Sometimes you'll hear homeschoolers talking about their younger children absorbing all this great information as they "listen in" on what the bigger kids are doing. They follow along, wanting to be like big brother or big sister, and get all these great educational benefits from just being there. Doesn't that sound nice?
I thought so too, but my five-year-old doesn't read the same blogs that I do. He's not really the "sit and listen" type, at least not for long stretches of time and only if there are pictures involved. He spends much of big brother's school time building things, destroying things he built with lots of sound effects, or putting together puzzles.
He surprised me today, however, when he came to me and said, "Mama, I'm going to build the city of Troy with my legos. And the big horse too."
Oooh, look at that! He was listening! He's absorbing! I am the greatest homeschool mom ever!
"That's great buddy! I love that idea. I can't wait for you to show me."
He comes back later with a large base plate and a square-ish structure roughly in one corner. I ask, "Wow, is this the wall, or is it a building?"
He looks at me like I'm a little dense, "No, this is a building. The wall will go here," and traces his finger around the outside of the base plate.
"Ok," I say. "This looks good."
"Yeah," he says, pointing to some lego bricks sticking out of the top of the building. "And these are the laser guns and this is a security camera."
Um.... maybe not absorbing quite so much?
"That's neat buddy, but you know, they didn't have lasers or guns or cameras in ancient Troy. That story is from a really, really long time ago."
"Yeah, but it seemed like they needed more security."
Can't argue with his logic, can I?
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