Learning Happens All the Time

I walked in on Little Brother learning. It happens all the time. I can't coerce it or make it happen. Learning is about the child, not the teacher. One can teach, but it does not guarantee learning. Environment is everything. The materials, the culture, the opportunites must be available. Of those three things, culture is perhaps the most important; the passing on of traditions, expectations, and a safe place to grow. A child can have the most beautiful materials in the world, but if he is not given a culture that shows how to use those materials, chaos can abound. Not that chaos is always a bad thing. Its part of the process of understanding and making order of one's world.

Little Brother sees the grid in Legos and understands that he can use this order to understand addition.

In our home, this is what our culture looks like: We read a lot. We appreciate the arts in all their forms, science and religion, nature. We experience these things even though we do like to read! We actually get out and get our feet muddy searching the creek bank for fossils and frogs. The point is that there is an implicit understanding in our home that certain things are desirable and expected, yet coersion and contrived teaching are not part of them. At least, I try... last week wasnt my best week. ;)

Then he discovers he can mulitiply...which is very much like addition.

Nevertheless, I walk into a room and see Little Brother using his Legos as an addition, multiplication and money abacus. He never received a formal lesson about this but was able to put this all together because he has environment, materials and culture.

Then Little Brother digs out his money box and uses his legos like an abacus. He totals up $1.64.

Unrelated, but part of our home's culture! The Double Cross Cat Hairy Eye.