Kids love to learn! And they love the attention from their parents. It’s a win-win all around! I spent hours with them teaching them to write their letters and simple words, reading books and even doing simple math. I have coloring books with all the pages filled with letters they wrote. No coloring of the pictures, just letters all over the page.
They speak of those times with such love.
You have given your grandkids a gift they will treasure for all of their lives. What a blessing for you all.
I have a notion of where things have gone off track in the last several decades. It starts at primary then secondary and continues into higher education. There are exceptions to this but they are infrequent.
Our education method is at its root teaching what to think as opposed to how to think. These are not the same thing. There’s a baseline needed of course on the what side bit the failure is neglecting the how to think side. Myself as an example, I came out of college filled to overflowing with the what to think. Then I was thrown into an unstructured R&D environment where there were no text books or higher mentors to fill in the blanks and further stuff my noggin. Virtually nothing I came out of college with have I used exactly as was crammed into me. I was successful though although my career breadth has certainly not been typical.
It took me years to realize it but I had one prof my last 2 semesters that opened the door into how to solve things that are outside the comfort zone. From the persons I have crossed paths with, probably the ones that are consistently at higher on the how to think scale are those with classical educations i.e. philosophy, languages, theology and such. Blend this with a science or other such fields and you have something powerful. For me though, i am not at that level although I have two STEM degrees (geek) but had the good fortune to grow up on a ranch so have always had an appreciation for bailing wire, duct tape and a big hammer.
Key thought... How to think is for working through the unknown and what to think is punching a time clock.