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Taste and See

For a while now, Buddy has been confused by the difference between salt and sugar.  When I'm cooking, he sees me place some white spice into my food and often just labels it "sugar" whether or not it is the case.  We've tried explaining to him that sometimes it's salt, but because both words start with "S" and they look an awful lot alike, he was struggling with the difference.  Then, it dawned on me!  Let him try both and discover the difference for himself!


It worked!  He decided that he really likes sugar (big surprise!), and wanted me to continue to refill that part of our palette.  We then pulled out some more spices for him to try.  Although he didn't try all of them, he found the experiment fascinating.
...one would prefer to make flavour a source of interest rather than of sensuous pleasure to children: it is better that they should try to discern a flavour with their eyes shut, than that they should be allowed to think or say that things are ‘nice’ or ‘nasty.’ This sort of fastidiousness should be cried down. It is not well to make a child eat what he does not like, as that would only make him dislike that particular dish always; but to let him feel that he shows a want of self-control and manliness, when he expresses distaste for wholesome food, is likely to have a lasting effect” (Vol. 2, pp. 187, 188).

Simply Charlotte Mason wrote about the need to use all of one's senses for education on their blog a few years ago.  I found it a very helpful read.

And since I find their posts always super interesting, you should also check out their more recent blog post on "Teach the Child".  A quick quotation:
Think of it like this. Imagine you were making a cake for a special occasion and the recipe said to bake it at 350° for 30 minutes. What if, at the end of the 30 minutes, you inserted a toothpick in the middle and it came out messy? If you were focused on the recipe, you would yank that cake out anyway because the time was up. But if you were focused on the end product—a delectable cake—you would leave it in the oven and monitor it closely until it was a beautiful golden brown and baked through just right.
It's the same with curriculum and your child. If you are focused on the curriculum, you will continue plodding along, checking off the lessons, but possibly not accomplishing your goal of educating your unique child. 
Lots of food references in this post!  Must be hungry!  ;-) 
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