A Towel Folding Exhibition

I have mentioned in a previous blog that Alex and Luke's teacher taught his class to fold towels like a professional. I know you have all been waiting to see the pictures of this amazing feat and a couple of days ago we were afforded with the perfect opportunity.

The boys are starting their swim class at school after the fall break and I ordered them some towels with their name on it to try to get them excited about learning how to swim. The towels were finished this week and I gave them the towels as a surprise. They were very excited to get them and very eager to show off their towel folding skills in a Bethancourt Towel Folding Competition.

It ended up being an interesting exercise where the kids personalities really came out. Here's the play-by-play:

With the blue towel...we have Alex. Alex folded his towel with great precision and was very thorough, checking that his corners matched 2 or 3 times before he would move on to the next fold. In the end, he turned in consistently good results but his time was slowed by his perfectionist tendancies.

With the yellow towel...we have Isaac. Now as a disclaimer, Isaac's teacher has not taken the time to show her class the towel folding process in such detail and does have such rigorous quality control standards as Luke and Alex's teacher. So he was a little raw in the contest. By the end he was getting it with a little coaching, but by and large his results were always affected by his need to be first to finish. If he thought he was getting behind, he would often sacrifice quality to turn in his folded towel before his brothers.

With the red towel...we have Luke. With his laid back personality, the pressure of the competition didn't get to him. He went through the process and worked each step with speed and accuracy. He came out the winner of the towel folding competitions all but one time.

With the green towel...we have Jack. Not much to say about Jack's results other than he's 2 and he mainly was involved because he likes to do whatever his brothers do.

And the results after the first round...

After a couple rounds of practice, mainly for Isaac, here were the results. (I folded Jack's towel)

All I can say is that the boys newly acquired skills are really going to come in handy this week as we are staffless due to the Idul Fitri holiday and I am going to need some help around the house. And if they can do this, who knows what else I may teach them this week to help get things done around the house.