sherrildr2000

My DD Faith and I had a talk tonight, I asked her what she was
interested in learning, she told me, the history about the 1950's.
She also wants to learn more about reading and world history. She is
into baking.

She did a lot of play this week. We enjoyed the last day of the
spray park with some other HS kids. We also enjoyed a day at the
beach with HS kids.

Today she started messing around with some old phonics computer
games, they are way to easy for her. She really enjoyed them,
however. We laid on my bed and took turns making up a sentence for a
story about a Dog named Fart, we laughed and laughed. She and I were
talking about herds of animals and we tried to think of how many were
in a herd. I showed her how to look it up in the dictionary.
Apparently they don't teach that in 3rd grade. We took her out of
school last Feb. during 3rd grade. We also read a book she is
interested in. She counted hops around the pool as well. We had a
really nice day.

She is also enjoying being the main caretaker of a 10 week old foster
puppy we picked up from the surrender on tuesday. Of course she
wants to keep it, however we are at the town limit. The puppy is
being adopted next sunday. So we are doing volunteer work as well.

Do you think we are on the right track?

Sherri in NJ
DH John
DD Faith 9

Meredith

--- In [email protected], "sherrildr2000"
<sherrildr@...> wrote:
>
> My DD Faith and I had a talk tonight, I asked her what she was
> interested in learning

I can't imagine asking one of my kids what they are interested in
learning. If one of them is seeming bored I might ask if there's
anything in particular they want to *do*, or just try spending more
time with them, be more a part of the daily "doing" and see what
directions they are going in, where they get stuck, what's
inspiring, and then look for ways to support that process.

Learning isn't something you have to think about doing or choose to
do - its a natural part of living life.

It sounds like you have a pretty full life! Puppies and cooking and
beaches. Laughing and talking and reading and thinking. Playing
games. All good stuff - and all Full of learning, every moment. You
don't need to look for ways to add to that right now. If she's busy
and happy, that's great!

> I showed her how to look it up in the dictionary.

This sort of thing happens pretty naturally in my house. It took
awhile for it to "feel" natural with my stepson, who left school at
13, so for awhile we'd kind of skimp on "how to find this out for
yourself" sorts of information. We'd just tell him what he wanted to
know. Nowadays he'll come and ask "how do I find a recipe for pizza
dough?" or whatever and we'll show him how to look up the
information. But then again, *I* might ask him "how do I find out
what bands Richard Thompson has played in over the course of his
career?" and Ray will show me.

> Do you think we are on the right track?

It sounds like you are learning to let go and live more naturally.
That's great!

Its a process. It takes time to get out of the habit of thinking in
terms of "learning experiences" or "teachable moments" or whatever.

For now, continue to work on seeing the learning that happens in
normal, natural, everyday sorts of things - in everyday sorts of
Play! Not just "academic" learning, but learning about emotions,
ideas, and preferences. About communication, problem solving, and
awareness. So much of that learning happens under and around the
stuff we call "play" that its easy to miss or disregard.

---Meredith (Mo 7, Ray 14)