As I sat watching tv one afternoon my oldest kiddo began using one of my chairs as a drum. Because my home is oh-so-clean, the dust flew in all directions in the light from the window. And, like moths to a flame, so kids to dirt will fly. My first instinct was to stop it from happening. After all, this is dirt we're talking about and who wants the condition of their house thrown in their face? But then I saw the wonder in their eyes. And the excitement. And I let it roll. Afterwards we discussed particles, light, hidden dirt, germs. Oh, the science lessons.
This playtime got me pondering all the learning that happens while we're just livin'. I started thinking about some of the things that have become routine, but that my kiddos have learned from along the way. And I thought I'd share a few with you.
Like, how at night, when everybody was tucked into bed and we turned out the light everyone would cry that they couldn't see. So we play a game now. When we turn out the light, everybody closes their eyes and counts to 10, we do this in English and Spanish (just depending on our mood). This teaches numbers, but we also used the first few times of wonderment to explain how our eyes work. We brought out a flashlight and showed the kids with our own pupils how they get large in the dark and shrink in the light and how that affects our vision. We talked about nocturnal animals and our kitty cat's night vision.
Every time my kids get temporary tattoos (and my goodness, it's more than I'd like!) while we're waiting with the washcloth on their arm we sing the alphabet song twice. This makes waiting easier since they're distracted and even my youngest ones can sing the alphabet after a few times.
While preparing our turkey to put into the oven my boys went spelunking with their flashlight (and, well, because their mama's a bit of a blogging nut) my oldest also had to document his experience with his camera.
After eating hot wings one night my boys asked if they could make a bag of bones with chicken bones. "Absolutely not," was my immediate reply. And then I thought - what could we learn from this? So I caved. I boiled them and bleached them and dried them. Oh, the excitement of being "archaeologists."
There was the time we drank hot tea plain and then added milk and honey to try and grasp the imagery of a land promised to flow with milk and honey.
The learning is all around us if we just pay attention. If I just let go of my mama instinct of "absolutely not, are ya kidding me?" If i just try to remember how the world looked up close when I was so little. If I can just recapture the desire to discover. If I can just stop worrying about all that fancy curriculum I don't own and live in all those wonder-filled moments.
Guess How Much I Love You
