Thursday, April 07, 2011

Little Scholars

Claire and Jacob have been really into doing "Daddy Homework" (a.k.a. their workbooks). It has been interesting to observe and see how differently they learn.

Claire quietly sits (normally at the table, not on the table) and does her work. She will ask instructions on pages she doesn't know, then will sit down and complete the page. If she has questions for me, I can respond with questions that help her learn and figure it out. When she colors, it is neat and in the lines. She takes time and makes sure everything is right.

I think Claire learns very thoroughly and independently - before she's done learning something, she wants to truly know it. She isn't a slow learner by any means. She reminds me very much of my sister, Amber.
Jacob often will start at the table, move to the island, move the the coffee table, back to the kitchen table, and then onto the floor. He goes very quickly through things - he does most things well the first time, but doesn't take the time to color in the lines or make sure lines are straight. Jacob will ask questions and look for help throughout, in part because he whizzes through pages and doesn't try to figure out how to do a page before starting. At the start of a page, his goal is to finish the page.

I consider Jacob to be a very quick learner. He reminds me of myself a little, where he can learn very quickly, but sometimes if it doesn't come right at first, he can lose interest.
It is interesting the way they learn together. Claire is very interested in what Jacob is doing - often, Jacob will complete multiple pages while Claire watches him and participates with him in his workbook page. This is in part because Jacob vocalizes everything, and because Claire is so interested in what he is doing.

Jacob is very competitive - over the last couple weeks, at times, it has become important to him to be ahead of Claire. This has reinforced the decision to put them into different classes next year. That said, I think it will be an advantage to them to be able to learn what the other is learning. I think they will be like my younger brothers, who would give each other math problems at night (though one was 3 years younger than the other) and help each other learn.

We will need to work with the very differently. But it is a lot of fun to watch them learn - both in the structured time we give them and in their own unstructured time playing, coloring, and writing with each other.

1 comments:

Jessica said...

It's so funny how different they are! It will be interesting to see how the next two fit into the mix!