Living With Live Wires

This week, the math assignments included learning how to tell time in 24 hour time, which I have always called, military time, since I used it during the years I was in the Air National Guard.

Sean was a little resistant to learning the new way to read time until I thought of a creative way to integrate it into their lives that made sense. Sean and Sophie often imagine they are secret agents and Sean has announced recently that he plans on becoming one when he grows up. The themes of agent life have become commonplace in our home.

I told Sean that if he wanted to become an agent, he would have to use 24 hour time to communicate with the other agents. I explained the reasons why they use that method of telling time to reduce errors in crucial moments, such as war plans and secret missions. We went through scenarios of what could happen if they didn’t use 24 hour time to communicate with each other. Their missions and people’s lives could be at stake if they got the time mixed up by not understanding if it was a.m. or p.m.  I also took the opportunity to share a few stories about my military days which fascinated them. I haven’t talked about those days much. Those personal stories added a new layer of meaning to these lessons.

All this really made sense to Sean and Sophie and they were very excited to learn something that secret agents relied upon in their communications. It lead to an engaging discussion. They have been using 24 hour time now for days.  And, I’m glad I could contribute to their training to become secret agents.

This was a small part of their lesson that could have been just another exercise in memorization. But, with a little creativity it can become a meaningful and fun new adventure that has become effortlessly integrated into their knowledge base and imaginary play.

Whenever possible, I look for ways to integrate their studies into themes and life experiences that already carry meaning for them. That way, the new information has something to hang on and becomes more permanent and meaningful.