Wednesday, February 2, 2011

The Tinkerer's Gene

I’m finding it’s actually very interesting to deal with.

I have a slight case of it (maybe heterozygous). My husband has it in spades (definitely homozygous. And dominant. And aggressively dominant. And is there something more than aggressively dominant?).

And I’ve suspected for some time that Sasha took after his father. I am sure now that it’s true. And it’s presented some unique parenting challenges and successes.

I feel great pride in that my son can keep his two-sided and lenticular Toy Story puzzles all in the same boxes and have no problem with the fact that they are all very similar and mixed together. Or that there are ultimately two pictures on each piece and he’s okay with that. They get put together just fine.

I feel great pride in that my 3 year old has graduated from MegaBloks and Duplos and builds things with regular Legos (and can follow the directions that come with them to build specific models).

It’s fun for to think up hands-on projects were we produce an item. It’s easy with him to have a rainy day. We can cook. We can build something from wood. We can use paste and foam and create something fun. He can do it and the words “lets do a project” are always met with joyous participation.

But it’s hard to make more traditional academics interesting to him. Particularly the alphabet.
Colors, shapes, and numbers have been easy because they are important when making something.

It’s hard to find a way to fit in letters. Mechanical directions are typically pictures with occasional numbers and colors. They don’t often give written steps.

And the problem is, I know he knows the letters. He sings the alphabet song while he works. Once in a while he’ll use a letter to describe something he wants (I need to make it look like a big red X). But mostly, because letters bore him, he answers questions about letters wrong on purpose (he laughs at his little joke).

School is going to be a difficult path for us.

1 comment:

caramama said...

Have you looked into how the Montessori schools teach letters and reading? He would probably be much more interested in their hands-on way of learning the alphabet. I know my daughter can't wait until she moves her way up to using the "movable alphabet"! I think I've heard you can buy the material online.