Making Sense of Haiti
I volunteered to be the homeroom parent who donated recycled jars for the "Pennies for Haiti" campaign that is being sponsored by Linden's school. Here was my attempt, over dinner, to explain to the kids what had happened in Haiti, and why we should help.
Me: "There's an island far away, called Haiti. There was an earthquake there. The ground shook and many of the buildings fell down. It's hard for the people there to get food now, and other things they need."
Jacob: "That boy I saw on the cover of the magazine, was he from Haiti?"
Me: "Yes."
Jacob: "Did he die?"
Me: "No, he didn't die, but a lot of other people died, people that he knew, people he was close to."
Casey: "Are we going to go to the quake earth?
Me: "No, we're sending money to help the people there."
Casey: "If the quake earth comes here, I can stop it. I can stop it with my sword!"
Jacob: "No you can't!!!! You can't stop and earthquake with a sword!!!"
Casey: "Yes I can! I would stab the earth with my sword, to make it be still."
Me: "That's an interesting idea, Casey. I'm glad that earthquakes don't come to Pittsburgh very often."
Jacob: "How many pennies should we send, mom?"
Me: "As many as we can spare."
posted by Kathy N. @ 9:23 AM
7 Comments:
Sounds like the kind of conversations we have around here. Good for you for heading up that project. It's good for our children to see us helping others, I think, even before they can understand why we're doing it.
I somehow believe Casey could stab the earth with her sword and it would be still..............but then again, I AM her grandmother.
Great job, hope you get lots of pennies. Love ya.
I'm with you, Kat! Casey has been full of suggestions lately. She's really upset that we can't visit the center of the earth. She says, "why don't we just get a shovel?"
At least there were no belly poppers in play ....
Ha ha, Ivana! Hopefully I did a better job explaining Haiti than I did playing outside at Thanksgiving!
I loved this discussion! Children think they can do anything - where does that optimism go as we age?
Clearly, Casey Ann hasn't seen enough horror films, becuase after the stabbing, you have the horrible lurching, wiggling, tremoring, quaking before you make it be still. Just saying.
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