Impromptu Explorations

The kids got their hands on a very large book the other day. It's one I've had since I was a kid, and I picked up my basic facts of world history and a lot of other subjects from it. Spazzerific (age nearly-11) commandeered the situation, reading trivia about the 1066 invasion of England to the other three kids.

Then he required Banana Brain (age 9) to be silent while he quizzed the Littles (ages 7 and nearly 5) on a variety of insects, animals and birds from around the world, asking them to visually identify the pictures.

Totally not planned. Nobody had a hot clue they were fulfilling skills and knowledge on a par with and beyond their grade level. They just found a cool book and shared it with each other. In the meantime, I sat quietly in the corner and observed the following skills:

Narration
Reading
Vocabulary building
Teaching learned info to others
Leadership skills
Team-building effort
Taking turns
Team self-organization
Team sharing of needed info and skills
Acquisition of entirely new information

This took a total of maybe half an hour. They covered Social Studies and Biology topics. All I did was correct a pronunciation or two as they read new words.