September 9th, 2008:

Jacob seems to have a keen interest in maps and geography in general.  Mike and I have a large laminated world map and Jacob loves to pull it out and look at the countries and asks us “Which one next?” after we tell him the name of a country.  The first country that he learned was Canada and very easily he was able to find it on the map a few days later when we asked him if he remembered where it was.  Slowly over time we’ve taught him a few more locations when he’s asked and the other day when he pulled it out I was surprised to see that his memory was remarkable!  Without much problem he was able to locate Canada, United States of America, Greenland, Brazil, Argentina, Australia, China and Russia.  I confess that I was really shocked to find that he had absorbed all of the fun times with the map and was recalling the locations.  When we ask him now and then where one of the countries is that he knows he occasionally gets Greenland and Australia mixed up but more times then not he is completely accurate.  I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with this skill that he has because he’s just a toddler and he has a lot of years of learning behind him but at the same time if he continues to be interested and asks us where more countries are I feel ok with letting him know a few more now and then.  I guess every child has a different area where they excel in school, perhaps Jacob’s will be geography!