do something about it.

But Ella kept to the task. "I don't care if it's just glass, because it still has value.  Watch this...Hey, Joey! If you fill this bucket of water with me, I'll give you two whole gold pieces...see mom, with BBs and now gold and silver, I can really get the boys to do my bidding!"

Eventually the boys and I left Ella, who she continued sifting through the sandbox for leverage.  /The rest of us went inside and started dinner and did a little reading.

It's occurred to me that it would probably be a good idea to teach Alex to read, a little, before we get home to Seattle. When Ella was in kindergarten, there was a heavy emphasis on reading and writing, and I figure it's better to work with him now than later, when he'd have to catch up with his classmates.

My uncle gave us a series of BOB books when Ella was young, but she never really enjoyed reading them: they were lacking in plot and depth of character, she decided.  In fact, she was adamantly opposed to learning to read, much preferring having us read her long, exciting stories, rather than the simple stories that were at her level.  And that was fine: we figured it was better for her to learn with her class, so that she wouldn't be bored in school.

But Alex is eager to learn to read, and so each night we've been sitting down and reading through a book.  I'd forgotten my favorite thing about the BOB series.  Ella's previous assessment of the series is, of course, accurate,

but someone, possibly a bored intern, wrote an amusingly in-depth summary on the back of each book. For example,

"The characters are generally warm and smiling. They do have their problems sometimes, as when Mat sat on Sam and Sam looked a bit startled. Then Sam sat on Mat, and Mat looked grim but resigned..."

So there's a little something in there for the parents, too.  And, unlike his sister, Alex is really excited about learning to read, and he's proudly waded through a half-dozen little books so far.

Clearly, I'm quite proud as well.