Hurricane Belle

One Sunday afternoon, Belle announced a hurricane was going to hit Beaufort, (her room) and she had to evacuate. To her, evacuation meant hauling everything of value to California (our living room). John and a new neighbor friend were helping her transport everything by the bucketful. As I watched the mounds of toys accumulating in my living room, I had two thoughts. 1.) Stop the disaster before it gets too out of hand 2.) Watch the imagination play out and make her clean it up later.



I love to see where pretend play can lead, so I let it go. To my pleasant surprise, I overheard Belle say, "Well, this is a really big mess. Now the next step is to organize it." The girls proceeded to sort and organize all the toys dumped all over the floor. At this point, I remembered the advice to let a child lead the way in learning when possible. I resolved to tolerate the toys for 24 hours and dug around for some reading material I had on hurricanes. The next day, our science lesson was on hurricanes. She was fascinated to hear my first-hand account of Hurricane Hugo. After we discussed how Charleston had to be rebuilt following the devastation of the 1989 storm, I jokingly reminded Belle her pretend hurricane mess also needed to be cleaned up. Before long, she was back in imagination land and returning all her toys back to their proper home.

Joyful Heart Reminder: Resolve to run with a child's imagination for a certain period of time. Their creativity may not only surprise you but also turn into some of the best teachable moments.