It's about when you don't know how to do something

After I came home I woke A-One for today's brain training. 'Just a minute!' he said.  That's his favourite phrase when he's called for dinner too; we often finish before he arrives.

First we attended to some banking - we recently set up his internet banking and he's getting the hang of it quite well.  He remembered a call centre operative's instructions from the other day and could identify each recent transaction in his statement.


His online training went well again today.  He gained 4 personal bests out of 5 games, and his chart is still showing improved scores.  Even when he made a mistake, he seemed to know it before the game alerted him. Only one of his recorded cognitive competencies is still in the 1st percentile, and his memory and speed are still his best scores.

No protest from him when we resumed the analogue clocks work. I suggested he review the work we did yesterday, and he spent several seconds (sometimes up to 6 or 7 seconds) looking at each clock face where he had drawn the hands yesterday.  I asked him some review questions and talked about 'to' and 'past' the hour. 

For today's clocks, 10/20 to- and past- the hour, and 5/25 to- and past- the hour, counting in 5s would be an advantage, so I checked that he could do that, which he had no trouble doing.

On looking at the 10/20 page:

A-One: You've 'mixed up' the 10s and 20s times. It would be better if you had put all the 10s together and all the 20s together.

Mum: I could have, but that sounds too easy.  I wanted to challenge you.

A-One: Why do I need to be challenged?

Mum: Because it's only when you have to work at it that you are learning. When you don't know how to do something, that's a really precious time.  It's the very best learning time because it's only then that you can forge new neural pathways.  Once you know something, you're not changing your brain.

A-One:  Silence.

No protests, so I thank god for small mercies.

After drawing the big hand in the wrong place on the first clock, I explained the one complete rotation in 60 minutes again, and asked him to count by 5s up to 60 while tracing his finger through each of the numbers.  He was then able to self correct the first clock. 

He completed the page, sometimes copying the placement of the big hand from an earlier one.  He did them all so well that I told him it's now time for a 30 second celebration dance. He just looked at me, but I did a sitting dance anyway!

A-One: That's all I'm doing today.

Mum: How about just trying the first one on the next page?

He did ... and completed the whole page!

Tomorrow, none of the minutes end in '5'.