One of my little Otherwise Educated kiddos is an active learner. He is always engaged when we do school, even when he's not particularly enjoying what we're doing. I can tell he's "getting it". The other one...not so much. She is, how can I put this? Well, she's just a little less focused. She is a lot less focused. She completely lacks anything resembling focus. To be more accurate, teaching her is a lot like herding cats. Let's just say that it's a challenge most days. She is always rolling around on the floor, jumping up to follow the gnat that flew by, running to the window to see what caused the sound she heard, stopping mid-assignment to practice a dance step, picking her pencil up off the floor for the 145th time that day. She's not unlike a pinball. There are days when I've considered medication...and not just for her.
It's not that she's not smart. Quite the opposite is true. She is highly intelligent. But like many truly gifted children, her brain just works differently. Every day, I plug along and continue to try to find ways to reach and engage her and to teach her something. I'm never entirely sure she has heard what I've said, let alone retained anything.
However...
You know that we did this little Christmas Around The World Unit Study. When we studied Christmas in Australia, we read that seasons in the Southern Hemisphere are opposite of the seasons in the Northern Hemisphere due to the tilt of the Earth. In Australia, Christmas comes in the summer and Santa arrives in a boat.
So the other day when Thing 4 was out with her daddy, she said, "I think Santa has two coats. A heavy coat for when he's in the Northern Hemisphere and a lighter coat for when he's in the Southern Hemisphere."
Praise the Lord and pass the champagne! She really learned something from me!
No comments:
Post a Comment