Conversations

Today, I drove my daughter to my parents. We spent time about three hours of daddy/daughter time in the car and in my parents’ pool. As she is wont, my daughter talked a lot.

Today, I struck by her questions.

Me (in the car): “We’re going to listen to this lecture on literature for awhile.”

Her: “What’s a lecture?”

Me: “Well, it’s like a sermon at church, but it doesn’t have to be about God. A person tells you about something, and you sit there and learn.”

Her: “Well, when Curious George got in trouble, the narrator said he was going to get a lecture.”

Me: “What do you think the person was going to talk to Curious George about?”

Her: “Being bad?”

I love that she was able to remember the context for the word. She probably *has* heard me lecture (to her about being good), though given my academic associations with the word, I probably wouldn’t have seen that before.

Later in the pool, my daughter was pretending to herd sheep.

Her: “What’s the difference between a farmer and a cowboy?”

Me: “A farmer stays in one place with crops or animals. A cowboy is on the move. At least, I think that’s it.”

Her: “I’m a cowboy!”

Over the past few weeks, my daughter has shown tremendous growth in her reading skills. Today, she showed curiosity about the meanings of words in ways that I couldn’t have planned or expected.

My general takeaway is that I have to make time every day for her to talk with me that isn’t just a grill session: “What did you learn today?” “What did you do today?” The above conversations were the result of us having experiences together.

When she was younger, I would ask to play school with her and make her the teacher in order to find out what she was learning. I may have to do that again when she starts school next week.