“We often joke that when we’re not skiing, our family is talking about skiing. We suspect we’re not the only ones.”
So I begin a recent article published on the Liftopia blog.
And it’s true, even after the ski clothes are washed and dried, our skis are resting in the garage and our boots are dried out and buckled up for summer, we still like to talk about skiing!
(For more on spring cleaning for skiers, click here!)
Thus I was thrilled when I got an assignment to put together a checklist for families to do three things: 1) Recap the ski season and 2) Record progression and 3) Set goals for next season.
I was so thrilled that I added an additional section on preserving all these questions and the astounding answers you’ll receive on video and paper.
Who doesn’t need some skiing-related crafts to do this summer?
Recapping the Ski Season
Set aside a time to talk to your kids about skiing, together or one-on-one, and ask them what they most enjoyed, what they didn’t like and what special memories they have from this past winter.
Pore over trail maps and relive special moments.
Charting Progression
While recapping the season is fun, charting progression is useful. If your kids took lessons this winter, you may have a report from their instructors regarding what to do next in terms of lessons.
If not, together with your child, create your own progression report. Ask your child questions about the skills he or she learned this winter. Ask what was the best thing she learned, what does he want to learn next winter, and most importantly, what do they need to remember from this season to help them ski their best next season. A full list of questions is available here.
Record these answers on paper, video or audio and use them later for an easy review and point of reference.
Setting Goals
We all know how to do this! Let your imaginations run wild. Goals may be as straightforward as learning to ride a halfpipe or ski a blue run.
Even if some of the goals aren’t attainable next season (Ski Japan! Win the Olympics!), writing them down is important and you can also use them to spur further discussion about what it would take to make these big goals a reality.
Building Memories
My oldest son graduates from college this week! Seriously. And while you may think you’ll remember all of your family’s ski seasons — and you will — even the clearest remembrances can become blurry.
And while we still thoroughly enjoy skiing with our son — and we ski with him a lot — I would love to have his impressions of his earliest seasons to revisit. I think he would, too.
We have photos and video of those earliest days, but we don’t have any audio (we didn’t have smart phones!), so we can’t revisit his or his brother’s young voices talking about skiing.
But I wish we could.
It would have been fun to record some of our talking…about skiing and life.
Enjoy!
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