Awareness of time and place

This academic year, one of the most noticeable developments Ella has had, aside from really learning to read, has been her awareness of time and place. I would say that before second grade she was essentially clueless about what time and date things happen, or where she was in time relative to upcoming events, or where she was in space relative to, say, her friend Dario in Pennsylvania. She might count down days on a calendar until Christmas, or even her birthday, but in a moment-to-moment way, she didn't really know what month followed this one, or what season followed spring, or what days she had karate, or how long it would be until she had to leave for dance class. But now, it's something on which she is rock-solid, and I would say that this solidity happened within the last few months. Other than that, she was go-with-the-flow of when things happened, looking forward to, say, Christmas, but more in the abstract.

Ella also has a much better sense of WHEN things happened...that is, she can locate the Revolution and the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century, the Civil War and Laura Ingalls in the 19th century, and rapid technology development and the birth of her parents in the 20th century. She can use reasoning to compare something in history against one of these times ("well, that happened before Westward Expansion, so it's probably the 1700s" or "computers hadn't been invented yet, so it's probably the earlier 1900s").

I've noticed this development also in terms of Ella's awareness of herself in space...that streets are within cities, which are within states, which are within geographic regions, which are in countries, which are on continents. She's much less likely to guess "France" when we ask where Ella Fitzgerald was born. She can read a map and instead of my having to tell her how much longer the drive will be, I'll tell her where we are on the map, and then she can estimate easily on her own given how long we've already been in the car. Part of what has helped with this, I think, has been that we do a Birthday of the Day and always orient the person in both time and place. But I also chalk it up to natural expansion of one's personal borders.

Interestingly, I would say that it's only within the past year that Madison has really gotten a sense of these kinds of issues, too. So I don't know whether Ella is early or Madison is late. But last year, Madison totally relied on me to keep track of the schedule and requirements for, say, choir rehearsals, but now that stuff registers with her. It's as though she has developed an internal ticker or monitor that didn't exist before.