Gerald III, The Turkey

If you are wondering what Gerald III, the Turkey's story is, please keep reading. I was asked for help by my teenage daughter, as she was working on schoolwork and had some math that she did not understand. However, after more than one attempt to explain it, I gave in to the art that she was so much more interested in at the moment than the concept of FOIL I was trying to teach her. I guess we could say that math lesson was "foiled" in a manner of speaking, but sometimes I guess we need to let their creativity come out and step away from the school "process" a little bit. Learning the "classic" way (I could say loosely, pencil and paper and sitting for prolonged periods) can take a toll. I ended up helping her color her "hand-print turkey" and the idea of posting a story on vocal media came to my mind. It was actually kind of fun to sit and color on a dry erase board. Unplanned, quality time moments like these are something that I am learning to enjoy. I think it could be a lesson for us all to occasionally just let our minds drift away from pressure and schedules and just spontaneously do something and let ourselves wind down. As a college student working towards an education degree, it is a useful lesson to me to learn to let students just take a breather. This was a casual happening, when she was more interested in drawing a hand-print turkey than listening to me explain the math problems that she did not understand, that I wanted to turn into a story. A little free time can be helpful. I know this from experience. If I have been working on my college work for a while, just getting away from it for a bit and moving around or doing something else can help me regain my focus. I know that there are times when we need student focus and I know to a certain extent learning is important, but so are those connector moments that strengthen relationships, after all, what is she more likely to remember, mom stopped a math lesson and colored with me or how to solve (xy-3)(xy+3)? Something for thought...

So, make it a little more fun. After she found out I wanted to take a picture of the turkey to post on vocal media, she wanted to make a background and grass; she said it needed more. So, I let her take time to give the picture more detail before I photographed it. Well, she wanted to go even further and give the turkey a name, hence the name Gerald. I was going to call it Gerald the Turkey, but she wanted to go even further and call it Gerald III. Apparently, she didn't think she had any other things named Gerald, but she thought Gerald III sounded better. She saw the picture I posted on here and said "hey, it's Gerald". I started trying to make a turkey sound and said "bok, bok" lol. That isn't even the turkey sound. So, after us talking briefly about what a turkey sounds like, she pulled up a video of turkeys making noise and let me hear it. Well, then came her bringing up different animals and telling what noises they made. Yes, it might seem like I was working with a preschooler rather than a teenager, but hey, she is still a child and I want good memories with her. Thank God she is a smart girl and one day she might figure out FOIL , but hopefully she knows that I love her now.