Welcome to Skylands!

Thinking about Skylanders has always made me smile. Last Spring, I began my collection after attending the opening day celebration of the Downtown SF's Microsoft Store. Because I had won a $25 gift certificate and they had 20  percent off grand opening promotion, I knew what I wanted! New Xbox 360 games!  I really didn't know which games I wanted exactly. . Something filled with adventure and treasure hunting was a must. The Microsoft Store employees sold me on Skylanders Giants! They played the game themselves so I picked a few characters I thought looked cool plus the game starter pack. It was such a great deal on the set!

Of course to my brother's credit, he told me about the first series,  Spyro's Adventures. 

Spyro is one cool dragon! Since dragons are one of my favorite mystical creatures I was already interested.  Especially when I found out my other favorite mystical creature, unicorns, are also in Skylands! Whirlwind is pretty cool! He even told me about Gamestop employee exclusive figures!! LUCKY! My brother also explained to me how the system worked. There were many characters from various elements needed to unlock doors to treasure.  There were various versions of each character. Legendary Skylanders were rare exclusive ultra powered types. There were also seasonal holiday themed Skylanders that were limited edition specials as well as store exclusives found only at Toys R Us, Walmart, Target and Game Stop.  

Whirlwind: Part Unicorn part Dragon!

  

 

Legendary Trigger Happy  

Springtime Trigger Happy (Swap Force - Seasonal)

I continued to visit the Microsoft Store to buy more Skylanders. Every time employees saw my face they would disapear quickly into the back to bring me a selection not on the shelves. Once I collected all the characters I thought were cool from the Microsoft Store, I told myself, "Ok I'm done! This is how my collection looked last Spring! You will see what it looks like now at the end of this post!

One of my online gamer friends in Norway showed me a picture of his collection on Facebook. He had every single Skylander both normal, rare and legendary types!  I was shocked how much he invested into his collection because there is no Toys R Us  Norway! He relied heavily on inflated eBay prices and high international shipping to obtain his collection. He said his collection was well over 2k U.S. Dollars! YIKES! ! That's dedication!

Ket's 2013 collection

It was not until August 2013 that I met a boy in a new school I worked at with a Skylanders shirt and shoes! I yelled from across the playground, "Look it's Eruptor!! His jaw dropped and he ran over to me. He said "How you know this is?" Once I told him I owned Eruptor he told me each and every new Skylanders he owned! He said his legendary bouncer was his best one. I was really happy with my Tree Rex but he said there was a special one coming soon. When I bought Gnarly Tree Rex I couldn't wait to tell him. He laughed when I was cheering about the other new additions to my collection.  He high fived me for finally finding Ninjini ... well my brother did! She is a ninja/genie with two katanas...we both said, "That's so cool!" He said I should have done the pre order for Scarlett Ninjini because she was "so so so so so strong!"  

During our classroom circles many of the children without Skylanders would ask to see videos of the characters personalities. The cartoons shorts were really funny. When Swap Force was released, I told the boy I wasn't interested. ..but then he told me about how you can swap the parts of the swappable friends making 256 combos!

The boy mentioned to me how he would dress as Spyro for Halloween. Since there were two versions I showed him on my tablet to verify which Spyro he would choose. He choose the outfit that was fully covered so he could Ram Charge.like Spyro. He giggled when he mentioned  how funny the pink on the costume was. He said it wasn't too much but even if Spyro was all pink he would still like it! (While this Spyro appears purple, he said it looked more pink in person!)

During Black Thursday, Skylanders Swap Force was marked down from 75.00 to 35.00, so I finally decided to invest in Skylanders again. I bought the Swap Force starter pack and multiple Skylanders for 40 percent off. Another great deal! This is how my swap force yet looked back in November.

As the boy and I continued to compare our Skylanders each time I arrived at his school, our conversations were so high energy I forgot I was a teacher. Rather than remind the children to rest during nap time, the boy and I told stories of  the Skylands with the star night light nd flashlights on. Some children contributed to our stories with the knowledge they carried of Skylanders.  Others listened intently to find out what happened to Kaos the bad boy. They had trouble deciding if he was a big kid or a little big kid because he was so short, bald and always needed his mom's help to stop the Skylanders!

Kaos and his Mommy

All of January, I was assigned to another school. When I returned in February to my fellow Skylander's school,  I came into the room with my Eruptor plush keychain. The boy stared at it before looking up at me. I patted him on the head and saying, "Hey you Skylander!" He nodded and then poked me hard. He stomped his foot and said, "Hey! Where were you??" I laughed and said the other school down the street! He laughed and asked if any kids were Skylanders fans. I told him a bunch! I asked him if he was still my Skylander friend and he said yes! He took his strategy guide from his cubby and showed me all of his Skylanders. He pointed to two he did not have. Scratch,  Fire Bone Hot Dog  and Stink Bomb. It took me tons of camping Toys R Us, Target and Wal-Mart to find them! The store employees in the video game section would cheer me on and give me search tips for those three if they saw them in other stores around town. I ended up finding Fire Bone Hot Dog and Scratch at Walmart and picked up the last Stink Bomb at Target. He is awesome! A Ninja Skunk!!  What more could one ask for? Stealth and Funk ability. That's awesome!

Fire Bone Hot Dog

Scratch

Stink Bomb

While the boy was amazed I found Scratch, . .yes that was the last one in stock also! He asked me if he could use my phone to call his parents so they could put it in his Easter basket. Scratch really is the ultimate cat warrior griffin. Seriously, this game has the characters with the coolest personalities! Here are some items I found at Target and Toys R Us showing how children could have a very Skylander/Pop Culture filled Easter!

An update to traditional Easter Baskets

For those of you who are wondering why I did not include Disney Infinity - it was released after the clear success of Skylanders Giants launched. The only reason I would buy a figure is if the planned Captain EO figure is actually released.  I don't want the game only the Captain EO figure! I have noticed that children who do not have Skylanders have Disney Infinity because their parents play/love Disney and even a few have both. My Pre K Skylander friend's father figured out I was the teacher his son always talked to about Skylanders. His father was upset because he had spent so much money on his son's collection. I did ask him to work on building and creating new stories with the characters. That did very well because now his Skylanders have a new life and purpose outside of game play. Video games create a space for children to build stories from their own experiences with the journeys they experience through game character's lives. Whether the experience is comical or tragic, children are learning what it means to live with choices they make, whether good or bad and draw strength and courage to make the right decision that places them one step closer to who they want to become. 

MJ x Hakuna Matata x Let it Go!

Michael Jackson as Captain EO

Disneyland's Tomorrowland is the first spot my brother and I run to inside the park. Its the home of Space Mountain and Captain EO! Some of the children I work with told me they checked out Captain EO with their parents. Many of their parents, also Michael Jackson fans, said they were glad their child got to see "Beat it Michael." 

When I look through multiple music videos and interviews from actors and music artists, I see and hear influences MJ has left on the lives of us all - whether music video, blogging and even online reviews of music and games can be traced to what MJ brought to artistic visual - creative expression through music.

There is also a change going on with Disney music in animated films. More children are singing along to their favorite songs at school. Home culture is appearing in the classroom through their favorite cartoons, movies and musical artists. When I was a child, Hakuna Matata, Under the Sea and A World New World were the melodies my classmates and I hummed in my classroom. I do not recall teachers or children singing or humming Disney songs quietly to themselves or with us. But teachers always sang Michael Jackson, Aerosmith, Metallica, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Prince and Queen songs in the classroom. Notice the rock and soul trend the teachers were interested in back then?

  

In today's classroom, some of the children sing their version of songs they hear on their parents' radio in the car, Pandora and iheartRadio apps from Imagine Dragons,  Katy Perry,  Adele, Beyonce and Rihanna. One boy in one of my Pre - K classes, wants to become a singer. He always says Adele is his idol and can sing all of her songs verbatim. He prefers to use the classroom CD or iPod for melody but will sing "Rolling in the Deep" in acapella if you make a respect during outside time. He prefers a large audience of teachers and children watching rather than singing for only one person.

Since January, this boy has recently gotten into singing Frozen's Let it Go and Do you wanna build a Snowman? He and his classmates sing the song together repeatedly throughout the day. One change I have noticed over the past two months are children adding in Elsa's exact movements to Let it Go - They ask me to tie their jackets or sweaters around their body like a shawl and they rip it off and smile while singing the line, "Let the storm rage on, the cold never bothered me anyway." 

While singing Anna's, Do you wanna to build a snowman? The children jump around the room and then lay on the floor watching the clock like Anna, while singing, "I think some company is overdue I've started talking to the pictures on the walls- (Hang in there, Joan!) It gets a little lonely All these empty rooms, Just watching the hours tick by- (Tic-Tock, Tic-Tock, Tic-Tock, Tic-Tock, Tic-Tock)"

Sometimes the children leading the songs will stop the children and make them start from the beginning if the song is inaudible or the words are out of order. Even if the child mixes up or omits lyrics, the children stay in sync with the rhythm of the characters voices and their verbal and non verbal language throughout the song.

From The Little Mermaid, I do hear children singing Ariel's "Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh" to give their voice to Ursula or the child who deems herself as a powerful witch.

When the children in my Pre K class are happy they sing:
Hatuna Makata - What a wonderful day!!

They are quickly corrected by the Adele singing child," No no start again that's wrong!"

The children giggle and sing even louder

It means no worries for rest of your daaaaays its our problem beees papeepeee!

He interjects, "NOOOOO nonono! Like this!" He puts his hands up to conduct and sings:

Hakuna Matata, what a wonderful phrase, Hakuna Matata Aint no passing craze, It means no worries for the rest of your daaaaays. Its our problem free philosophy Hakuna Matata! He leads the other children and prances around the room just as Timon, Pumbaa and Simba do in the sequence when Simba is growing up. 

While many teachers whose classrooms I work in tell me, "We have too much Disney in our lives so no more singing!" As I reflect on all the Disney moments mentioned in this post that children have chosen to emulate and experience sorrow, joy, pain and growing up. These Disney songs provided children with opportunities to role play and embody the qualities of their beloved characters they admire. It is more than a child just having too much Disney or too much of anything they love, it is about children understanding how their lives intersect with what they are interested in and knowledge they need to learn as they grow older. Through media, their popular culture artifacts and their imagination, children can extend the adventures of their favorite characters and create new adventures for themselves continuing the journey with that character. 

A Purple Crayon, Children's Imagination and Superman

A Purple Crayon is a nod to a child's imagination that all of us should cherish even as we age. One of my brother's customers had a little brother, now in his early 20's, who when asked as a child, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" consistently answered, "A purple crayon." As a child, he did not explain his reasoning. As a man, his reasoning is simple, "Shut Up!" While my brother and the customer laughed at the response, when I was told the story, I reflected on all the children I have worked with. No one wanted to become an object always a professional or a person such as "A doctor," "A [insert job] like Mommy/Daddy/other family member," "Mommy," "Daddy," or their older sibling.  Even when I think about my own childhood, looking through photo albums I was a fairy godmother, photographer, a gymnast, a teacher, an artist and a race car driver. Even now, I really enjoy dragons and unicorns but I do not think I wanted to become one as an adult. Why become someone or something permanently when you can continually change who you are through the video games you play, stories you create, books you read and the movies you watch? The idea of growth and change were qualities I embraced throughout my childhood and adulthood. It was what my mother instilled in both my brother and I throughout our childhood and adolescence. Through my favorite stories I read and watched I did become a dragon and unicorn: The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle, (check out his page here. Hopefully he will come back to San Francisco soon! He is a wonderful person to meet and speak with so hopefully you get an opportunity to meet him as well!) The Baby Unicorn and The Flight of Dragons being my top three childhood favorites.

Another childhood favorite! Does anyone else remember the adventures of this brave mouse? 

Back to purple crayons. I still find it intriguing he chose purple specifically. He could have said an expected color such as red or blue (I am referring to cartoons such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and Voltron where the popular characters are usually wearing these colors) but he chose purple. While many associate purple with royalty and power, I wonder what this child associated purple with. Maybe Barney? He was one popular dinosaur when his television show premiered. But we will never really know his reasoning. So how do we as educators promote a child's growing imagination? First, we must remember and reflect on our childhood to appreciate the dreams and wonders children hold dear. Second, providing children a secure space to freely become whoever they choose to be without labels or restrictions on their identity. 

During my childhood, I was indecisive about my favorite color. I liked them all! One thing I knew for sure was my tastes in stories, cartoons and video games. My love of RPGs (Role Playing Games) and later MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games) began with watching Star Wars, Thundercats, Silverhawks, Macross (introduced to U.S. audiences as Robotech) The Last Unicorn, The Flight of Dragons, The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit animated features with my family. I did not realize until my adult years that the Japanese animation studio illustrating these animated features later reformed after bankruptcy and became Studio Ghibli, home of Miyazaki Hayao's animated features such as My Neighbor Totoro, Nausicaa of the Wind and what he has deemed his last film The Wind Rises.  

   

From the animated features pictured above, my interests in Anime, Japanese Animation, styled cartoons grew to include my interests in the video game franchises Phantasy Star and Final Fantasy. Phantasy Star first appeared on Sega Master System. Does anyone remember that system? I still remember when my mother first brought it home for my brother and I. Excitement! Ever since then, we owned every game console on exception of the Sega Genesis and Neo Geo. The photos below are from the game cover and a promotional artwork. Myau, was my favorite character in this series who gained an ability later on in the story to fly your party members to the fortress above the clouds. If you are interested, check out a Phantasy Star Saga fan page here. 

While many of us are able to revisit many wonderful memories from our childhood through looking at these images, images, brands and icons are ever present in children's lives. When you take your first education class do you remember the instructor mentioning children know icons before they can read? Coming from a family who read Marvel Comics daily, I knew exactly who this was before I knew the McDonald's icon. 

Superman, Spiderman and Batman I saved for last because they are representative of the power icons hold in children's lives. With recent movie additions over the past four years, these characters are well known to children's school gear, dramatic play, storytelling and at times problem solving in the Pre - K class: "Good guys save the day and bad guys go to jail so we are all good guys right?" Some educators I spoke with about their class favorite superheroes, they told me how violent capturing bad guys is. It seems children's love of superheroes gets lost in violence moving the focus from one's duty to be responsible, protect and care for others. When I graduated from undergrad, we were given the opportunity to vote on three commencement speakers, Steven Spielberg, Oprah and Christopher Reeve. Each of these individuals would have been a wonderful speaker but we all felt so honored to see and hear Christopher Reeve. We all wore Superman icons on our gowns; buttons, iron patches and "S" icon balloons adjourned many of our gowns while others wore "S" shirts under their gowns. Everyone was decked out in something with the "S!" 

When Christopher Reeve rolled up in his wheelchair, many of us had tears running down our cheeks. We were so high in the football stands but we could see him clearly. The stadium was silent as he adjusted his microphone before he spoke. He was smiling. He told us to persevere through all obstacles to reach our goal. The hard work would pay off in the future and to keep trying our best to reach our goals. When he finished his speech all of us jumped up to applaud and reveal our Superman gear if the gown was concealing it. Our school of scarlet and grey was covered in red and blue as he exited. I could not wait to tell my mother and brother who were somewhere in the stadium also watching and listening. When I managed to find them after the ceremony, my brother and I cheered and to this day are still so appreciative we got to hear him as my graduation speaker. The following year when we heard the news announcement that he had passed away, we were saddened and reflected on how he really was a Superman through his philanthropy, activism and using his celebrity to bring awareness to world issues. As for the children we work with who enjoy superheroes, just think they could become the next Christopher Reeve or grow up into a young adult who was a child who simply loved purple crayons.