Today we were doing a thing I hate to do (school in the car). Ezra was reading School of the Woods, and suddenly said in his kind of strident, fixated tone, "When was this book published?" He checked- 1902. Then he read another minute and in a more strident tone asked, "Where did this supposedly happen?" I said I had felt like it could have been France. And so on.
The point is, in reading this chapter, his puzzle mind turned on and he began drawing in what he knows from a variety of places, and before too much longer, he was certain the author must have lived in New England or Canada. When we got home, we checked, and he lived in Maine and Nova Scotia. And that is one of the ways Ezra is very smart.
As an observer, I then reflected on the girls' special kinds of smart. Ezra's happens to wow me pretty easily because it is not the way I am smart, but I am aware of the gifts of all three children. And the third week of school is a good time to notice the ones that have an academic use.
Phaedra has a will force that can devastate. This certainly presents a few difficulties, but it means that once she has committed to do something- multiplying fractions or punching her brother- she will see it through. Add to this her clever hands and you have a seamstress and a designer. Phaedra can also use these skills to transfer her many well-formed opinions to paper.
Sylvie's academic side is only a bud, just barely opening. Still, I can see that in the same way she leaps from one physical challenge to the next, she is undaunted by any new territory in math or reading or drawing or music. She only wants to know if she has reached the highest peak.
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