'DeMarco Murray Is a Noun'
When I was in junior high I had a poster on my wall which said, "All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten." It was a feel-good poster about sharing and holding hands and sticking together. I'm pretty sure it replaced the Scott Baio poster I tore out of Teen Beat magazine. Anyway, I thought of that poster today when my six-year-old and I were doing our math lesson, because I realized that so much of what he needs to know for his lessons he learned from ... football.
Jack Henry has the advantage of having an almost-16-year-old brother who teaches him about football. They play football together in the yard, watch it on television, and follow OU football to an almost-embarrassing degree. But I have to admit, it has come in handy.
For example, in his Saxon math book Jack Henry has to learn how to count by fives, tens, and threes forward and backwards. When we got to those lessons, I didn't have to teach him. He already knew how to count by fives ("He's at the 25, 20, 15, 10, 5, touchdown Oklahoma!"). And counting by tens was easy, too -- Jack Henry learned long ago that a football field is 100 yards long and is divided by 10-yard marks. Counting by threes was no problem, either -- he just counts by field goals. We haven't gotten to counting by sevens yet, but he can already do that to 84 or beyond.
And it's not just math. When he was learning how to form his letters correctly, I explained to him not to lift up his pencil when making a "Z," but rather to do a zigzag with his pencil: over, diagonal, and over again. "I already know that," he said. "That's the play dad and I do."
And let's not forget geography. When he's finished with his schoolwork, he gets out his Big 12 miniature football helmets and plays with them. He'll get out his puzzle of the United States and put each helmet on the correct state. He knows that Kansas is right above Oklahoma and Nebraska is above that. He knows that Iowa is up and to the right of Oklahoma and that Colorado is to the left. Moving out of conference, he even knows where Washington is and where the cursed city of B---e, Idaho is.
Today during grammar we were learning the definition of nouns and giving some examples. Jack Henry said, "DeMarco Murray is a noun."
Eventually, the boy's curriculum will grow more complex and he'll discover that he won't be able to link football to the Roman Empire. Then again, maybe he will.
Jack Henry has the advantage of having an almost-16-year-old brother who teaches him about football. They play football together in the yard, watch it on television, and follow OU football to an almost-embarrassing degree. But I have to admit, it has come in handy. For example, in his Saxon math book Jack Henry has to learn how to count by fives, tens, and threes forward and backwards. When we got to those lessons, I didn't have to teach him. He already knew how to count by fives ("He's at the 25, 20, 15, 10, 5, touchdown Oklahoma!"). And counting by tens was easy, too -- Jack Henry learned long ago that a football field is 100 yards long and is divided by 10-yard marks. Counting by threes was no problem, either -- he just counts by field goals. We haven't gotten to counting by sevens yet, but he can already do that to 84 or beyond.
And it's not just math. When he was learning how to form his letters correctly, I explained to him not to lift up his pencil when making a "Z," but rather to do a zigzag with his pencil: over, diagonal, and over again. "I already know that," he said. "That's the play dad and I do."
And let's not forget geography. When he's finished with his schoolwork, he gets out his Big 12 miniature football helmets and plays with them. He'll get out his puzzle of the United States and put each helmet on the correct state. He knows that Kansas is right above Oklahoma and Nebraska is above that. He knows that Iowa is up and to the right of Oklahoma and that Colorado is to the left. Moving out of conference, he even knows where Washington is and where the cursed city of B---e, Idaho is.
Today during grammar we were learning the definition of nouns and giving some examples. Jack Henry said, "DeMarco Murray is a noun."Eventually, the boy's curriculum will grow more complex and he'll discover that he won't be able to link football to the Roman Empire. Then again, maybe he will.
