Shout loud, "I am lucky to be what I am! Thank goodness I'm not just a clam or a ham...Or a dusty old jar of gooseberry jam! I am what I am! That's a great thing to be! -Dr. Suess
Emma is three years old now. She could both recognize and identify all upper and lower case letters well before she was 2 1/2. While this would make the creators of the Common Core Standards dance for joy for their political purposes, I dance for joy because it represents my own unique, one of kind daughter. She happens to have a knack for picking up this literary concept (as well as discussing sequencing and plot). My oldest daughter was the complete opposite, but she was well on her way to drawing complete landscapes by 3 years old. She could see a shape, a detail, a color within a picture and and copy it to recreate the same scene. Her very first drawing, I will never forget, was a birthday card she copied entailing a flower, 2 bumblebees, and a couple hills. All colored in the lines and with appropriate colors. Bear in mind most children at this age are drawing simple shapes. My point for sharing this is simple. Decades of research by cognitive psychologists, neuroscientists, and developmental psychologists have proven that while there are typical developmental milestones, not one child will ever have the exact same strength at the exact same time. Nor may they ever have the same strength. And that is ok! While I struggle with the outlandish standards of the Common Core wrapping its vile tentacles around my children in school, my goal is to teach them to always embrace their strengths. Teach them that they are lucky to be who they are and know what they know. They are an original, unique, one of kind, and beautiful person in every possible and unexplainable way.