An Abundance of Learning

Discovery: Delightful moments of learning are not planned, but they are abundant.

For the past week, the boys have fallen sick like dominoes-- one right after the other. As a result, there wasn't much official homeschooling going on, and my teacher brain was making dire predictions. Needlessly.

Early yesterday morning, I sat by the fire rubbing Denver's back. It occurred to me that he might like to play a game I remembered from childhood. I whispered, "See if you can tell what I'm writing." I then drew a capital D on his back.

"D!" he said, smiling. I continued spelling out the word Denver. Then we tried some more. He decided it was his turn, and he wrote Batman and zombie on my back. We had fun. It probably only lasted 15 minutes. But the boy who says he "hates" homeschool had a smiling, giggly, snuggly time with Momma that we won't forget.

Later in the day, Spencer was playing Minecraft. Since he was clearly well enough to enjoy the game, I was strongly tempted to give him orders about work to do. Luckily, when he began asking me how to spell several words, I took the time to notice what he was doing. He was writing a book in his Minecraft world! It was a book of directions to tell others how to build certain things. I'm really glad I didn't ask him to stop writing in order to go learn something.



Two buddies showing off
their new footie pajamas.



Later in the day, John Robert and I played a game of dominoes. Denver wanted to play, too. I tried to include him, but the need to add numbers quickly and try to find multiples of five was a little too much for him. Instead, he drew dominoes for us out of the pile and watched intently as we talked about and played the game. I don't know what he learned, but I hope he saw that we were using numbers and counting to have fun. And it was fun. Even though I lost!

Finally, late last night Spencer and Denver and I settled down near the fire again. The boys were playing with pilgrim figurines while I read a Magic Treehouse book about the first Thanksgiving. We all loved it, and the boys stopped the story several times to ask questions and share their thoughts. I am still amazed at Denver's recent focus on listening. Last year, he could scarcely sit still while I read to him. But lately, he is riveted.

After the story, the boys watched a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving while I went to sleep. I woke up to find us all on the floor of the livingroom together under piles of blankets. Lady was on her bed in the foyer nearby-- snoring.

So much to be grateful for.