Learning

There’s nothing like teaching your own kids to make you feel like you don’t know anything. I’m so often befuddled by the questions my Lucas asks me.




Some of the questions are like “Why is the world round?” or “Why is one called one?” both of which I generally say “Your dad is really good at that sort of thing!” and send him off to stump him.



Heehee.



In other cases, it’s more obvious, every day things that we’ve just become so accustomed to that being able to clearly define them is a bit more challenging.



Like “What’s a poem?” he asked me as we were reading.

It’s pretty simple, really, I mean “Duh. A poem!” but when you try to explain exactly what that is to a 5-year-old, it’s harder than it sounds. You can’t really say it’s  groups of sentences where the last words rhyme, because that’s not completely true. And you can’t really say it’s like groups of thoughts strung together, because that’s not completely true either.


And you can’t really give examples, like a limerick, or Walt Whitman.


So, I did the good thing and looked it up on Wikipedia:


poem: A piece of writing that partakes of the nature of both speech and song, and that is usually rhythmical and metaphorical.


Well, that’s clear as mud for a 5-year-old.


But then I thought well wouldn’t it be fun if we just started by writing poems and perhaps he’d get the idea. And none of this “Roses is red” stuff, or even the Dr. Seuss-like rhyming. How about a haiku?


haiku: A Japanese poem of seventeen syllables, in three lines of five, seven, and five.


And thus started the weekly haiku, which at first I began doing while he observed.





And this weekend we are going to work on him doing his own. 


How fun it can be

Saying lots with so little

Many lessons learned