Life and learning

In my effort to make the summer holidays a learning experience, I thought I'd do something useful with Alexander at home. So I bought books with cutting activities and mazes so that he learns manual dexterity and fine motor skills.  Sounds good in theory.  Only that I didn't realize how painfully difficult it is for a preschooler to hold a pair of scissors, open its jaws, aim to have the paper between the blades (which has to be explained to him), cut, move forward and start all over again and again.  PATIENCE. And I need a huge abundance of it so that he doesn't get frustrated and decide it's not an enjoyable exercise never wanting to try it again. And Patience is often times in short supply because a preschooler can be easily distracted by a wandering baby brother at his feet or by anything that's on the table.

I'm not even going to let him try the book of mazes yet. First he has got to know how to grasp a pencil and control it to make meaningful lines. Then, there is the concept of a maze - how the 'car' (him) must go on that white road and you can't go through the houses or trees to reach the 'star'.

I never realized how much learning goes on and how much we have actually learnt to function in society. Social conventions such as "Dear so-and-so" is written at the top of a card/letter when at 8, my mother got real mad at me for writing "Dear Aunty Jessica" at the bottom of the Christmas card.

And as we get older, perhaps we don't learn so much physically (unless it's to engage in midlife crisis sports like snowboarding or wakeboarding) but we learn about relationships and life.  It really does give meaning to that Confucian saying 活到老学到老 (Learn as long as you live)

Alexander is nearly 3  years old while the tiny tyke, Lucas, is 10.5 months old