B's Learning Log task for this week involves handwriting a poem he likes, illustrating it and writing down why he likes it.
Over dinner this evening, O and I asked him about what poem he plans to use for his Learning Log entry, and what he had learnt about poems in school this week.
"Oh, there are so many poems we've read in school," he chattered as he munched his food, and then he launched into a litany of titles of children's poems which all sounded nice, but were mostly unfamiliar to my Pinoy-educated ears.
"We also learned about alliteration," he added, as O and I exchanged raised eyebrows from across the table. ("Litrachun!" chimed E happily after his brother.) B then proceeded to educate us all with a simple yet comprehensive description of what alliteration is, that it involves using words that start with the same sound, one after the other, which is vastly different from rhyming. He gave a few examples for our amusement. As B paused in his explanation to take another bite, O stage-whispered that he had probably learnt about these things in high school already, and I nodded in agreement as I rolled my eyes.
"Also," B said, chewing again, "we learnt about onomatopoeia."
Complete silence around the table as we stared at B. Well, except for E who was, as usual, parroting whatever it was his Kuya has just said, but O and I were shocked into silence. Still eating, unmindful of the shocked looks of disbelief on his parents' faces, B continued, "Onomatopoeia is when you use words that sound like the sound they're describing, like tickle, or crash, or wibble-wobble, or crickle-crackle..." and then he and E started to have lots of fun making sounds and noises to illustrate exactly what onomatopoeia is, blissfully ignorant of the fact that he knows at age almost-eight what many others first learn at eighteen. Some of us (including yours truly) only learnt learn how to correctly SPELL the darn word way past adolescence.
"Knock-knock! Snap! Achoo!" Our two boys merrily onomatopoeia-ed away over the dinner table, each heartily croaking out an appreciative belly laugh at the other's contribution before chiming in with his own.
O just shook his head as he smiled, bemused at how advanced the UK's National Curriculum for primary schools is.
And as for me? Thud! went my jaw as it dropped onto the floor.
