Learning in Napland

I don't know where this rambling is going to go.  I do know one of the coolest things I've witnessed in my short time homeschooling my kids is this:  where one child learns, the others do too.  Now that isn't a statement that encompasses all subjects to mastery.  It simply can't be.  I started homeschooling the Angel when the Boy was not yet 2 years old.  What I've found is that where I sat with the Angel and the Princess and read storybook after storybook to them when they were small ones, with no direction or purpose to our reading, they retained a (un)healthy amount of information about those stories.  With the Boy, he hears all sorts of information that the girls did not hear at the same age.  His curiosity is piqued over a much more varied range of subjects.

Isn't this the story in all households with a number of kids?  The younger children learn from the older children.  I did not understand how vital this is.  Sure, the annoying attachment to Dora the Explorer was passed down from oldest to middle to youngest.  But how about the sing-song exercises of geography?  Even more interesting is the acquisition of Latin by the 3 year old.

Wait, what?  My 3 year old is learning Latin?  When did this happen?  This is a direct response to the repetition of Latin vocabulary words, phrases and prayers from the older girls' Prima Latina lessons.  The inquisitive nature of a toddler/preschooler has taken me by surprise.  Sometimes I wonder if I wasted so much of that with the older two by reading *Dora Saves the Stupids, or **The Perfect Wedding.  Of course, things were different with the older two.  We were different when they were this age.

So, as the Boy (who still at this point, refuses to sing the alphabet song, but can identify the sounds the letters make), grows and sits in on lessons while he waits for my and his sisters' attentions, I can't help but wonder how much he is learning passively, and what this means for him later in life.  I do know that he is exposed to much more information, than if his sisters attended school outside the home.  I didn't spend the time reading about the Renaissance or introducing the girls to Michelangelo when they were three, and I doubt that I would do it for the Boy if it weren't for the girls' curriculum.

Its such a simple concept, but its so interesting to watch it actually happen (in a positive manner).

*not a real book (I hope)
**unfortunately, a real Cinderella book that the girls were obsessed with for a while.  ACK!