The Cappuccino Life

Biruk will be five in a few months.  Time flies!  Of all the boys, his pre-school experience has been by far the least formal and most relaxed.  He knew his alphabet by age two, and recognized and wrote his name at 3, but those were things that happened naturally, not with sit-down lessons.  Same for math.  He did puzzles, he watched his brothers do their schoolwork, he listened in on conversations, and yes he watched videos and played a lot of PBSKids computer activities.  He looked at books, and listened to stories.  He could sound out some simple words without much trouble.  Sometimes, he participated in art projects with the older boys.  Sometimes not.  And like all my children, he was not interested in performing on cue.  Any formal teaching was once in a blue moon, when the stars aligned so that I had paper, crayon, time, and his interest all in the same 2 minutes of time.    He’s a little boy.  That didn’t happen often.  He enjoyed the kindergarten class at our homeschool co-op, but pretty much had no interest in doing the worksheets.  Who wants to write letters when there are 12 other kids and a box of toys in the room???? 

And then, like the others before him, he had his ‘moment’.  Josiah asked if he knew the alphabet.  He said “Of course!”  Josiah challenged him to write the whole alphabet.  I was thinking “Oooh, boy, this could end up being a battle of wills”, because Josiah isn’t so much the “relaxed” type when it comes to academics.

But Biruk did it.

He started off great, and with each letter grew increasingly excited, so that by “D”, he was literally doing a jig after each successful letter.  He needed a little help with “K”, but the rest he did on his own.  This is a child who has never once written the entire alphabet, even with coaching and help.  I’m not sure I even taught him how to write all of the letters myself, as the teaching has been so spotty, as I mentioned. 

And the floodgates are open.  Suddenly, he’s interested in learning and practicing.  Suddenly, he also knows how to draw.  His previous drawings had consisted of scribbles, which he called “explosions”.  Now I get an alligator and an apple, recognizeable and appropriately hued.  (Don’t you love those big pointy teeth?)

The picture I really wanted to show, he hid somewhere.  For the first time in homeschool co-op, he happily participated in the letter of the day.  Wrote ’T’ “big and little” on his own, and then added a perfectly recognizeable table, tiger, and tyrannosaur.  With teeth.  Last night he added stick figures to his repertoire.  (And titled his first people drawing “Jesus Running”)  How did we go from complete refusal to “explosions” to recognizeable drawing and writing with few formal lessons?

With each kid I worry, and with each kid I get reminded.  It isn’t all about me and my super teacher skills (or lack thereof).  Given the opportunity and a supportive environment, kids learn.  They just do.  They’re created to learn.  Apparently we happen to generate kids who do their first, best learning mostly on their own–by observing, listening, experimenting, and maybe a little osmosis too.  At some point they make the leap, mostly on their own, from that type of learning to formal learning.  I have no doubts that Biruk will blow through K5 and 1st grade in one year, just like his older brothers did. 

We’ve figured out what works for us, and I need to stop worrying and enjoy it.