I don't mean to brag, but...

...well, actually, I do. I am going to brag on Gracie right now and how stinking smart she is! Because it's my blog so I can do that. :)

Yesterday we went to our class at the Wetlands Institute. We went last year and loved it, so I signed Gracie up again. This month's class was about Bats. Gracie has been interested in bats for a while, and enjoys reading cute books like "Stellaluna" and "Bats at the Beach". This year our Science curriculum is Apologia's "Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day" and includes a chapter on bats. So when I found out that was the topic at the Wetlands, I decided to skip ahead in the book and do the bat lessons, in addition to some books from the library.

The teacher at the Wetlands started the class off with a friendly trivia game. Each side of the room was a team and had to discuss and answer some questions about bats. Some of the questions were easy, like, "Are bats really blind?" and some were harder.

Here's the part where I start bragging.

Gracie knew the answer to every question. She knew that bat babies are pups. She knew how many thousand insects they eat in an hour. She correctly guessed that there are nine different species of bats in New Jersey. One of the things that made me the proudest was when the teacher asked a question that all the other kids said was False. Gracie kept insisting that it was True, and she wouldn't give in. And she was correct. I was proud that she didn't doubt herself, and that she didn't let the other kids change her mind. She had confidence.

Then the question that brought a little tear to my eye. The teacher said it was a bonus question, and it was ok if nobody knew the exact answer, but if they were close enough they would get it. "What disease is killing off a large portion of the bat population?" Now, Gracie's seven, and we were in a room with some kids up to thirteen, and the moms were helping with answers too. None of them knew the answer. "Is it rabies?" a mom whispered. "No!" said Gracie, "it's white nose fungus!" The mom didn't think Gracie could possibly know and asked some of the older kids again. I gave Gracie a thumbs-up. The teacher asked for the answer, and Gracie told her.Two bonus points.

It was a validating experience for me. It's working. Homeschooling is working. Gracie is learning so much, and being challenged more than she would be in a traditional school setting. We have days that are full of interruptions and days that we don't feel like doing it. We have days that run perfectly. In the end they balance out and yes, she is learning something! A lot, actually! But more than that is she's enjoying it. Learning is fun and exciting to her, and as a result she's able to really understand things and retain all this information about bats and birds and Pilgrims because she wants to know. And that has been one of my main objectives from day one, to teach her to love learning. Once she's mastered that, nothing can stop her.