At what age do children show empathy?
To give myself a bit of a break on the weekend, I’d checked the weather report and it looked grim, so I booked my daughter and hubby into the Cinema to see How to Train Your Dragon 2. She’d watched the first one and has also watched How to Train Your Dragon Legends on Netflix along with countless other kids films on there.
Textbook lesson in ‘How to Do A Sequel.’
My husband came home and raved about it, saying it was just as good if not better than the first. He said she was sitting on the edge of her seat most of the time smiling, totally taken by the story. However, I don’t want to spoil it for you, but there was a part that made her cry, apparently someone dies but I’m not going to tell you who. It sounds like the writers have taken it to a deeper darker level, maybe they realise the children who watched the original in 2010 have grown up a bit. As I haven’t seen it, do you think it’s too dark for littlies?
Personally, I think it’s a sign of a good movie if it can make you laugh, cry or think.
With School Holidays looming, I’m doing my usual panic of things to do, especially if it rains. I’ve been trolling the net looking for Dragon Activities and was inspired by the movie How to Train a Dragon 2 and it’s characters.
All Things Dragon – How to Survive Summer Holidays
How to Get Rid of Hiccups
Teach her how to get rid of hiccups by drinking a glass of water upside down. I’ve done this for years and it really does work.
Create a Joke Book
How to Train Your Dragon Jokes – my daughter is really into jokes at the moment. We may sit down and create our own Joke Books and see if we can make Toothless Laugh.
Shadow Puppets
We hope to do a fair amount of camping this summer and shadow puppets are genius at night in the tent with a torch. You can find instructions and a template for making your own at the British Museum.
Play a Game of Tag
If we can get a few of her friends around I love the idea of playing Dragon Tag. It requires to teams, children form a human chain, with a scarf as a tail and try to steal each other’s tails. Chains can’t become separated.
Learn a New Song
I may take the opportunity to introduce her to one of my all time favourites ‘Puff the Magic Dragon’ by Peter, Paul and Mary.
Bake a Cake
Personally I think this one would push me over the edge, but if we’re really desperate we could have a go at making this Dragon Cake.
Dragon Boat Festival
I’ve never been to one but I’d love to check out a Dragon Boat Festival.
I really have gone off on a tangent but now have a few more things in my arsenal to survive the school holidays. :-)