What Did You Learn Today?

I can’t remember who used to play this game. At dinner every night someone would ask “So, what did you learn today?” Everyone would go around and talk about something new they discovered or learned. Kinda neat.

We’ve started to play this game at our house at dinner, or whenever we are all together: What did you learn today? At first, Ray started to ask our nieces this question after they started school. After a few days of this game, I asked Joe what he learned.

His response? “Nothing. I’m not in school.”

Whoa.

Ray and I talked about it later. It really bothered us and I wasn’t sure how to respond to Joe. What should I have said?

Maybe, “Joe, you are in school. Mommy is your teacher.”

Too hoaky.

How about, “Of course you are! You are being schooled at home.”

Too awkward.

Finally, we decided.

“Of course you learned something! We learn something new everyday. Just think about what you did today.”

Just think about it…

Some days we work in the garden together…planting seeds, watering, pulling weeds.

One day we went to Safety Town, a kid-sized safety course to learn the rules of the road. I walked along with Joe while he rode his tricycle through stop signs, stoplights, yield signs, on and off ramps, railroad tracks and round-abouts. I even pretended to pull him over when he ran a red light on his trike.

Often, Joe wants to trace letters and numbers. He’s getting better and better and can even copy a few letters without the dotted lines.

We’ve walked around pointing out shapes, colors, letters and numbers.

We’ve, played with Story Cubes where Joe works on telling a story based on pictures.

We’ve played Simon Says and we’ve sang songs.

Joe teaches Jake something new everyday…good and bad, and I learn something new from them every day…good and bad.

In fact, I learn something new everyday from all kinds of places and people…I just have to stop and think about it.