Little Learning Surprises

Look!  A Tiny Santa!
Denver insisted on making a soft landing in preparation for the real Santa.

The days are filled with little learning surprises.
For the past couple of weeks, Spencer has been doing most of his writing work on the computer. He really likes it, so I'm fine with his decision. It has been two years since I tried to teach him keyboarding skills. He became frustrated and stopped. I became accustomed to watching all three of the boys use the hunt and peck method. They're pretty quick.

This week, Spencer began asking me strange questions: "Where is the G? . . . Where is the M?" I walked closer and noticed he was holding his fingers on the keyboard the way I had once taught him. He held his eyes on the screen and was trying to memorize the location of the letters. He was making lots of mistakes, but didn't seem frustrated; just curious and persistent.
"Use your left index finger to find the G by sliding it over one key to the right. The M is a little trickier. Right index finger down one row and slightly right."
"Which one is the index finger again?"
"The pointing finger."
"Okay. Got it!"

That's been going on almost every day. Will he learn keyboarding that way? I don't know. But I am sure of one thing: he will learn that he CAN learn keyboarding. For right now, that is enough.

Spencer's concentration on keyboarding has led him to other questions: why was the keyboard designed this way? Why aren't the letters in alphabetical order? Is there a better design? We talked about the few things I knew, and he can learn more when and if he wants to.

Little learning surprises ... Every day.