Monday, August 15, 2011

Smartypants

Hello Blogworld!  I did not forget, I have just been, well, lazy.  Slacking.  Or, as I like to try to justify it, I've been too busy with "REAL LIFE" to post anything.  Yeah, that sounds good.

So what's new?  I now have a Kindergartener.  Kyra is a bus-riding, backpack carrying, lunch-packing student.  And she loves it.  This kid loves school.  Loves to learn.  She is impatient when it comes to figuring new things out.  She wants to read so badly that she gets mad at me if I help her figure out words.  She wants to be able to do everything that her brother does, and she wants to do it better than he does.

The week before school started, Kyra asked me if they would teach her how to tell time because she wants to be able to do that.  I told her they would and then, while helping Blaine do some online math skills that he was assigned for the summer, I saw that the website he was logged into also had math skills for pre-K and Kindy.  I looked through the topics and saw that in the Kindy skill sets there were units on telling time.  I asked Kyra if she would like to try them.  She flew to the computer and said "YES!".  I explained the long arm and short arm of the clock and what they stood for and started the lesson.  She aced it.  Less than 5 minutes of explanation and she just had it.  No problem.

Kyra learned to tie her shoes the first time she was shown how.  She taught herself to double-knot her shoestrings because she didn't like them coming undone.  She learned times tables because Blaine was learning them and she just hung around and listened.  She taught herself simple addition one day when bored in the back of the car.  It was surprising, to say the least, to have her call out "Hey mom, did you know that 2 plus 2 equals 4? and 4 plus 4 equals 8?"  I complimented her teachers at preschool the next day on advancing math skills so quickly and their response was "Um, we thought you were doing flashcards with her at home...we didn't teach her that".

My brother was like this.  He could grasp new concepts and ideas quickly, with a minimum of explanation.  Now, I'm no dummy, but I have to study and work hard to learn new things.  I was a good student, when I put the effort in.  My brother was a horrible student because learning didn't require effort on his part and he got bored.  I don't want Kyra to get bored.  I ask her everyday when I pick her up how her day was.  She is loving it, but she also says things like "We reviewed the alphabet and the letter sounds but I already know them" and "We are doing numbers but I already know my numbers".  She wants something NEW.  Something she hasn't already learned.  She wants to be challenged.  But because she has the ability to grasp new concepts with one try she is always ready to move onto the next thing, impatient to learn and master as much as she can as quickly as she can.

It's going to be fun.  And exhausting.  And amazing. Pray for me. 

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