Education Starts At Home
This pumpkin is a tribute to patience: my daughter’s and my wife’s.
It took two days to complete. My daughter painted it yesterday and, with my wife’s help, decorated it today.
My daughter was frequently impatient about her pumpkin, but she knew it was worth the wait when she completed it this evening. Her mother helped her learn that lesson. I hope she applies it in the days to come.
My daughter loves the idea of a secret room where only she (and maybe her cousins?) can go.
Today, she built that special space in the middle of the living room. It consists of:
This evening, we will tear it down. Who knows when it will be rebuilt? Sic transit gloria secret clubhouse!
Here’s how I know I need to up my parent game: I have a vague idea of where my daughter’s hare-brained schemes come from, but I don’t know for sure.
Today, she wanted to invent a game. I think was because she got to watch this TV show called BLUEY where such inventive games are de rigueur.
The game involved a Lego Car (which she called a Geico car), a basket we use for two remote controls, and a whole lot of rules.
It’s starting to feel like there’s a division of labor in the child education market. It takes a village, I’ve been told.
Well, our daughter spent Saturday evening with her great aunt and uncle. She was there for about five hours. When we picked her up, she had completed some crafts.
A. I love the dedication from family to have her do something other than watch television.
B. I guess this means that I don’t have to double down on my crafts skills. Even the extended fam has that angle covered!
C. Dig the moustache!
When my daughter eats enough of her dinner, she can have dessert.
Tonight, she showed me her nearly empty plate which she finished long after we’d finished dinner.
“Can I have dessert?” she asked. I assented. She chose an ice cream drumstick. I asked her to eat it at the dinner table.
Watching her, I noticed that after she took her first bite, she raised her hands triumphantly and said, under her breath, “Hurray for ice cream!”
I asked her to confirm what I thought she had said. She did.
What other foods would she celebrate? We got a list.
All these foods are ones she’s eaten at school, a product of a federal grant that has made breakfasts and lunches free for this academic year.
We can regulate the healthy food she eats at home. She has to eat carrots, meat, and fruit before she gets a sweet. If we let school determine her diet, there are no such restrictions. I worry about it.
The truth is that I could change it. I could send her to lunch with food that’s healthier.
But it’s so convenient to have her eat at school!
So if I’m really worried about, guess what I can do? Start acting differently.
This afternoon, my wife and I met with our daughter’s kindergarten teacher. The meeting last thirty minutes and contained the following takeaways.
My wife and I were pleased. Part of us asked, “Is this our daughter?” when the teacher explained that she was easy going and wasn’t easily frustrated any more when she made a mistake. She certainly is still a perfectionist at home, and I doubt she would treat her teacher the way she occasionally treats her mother.
What was the teacher’s advice to us? “Keep doing what you’re doing.”
Of course, that includes more than educational training. It includes truths about the who gave us our intellectual gifts (God), why we need education (sin and ignorance), and what we can do when we know more about God’s world (glorify Him and enjoy Him forever).
My wife and I are very blessed to have an intelligent daughter who loves to learn. She has succeeded during this first quarter because of the help we’ve received from her preschool teachers, her extended family, and, most of all, God. I pray that we continue to help her cultivate the gifts she’s been given. They are considerable.
Every Wednesday, my daughter has a lab session at school where she learns how to use her Chromebook.
When she comes home on Wednesday, she tries to extend what she’s learned.
Today, that consisted of taking photographs and then adding audio commentary. She was trying to replicate the read-along book videos her teacher had recorded, and frankly, she did a decent job.
The first book she read out loud was a Wild Kratts easy reader volume she got from her cousins. The second she displayed? A picture book she had drawn and constructed herself.
My daughter spends her Tuesday and Thursday afternoons with my wife.
Today, she spent a lot of that time picking the last of the season’s vegetables from our garden, preparing them for dinner, and then cooking them together.
My daughter snapped green beans, cut tomatoes, chopped up mushrooms, and helped prepare onions.
When it was time for dinner, she was particularly proud (and hungry)! The meal always tastes a little better when you’ve been part of it.
Back in January, my daughter and I wrote and recorded a song. It was about her.
Today, she wanted to listen to the song and was interested in writing a new one.
I let her pick the topic (our cats), write down some ideas for lyrics, and then jam with me as I played some guitar chords for our future song.
We’ll keep working on it this week and may have a recording done by the end of the week.
My daughter’s artistic impulses produced two big drawings today.
One was a tribute to the book Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! My daughter chose a animated version of the book on DVD as her library selection this morning, and she watched it approximately 752 times. This evening, she came to the dinner table with this.
Her other drawing was more practical. She wanted to send me and my wife on a treasure hunt. That required a map. This is what she came up with.
We followed its basic instruction to discover a treasure box of marbles that she had hidden on a gigantic X out in our backyard.
Neither my wife nor I gave my daughter these prompts. She was self-directed in these art projects today. I enjoyed them both.
Learning Together