Stargate Kryštof travels through time

He doesn’t, however, need any crystal ball, magic carpet or invisibility cloak for it. All he needs is a marker and our family picture calendar. By one huge stroke, he moves from Wednesday all the way to Monday swimming :-)

It happened before Christmas. Kryštof remembered that he wanted to go to the Dinopark in Plzeň. Unfortunately, we found out that it is closed during winter time and that it doesn’t open until the 1st of April. That posed a problem. How do you explain to Kryštof who isn’t even 3 years old, that it opens in 5 months. Added to that was the excitement of visiting the grandparents on Monday. How do you explain that Monday isn’t tomorrow, but in 3 days and that Monday comes only once every seven days?

For an adult it’s obvious by looking at the calendar, but three year old Kryštof doesn’t know how to read, let alone about the systems of changing years, months and weeks.

What followed was the creation of our wall picture calendar. Monday with the logo of the Baby Club Julík, where we go for swimming; on Tuesday and Wednesday the picture of Eliška and Kryštof playing at home, because we have no regular plans; on Thursday and Friday morning the logo of Kryštof’s preschool, in the afternoon the picture of our friend Petra; on Saturday a family photo from a trip. That was it. Plus the months January to May with a big sticker of a dinosaur on the 1st of April.

Every evening, we would cross out one box. Yet sometimes, there came a huge stroke. So it happened that suddenly we were on the box of 1st of April. Kryštof vividly showed us in his own way how much he was looking forward to Dinopark.

Children love plans. When they know what’s going to happen tomorrow, then they know what to look forward to. The planned trip to Dinopark engaged Kryštof in deciding about what’s going to be. He knew that the family trip was his idea and that all of us joined in. And, for example, even the knowledge that preschool is on Thursday and Friday has literally a “magical force”, without discussions about getting dressed, leaving for preschool, etc.

In the weekly calendar, the picture of a flower was added to Wednesday, because Kryštof can water “the home greenery”.

1st July 2011

Author: Lenka Míkovcová

Translation: Marek Hubbell