Alia's Caught The Learning Fun Bug

This morning while I was getting ready to go get Isaac's cast off, Alia was sitting on my bed brushing her hair.

I kept asking her what time it was.

Alia: "Ummmm, it's 9, 4, 0, Momma."

Me: "What number does 4 and 0 make?"

Alia: "Ummmm, fowaty!"

Me: "Forty, that's right."

Alia: "It's 9, 41 now."

Me: "I need to know how many more minutes until it's 10 o'clock.
Do you know how many minutes are in one hour?"

Alia: "Nope."

Me: "Sixty. There are sixty minutes in one hour, and sixty seconds in one minute.
Can you count to sixty for me?"

Alia proceeds to count rather quickly all the way to sixty and I have to stop her. I'm so surprised that she can count! I haven't spent one minute formally teaching her how to count. Not one.

Me: "Sixty! Good job. That's how many seconds are in one minute."

Alia: "Yep, it is! It's 9:42 now!"

Me: "Okay, so can you tell me how many more minutes I have to wait before it's 10 o'clock?"

Alia: "That's a hawd question, Mommy."

Me: "Actually, it's really easy. The first number tells you the hour, the second two numbers tell you how many minutes have passed in that hour. How many minutes have already passed in the 9th hour?"

Alia: "Fowaty three!"

Me: "Okay, and how many minutes make up one hour?"

Alia: "Sixty!"

Me: "So how many minutes do we have left before we see 10:00?"

Alia: "Well, from fowaty to sixty is twenty so if I take three moa minutes away from that I have...............this is hawrd, Mommy..........seventeen?"

Me: (genuinely surprised) "Oh my goodness! I didn't think you knew how to do math that well! Great job! You know how to tell time."

She came into the bathroom so I could fix her hair after a few more minutes of practicing her newest discovery.

Me: "Alia, I thought you were supposed to be brushing your hair!"

Alia: (starting to laugh) "Mommy, I was thinking so hawd that I fogot all about that!"

It was completely effortless. I've been practicing this kind of "teaching" with each of my kids since Jordan was a newborn. Simply talking, talking, talking to them about everything I'm doing as I'm doing it. They're little sponges just soaking it all up. And they're learning it "practically" so they won't ever forget it. They'll be using the things they learn this way throughout their entire lives, and they've been learning it all just fine naturally up until now. Why should I change it once they reach a particular age, and make something that's been completely natural into a chore? One more thing that has to be "completed" before they can go "play" and truly learn something worthwhile! I can't believe how hard I've been making this. I've figured out that my problem was simply a lack of faith in myself to be a good mother. I've always known that I couldn't be a teacher, and everyone would always say, "Well, since the Lord has led your family to homeschool, He'll give you the grace to become one." Nope. He gave me the grace to be my children's mother, and that, I've found, is 100% sufficient.