The Vader Project

I just found out about The Vader Project. Here's a link to a set of flickr photos.

Hat tip to JFo.

More Star Wars in day care

So last month, my son's day care actually did a unit on Star Wars. The children were clearly obsessed with it, and the child-led curriculum means that the children's obsessions should guide the teachers' choice of themes, so there you go.

I was surprised to hear of this decision, but I have so much faith in his teachers that I knew they would make a great unit out of it, and they did. They paid the most attention to the idea of Jedi life and training. The children did Jedi meditation. (I'm not sure exactly what that looked like, but anything that introduces the idea that sitting still and quietly is an activity unto itself, and not just something you do so that you can see/hear someone else doing something, is a great thing in my book.) They went through a "Jedi training camp" that the teachers set up on the playground--running from here to there, climbing over this and that, pushups, jumping jacks, and my favorite part: running with a backpack full of blocks, as Luke ran with Yoda on his back. They made "Wookiee cookies." They talked about doing kind and helpful and useful things, like Jedi.

It was pretty cool.

good guys and bad guys

As we all know, good guys have blue light sabers and bad guys have red light sabers. Except for Mace Windu, who has a purple light saber, apparently for no other reason than that Samuel L. Jackson thought it would be cool. (Allegedly, Windu's saber handle says BMF on it, echoing the letters on the wallet of Jules, his character in Pulp Fiction.

So every time my son starts blathering about good guys and bad guys, I blather back about how in real life no one is all good or all bad. People just make good or bad choices. Am I the only parent who does this? Is it doing any good? Am I taking all the fun out of it? Am I just flapping my jaws to no effect at all, either way? I tend to think the last, but I retain a faint hope that my blathering will make it less likely that my son will grow up to not bloviate about "evildoers" or say things like, "If you're not with us, you're against us."

order of information

My son is getting all this backwards. As I mentioned before, he already knows that Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's father. Now, thanks to this great video he knows what wookiees sound like, and he knows the phrase "Someone move this walking carpet," but he still has not seen Episode IV and says he doesn't want to until he's ten. Years old. He is now four and a half. Sigh.

Added almost three months later: I don't think Leia actually ever says "Someone move this walking carpet." "Someone get this walking carpet out of my way!" is closer, I think.

Star Wars at the day care

Star Wars is becoming a popular play theme and kid-conversation topic at son's day care. From what I've heard, it's mostly the boys (all four years old) who are engaging in this. They have seen various parts of various episodes, and been freaked out by various things, to wit:

Episode II: Senator Amidala's ship exploding, killing her decoy
Episode VI: Han Solo encased in carbonite

there's more but I'll have to add it later

yes, it's sad.

Last weekend, the radio was on and Son heard the phrase "Senator Obama." He turned to me and asked, "Is Senator O-ba-ma from Star Wars?" Until then, I guess, he hadn't heard the word "senator" except in 1 and 2.

When you think about it, "Obama" would be a perfectly good Star Wars name. Fits right in with Amidala, Windu, Kenobi, Yoda, Organa.

childREN!

In another attempt to bring children other than my own son into this blog, I offer the article that Kate mentioned in comments: Confronting the Dark Lord