Hannah today
In this audio blog, Hannah talks about what she’s been doing today, and lets you in on which birthday gifts she likes the best.
Explore nature in Mexico
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Interested in exploring some of the animals and plants in Mexico? Here’s a great place to start – these guys have photos, video and sounds of the life in Mexico. You can see it all at the VN Illustrated Database. You might even learn something. For example, did you know that there are more species of lizard in Mexico than in any country of the world? At last count there were well over 720 different species discovered. And you thought a gecko was a gecko was a gecko! The world has more than 300 species of gecko alone.
For all you sticklers, the lizard on the mouse above is from Africa, not Mexico. But if I ever see one on my mouse in Mexico, I’ll try to grab the camera just for you! The other photo shows front and back gecko feet.
Another interesting feature of the site is a section with photos of animals that haven’t been identified yet. Very interesting. Makes you really feel like you’re exploring! God made more under the sun than we’ve yet imagined.
New Mexican resort
There’s a new resort being built in Mexico, just south of Cancun. Scheduled to open in 2007, Mayakoba aims to cash in on the ecological trend. Literally carved out of the Mayan jungle, most of the mangrove trees have been saved during construction, and 25,000 more were planted. Rather than huge hotel complexes, there are 6 hotels, none above 3 stories. Toronto-based Fairmont will operate the main hotel and golf course, but every hotel is different. Construction made use of materials already on the property; about $7 million Canadian was spent on environmental and technical studies. The 240 hectares includes over 6 miles of lagoons.
To see more, visit the Mayakoba website here. 😎
Why children are good at languages
I can see why children are good at learning languages. No, this isn’t going to be a technical blog about the psychology of language (although I’m sure that would be interesting). But I got thinking about this the other day when I heard Hannah singing.
Now, Hannah likes to make up her own songs. I can’t imagine where she got the habit from, but she got it. Sometimes the songs rhyme, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they make sense, more often they don’t. But the interesting thing is that they sound like other songs. For example, she makes up songs that sound like worship songs. They have the same kinds of phrases, the same kinds of tempo and tune.
This is why children are good at languages (among other reasons). They listen to things as they are, without imposing their expectations on them. When Hannah hears the letter “d” in Spanish, she doesn’t think about what a d ought to sound like, or how that word is like an English word. She just tries to copy it like it sounds. We’re going to continue to learn a lot from her when it comes to Spanish!
Then, on another topic, I got thinking about worship songs again. I realized that I’ve heard a lot of worship songs lately that sound like someone just wrote them to sound like a worship song. They have the same terminology, a catchy tune. Some of these songs are hits. But they don’t really say all that much. They’re all alike, more or less. What happened to that personal passion, that awareness of how God is working in our own lives, in our own church? After all He’s done, all He is, why is it that we can only think of singing,”bless the Lord” or “I worship You”?
Sometimes, just sounding “like” something isn’t enough. It’s great for kids learning a language, but eventually they need to learn to say things that are real. Look at the rich tapestry of emotion and praise in the Psalms. We all need that kind of worship that springs up from our encounters with God, His people, His world and His Word. Let’s engage our brains, engage our passions, and really appreciate the Almighty in reverence and awe. Has He done anything for you today?
Narnia and the big screen
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Many of us read CS Lewis’ “The Chronicles of Narnia” series as children. You may be interested to know (if you didn’t already) that the series will be coming to the big screen. The first movie, Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe, is due for release in December.
The production companies involved are Walt Disney Pictures, Walden Media (recently involved in Around the World in 80 Days) and Lamp Post Productions. It’s being directed by Andrew Adamson, director of Shrek and Shrek 2, and filmed largely in New Zealand.
The original children’s series, the first book published in 1950, was highly spiritual, and no doubt the movies will be aimed at a “Christian” audience. What that all means, I’ll leave for you to judge, but it will be interesting to see what happens. Having read the books myself, I viewed the trailer and already saw that some of the key concepts of the book appeared different in the movie. But what do you expect?
If you’re interested, here’s a movie poster. There are some pictures here, mostly just concept art rather than shots from the movie. And here’s the newly released trailer. For a website with lots of movie news, check out NarniaWeb. I learned something at this site. I had no idea there was a C.S. Lewis & Narnia For Dummies
Thanks to Matt and Hailey for letting us know about the trailer.
Hannah’s vlog – almost
Tomorrow Hannah turns four. Today was her birthday party – it just finished, actually.
Earlier today we were going to try to get Hannah to leave you a video blog, but we had technical difficulties. However, for all practical purposes you can still see it – it’s in the photo gallery. In it Hannah talks about her upcoming party and some of what she did to help.
The party went well, and was lots of fun. We’ll show you a few pictures a little later. Thanks to everyone who came! 😀
Click here to download or view Hannah’s video blog (vlog) (about 2.1MB).