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    Car games

    October 9th, 2012

    G and I have gotten in a routine now where we play word games while we drive to/from school. Our repertoire has mostly consisted of number swaps, guess the animal, and some rhymes, but today we expanded to “what doesn’t belong”. Today, as we did “what doesn’t belong” I just was blown away by how stinkin’ smart this kid is. I mean he is, but actually seeing it in action just makes me giddy happy and proud. Plus I get to high-5 myself, because I feel like I’m educating during our car-trips, and he’s having a good time, so it’s kind of a win-win.

    Our number swaps are when we alternate counting. He can go up to 33. I tried counting backwards once, but he doesn’t quite get that concept yet so we’re working on it. I also want to do alphabet swaps, but that one is a work in progress. He can sing his ABCs (with a whole lot of letters in random places) but when it comes to letter swaps, we get as far as B. Like I said, work in progress.

    He also likes rhyming. This isn’t something I taught him: he just started doing it on his own, but it’s impressive. We’re expanding vocabulary which is good, but lemme tell you, I can’t quite rhyme on the spot.

    Tonight I added “what doesn’t belong”. I would give him 3 items, 1 of which doesn’t belong, and he has to identify it AND tell me why it doesn’t belong. The kid is good, dude. I even started doing some tricky ones like “the color yellow, the sun, and lettuce”. He called out lettuce because it wasn’t yellow. He even stumped me with one and I had to give it to him “fire truck, dump truck and crane”. To me crane stood out, because it wasn’t a truck, but he pointed out that the dump truck doesn’t have an extending arm. He wins!

    G also asks some really great questions, which quite frankly leave me a little stumped… mostly because I need to find a good way to explain concepts to a level he can visualize. The other day he asked me how the sun rises. Not why, or when, but how. So explaining earth curvature along with rotation was a bit beyond what I was ready to discuss at 7:10am.

    S2 meanwhile so far is mainly absorbing. He plays “guess the animal” with us, but his repertoire is a little limited. In another few years car rides will be interesting, though, for sure!

    So tonight I’m going to bed thinking that my children are geniuses… mostly because no-one has burst my bubble by telling me all these things are common amongst the 4yr old crowd.