Our Sundial

Yesterday A. was keen to explore his fascination with measuring time when I suggested that maybe we could make our own sundial. Thankfully the weather was on our side and we got all day sun, which is just more evidence of the fact that we are enjoying an early spring.

A.:  "We actually made a thing that goes around and around - a sundial.

We saw what the time was and we left a heater there so we could draw around the shadow with chalk.

We put the number of the hour with I and X so you could see what the time was. Next day I stood in the circle and I could see what time it was from where my shadow was.

Right now I can't seem to find my shadow so I can't do it."

It's really cool that he gets the ability to explore the features and limitations of his experiments. He knows that the clock on the computer works with electricity. We have little discussions about this and he knows that there is a battery inside the computer so that the computer can remember what date and time it is. One of our friends has a computer with a flat battery so the computer can't remember what date or time it is.

M. was keen to be hanging out with her family. She liked the idea of playing with chalk and also likes standing up next to the heater that we were using as a gnomon.

I like being in a community where our play can spill out onto the curb and it is refreshing to not need to gate my children in, though the property manager did suggest I bring it up with the landlord. I have worked with the boys since they were smaller than their sister so that they know to look out for cars, and not cross driveways where cars might be pulling out. In some ways it's easier to "baby proof" the babies than to try and make their play environment safe. It just means that you have to be present, and include them in the decision making process, make them aware of possible consequences,  rather than making unilateral decisions about their safety. They don't have full planning skills from a young age and have very little understanding of consequences, but the more they are involved in their own planning the better they get over time. The last thing I want is 9 year olds who can't cross the street unless I am there to hold their hands.

There are lots of things that go straight over A.'s head, but I see no reason to not mention them. We used Roman numerals for our sundial and he had not encountered them before. He may not know how it all works but it will look familiar to him next time he sees them on a fancy watch or clock, or in an Asterix comic or something. I can never plan for where he is going to encounter these things, but the more he gets shown the more chance he has of seeing connections between things, and I learnt when he was very small, that if things are familiar then they are "cool".

Settling in a new town

Community BBQ and decorating discussion :)

Networking with others and being part of family and the wider community has always been something that is important to me. Before I had children I was living in a flat in the same neighbourhood as where I grew up. I like to know who I am living near, so it was really nice when we moved into our new flat in Palmerston North and found an information pack for new residents including the names of neighbourhood community organisers and a how-to on building compost heaps. The boys and I took great joy in constructing our own compost bin soon after, helping to count, match and hand-tighten nuts and bolts, hiding inside the empty bin, and foraging for dry leaves and sticks to form a base for our compost pile.

We had been here a couple of days when the next door neighbour came over to introduce herself. I'd have ventured out earlier but my husband had come down with hand, foot and mouth and we weren't sure of the status of the children. Starting to go out and meet up with people has been put on the back burner since we got here for fear that we might transmit the dreaded lurgy.

The weekend after we arrived we were invited down to the corner for a BBQ and kōrero about a seat that has been built on the outside of the fence down the end of the street. We were invited to contribute ideas about how we should decorate it. The boys had fun climbing on the newly built seat, and A. discussed his ideas for the colour-scheme with neighbours from up the street. S. wanted to have ago at painting, and started to decorate the picnic table before anyone noticed. The paint was cleaned off before it had a chance to dry, and the neighbours were very understanding and saw the funny side of it.

The boys clearly loved being involved. They have often commented that they would like to go to another BBQ and mentioned how much they enjoyed our neighbour's banana loaf. Clearly the quickest way to a child's affections is through the stomach.

We are really looking forward to getting to meet and spend time with more people. Today I had the second request for us to go out and see someone, and now we are past the contagion we can start inviting visitors over. Our first (non-family) visitor is expected tomorrow afternoon!

Chasing Bubbles

 S. comes up with all the best ideas. Today he was in the laundry with me and saw our bubble wands and asked, "Can we have bubbles?!" I have been very busy lately, packing for our move out of town, and the kids have been a little stressed as a result. Not only do they have so many changes at the moment but they also have a mother who is trying to split her attention a few too many ways, so it really helps when I take their lead and just go with it.

Bubbles are cool for so many reasons.
For starters.. "Wheee!!! Bubbles!!"
And, well, they are like tiny glass rainbows!...
and they make wind visible!...
and they are interactive!...
Just as importantly though, bubbles are a chance for my kids to have my attention. I am outside with them facilitating and can't be lured into folding laundry, or fixing a snack, or checking my email in the middle of what we are doing. Apart from that, they give kids a chance to chase and catch which is something that is innately human. They are like cat toys like that (in fact A.'s cat Felix started chasing the bubbles while the boys were doing the same). They are an activity that I can do while I am carrying the baby on my back, and yet I don't have to run around myself. If we have been inside and doing sitting down things for too long, running around chasing bubbles is a great invigorator. I also find that my children's enthusiasm tends to peter out just as the liquid starts to, but that may just be my luck.

Thank goodness bubbles are generally pretty cheap. Buying a bottle of liquid might set you back $7 at a toy store (in New Zealand at least) but making your own is normally pretty easy and inexpensive. If you are making your own you can always let the kids do the mixing too. It never hurts to think of the process rather than the product, though. Everything involving making and mixing processes is an adventure for us. We discuss a lot about guessing the results, and experimenting to find out which things work, and which don't. I find that it helps to warn my oldest child that things might not work well before we try something new, otherwise he can get very disappointed and grief-stricken.

 I seem to have one son who is a concrete thinker and one who is a lot more creative and abstract.

A: "I know ALL about bubbles. They're made with air and they pop when they touch a hand or the ground."

S: "I think they might fly up to SPACE!!"

Learning the Ropes

Last Monday the weather was not so great. I was anticipating yet another stuffy day inside trying to find something to stop the boys from scrapping with each other. A. was already whining that he wanted to use the computer or watch something. This is his go-to habit when he is at a loose end. Thankfully his little brother is more likely to look around for something to do, so when he said "Mummy! I want to tie this rope to the tree!" I was thrilled to say "Good idea!" and open the front door so he could run out to play. It's no surprise that his big brother didn't want to be left out so he followed to see what was happening.

It often starts out with quiet thought with S. and then his brother comes along and tries to steal the thing he's working on. He just feels lonely or bored and hasn't got the most elegant of social skills yet. The more the boys play together the more sophisticated social tools that A. uses. I still have to remind them all the time that if it's not working it's best to explain what you are trying to do. A. seems to learn best by explaining.

The other day at Playcentre there was a visit from someone from one of the local swim schools, explaining about how to be safe in and near water. A. latched on to the concepts that she was explaining to them which related to a picture book she shared with them. A. stopped her all the time and explained what was happening in the story, including what would happen if the picture was different "That's safe at the pool, because they have their Dad with them, but if he wasn't there? That's NOT SAFE!". (I couldn't help but notice the embarrassed smiles of the other parents... his incessant interruptions would have been considered "disruptive" in a class of 20 or more children, but were within range of normal for a preschool group - I began to understand the frustrations expressed by my teachers from school... ok let's face it, I still hadn't grown out of that habit even by university!).

S. sems to learn a lot through doing. "I do it my-SELF!" has been his focus for about a year now. He is only just learning how to tie knots and it is amusing how much each of the boys learns from each other. S. is often the inspiration behind the play, and A. is great at developing the ideas. If it sounds like fun S. will often let A. be the leader, even to the point of pushing him arounds, but S. will remove himself from the situation after a while and just go and do something quietly by himself. 

After tying rope between trees, "We made a tripping thing to trap people!" and then keeping people safer, tying ropes around trees, and then tying ropes around each other, the exhausting game of tug-o-war caused more stress than it was worth, so they boys decided it was time to do something else. The cats had come out to be around people and were playing a mad chasing game up and down the trees, and S. decided he wanted to climb the tree too. He's quite a good climber. Once he finally decided he was too cold and he asked me to help him down. I asked him if he felt safe and he said he didn't. "Okay, I'll help you... you can put your foot there... now lower yourself down... now your feet are almost there, you can let go! You did it! See I said I'd help you!"

Both boys are pretty good at knowing what they can and can't do. S. is quite confident. A. tends to overthink things and make himself nervous. Sometimes I wonder if he cultivates a sense of himself as a victim so that he can abdicate responsibility and feel better when he's rescued... or feel the phantom strength of indignation when he is left to languish on his own. Maybe I too am overthinking things, but it feel like if I can just find the source of the problem, root up the need, then I will be able to address it and find him a way of looking at things that will leave him feeling like he can be in charge, and pro-active, rather than letting his life happen to him.

Moving House

I recently found out that my husband was being offered a job in a different city. This will be the 4th move for us since moving from Christchurch in January 2011 when we left our home at the foot of the hills to stay on a lifestyle block in the Manawatu so as to escape the aftershocks of the September 2010 earthquake. Soon after we left there was another major earthquake that destroyed more than the previous quake had and we were very lucky to be out of harm's way. My parents' house has since been fixed and in parts rebuilt around them.

We only stayed in the Manawatu for 9 months before needing to relocate to find work. The flat that we first moved into was damp and poky and I spent some dreadful and heavily pregnant and nauseated months there fearing that I would never be able to cope as the parent of three children. Thankfully everything worked a lot better for us when we moved to a new place that had sunlight and topsoil, so I could have a garden again.

However when we moved to the new flat my older son (then 4) asked me "when are we going to move to our new house?". It seems that people can adjust to any number of circumstances but it's probably not ideal for my sons to be moving from place to place. We have the security of having family with us but it does them (and me) no good to be uprooting and moving around. I fear that my elder boy will be much like me and have his roots fairly deep once he settles some place, and he does not like transitions much... but he seems to handle them a lot better than I did at his age. This is possibly because for all the moving that we have done he has always had the closeness and support of his family as the most important parts of his world. We are his home.

The place we will be moving into.

We may like having a home base, but it doesn't stop us from going on road-trips. Last Thursday we had to drive 140km to a different town to go and look at flats, and once we had found one we then had to drive back again. I may have to do the trip again on Wednesday to sign the tenancy agreement (but I'm hoping a fax will do the job). The Christmas before last we drove 250km to Waipukurau for a family lunch, and then came home via Granny's place (a round trip of 550km). I hope that we can eventually settle some place where we don't have to make ridiculous commutes, but for now thankfully my children are very forgiving, and at least they have each other for company and entertainment.

Exploring Google Earth - A. finds a picture of a humpback whale.
He's also been obsessively clock watching.

I have been showing A. some of the places we have visited on Google Earth. The thing he likes most is Street View, and how it wooshes around like you are flying. I would like to get a globe so that they have something concrete to manipulate when they find places. Recently, one of our best friends went to Sweden and we were fascinated to woosh around the Google Earth from New Zealand to Sweden to see how far it was. We aren't moving that far.

Thankfully we are moving back to a place where we know people. We will be back in the Manawatu, and surrounded by others who are also home-educating. The boys will be able to see other children of similar ages and catch up with old friends they may barely remember. It is also a larger house than the one we are currently in which will mean more room for making things and doing big...stuff! It's all a big adventure!

I have made up a calendar with pictures on it so that the boys can follow our progress and see how long we have to go and when things are happening. It is a continuation of the calendar I made for them when we went on holiday to see their grandparents in Christchurch in summer time. Through using the calendar, my older son recognises numbers, weekends, regularly scheduled events like his swimming lessons, and even my 3 year old can see pictures that remind him of past events like birthday parties and Christmas, and future events like trips, dentist appointments and... moving day.

Cross Post - a note from 2 years ago

I just now stumbled upon an old blog post from another blog I used to write. I wondered if I should copy and share it here and curiously checked the post date, and found today's date. "It HAS to be!" I thought. So a note from the past, posted 2 years ago (to within 15 minutes) 

Stop Picking on my Baby

"Ewww! You smell gross! Stop doing such yucky, stinky poos!!"

Today I asked someone to stop picking on my child. "How would you feel if you were sneered at and hassled because you had done a poo in your clothes, and you couldn't help it?"

Somewhere along the way people seem to have forgotten that when they are talking to a pre-verbal child, they are talking to a person. My 16-month-old child is not oblivious to derision. He understands when someone wrinkles up their nose in sneers of disgust, and he is powerless to do anything about it. But I'm not.

If there's one thing that has influenced my choice of preferred authors on parenting, it's my preconception that babies are people too. Authors such as Barbara Coloroso, Louise Porter, Alfie Kohn, Thomas Gordon... they are all quick to point out that relationships we form with our children are the real persuasive power that we have in their lives. They want to do as those around them do, and the only way they are going to learn how to treat others is by our example.

I once heard, anecdotally, that Japanese parents treat their baby as though they are a guest. Whether this is true or not is neither here nor there, but I liked the idea. A guest is assumed to be ignorant of local custom, is provided for, and is gently instructed how best to get on with others. They are treated with respect. Somewhere along the way someone forgot to pass this memo on to parents who talk over their children's heads, or say mean things to their little ones assuming that the child doesn't know what it means. Just because your baby can't speak doesn't mean they can't comprehend what you are saying, or what your body language is conveying.

Okay, so nobody is going to say it's bad parenting to pick up a child and say "you smell bad, darling... time for a change"... then again, if they are anti-nappies/diapers they might, but I digress... my point is that some parents and family members are not sharing a joke with their kids, they are making a joke at the child's expense. They seem to have forgotten one of the cardinal rules of play;

"It's not a good game unless everyone is enjoying it."

We teach this to 4-year-olds but somewhere along the way some people fail to engage empathy when dealing with kids. They lie to children to play tricks on them, they mock them in front of others, they laugh at them for not knowing or not being able to do things that they have no experience at. In schools this is called bullying, but it's the normal way to parent in many families.

A boy I once knew, aged about 7, was brought by his father to meet up with some people. They were all going to have PIZZA! He was overjoyed at being invited along to such a special dinner, and with his father's friends too! He walked in the door and was told "Sorry. You have to go home. You are too late. We already had the pizza without you." I remember the look of shock, disappointment, confusion and hurt in a child's face when others said "no no no....". He was feeling completely lost in an adult social situation with grown ups laughing at him ("you should have seen his face!! *haw haw haw*).

I have been criticised for being thin skinned. I don't like to use sarcasm or mean humour because I find it distasteful. I know that some parents jibe their children because they see it as important life learning. They think it is important for children to learn that this sort of thing is inconsequential. Learn to get over yourself. Man up. I'm okay with parents making decisions like this consciously, but in my perfect world, carers for our next generation ought to be reflective and thoughtful about the decisions they make, and too many people bully their kids not because they are making a mindful choice, but because they can, and it makes them feel powerful.

For now, the goal that I have decided on is that I will be truthful with my children. I will be kind and empathic with my children. I will be reliable and I will be fair and I will not beat them down with words. I will not always succeed in this. Everyone gets tired, or angry, or exasperated at times, but our aspirations are what keeps us improving, and in those quiet moments? My children are not "icky"... they just need my care.

Local History

Today we went for a visit to Te Papa Museum. We were going as a Playcentre excursion to hear stories for celebrating Matariki, but once we were done that, we decided to hang around and check out some more things. There are loads of things to do and see. There is even a space where kids can just sit and read books and do puzzles which is a great place for me to sit and feed the baby while the boys keep themselves busy where they won't be tempted to wander off.

Today A. wanted to have a look at the Earthquake House. It was a blast from the past for me, as it was a house that was kitted out with a TV and radio that were the sort of things common in houses when I was growing up. It was a little odd to see something from my childhood in a museum, which are supposed to be places where old things are, right? I suppose it's all relative. The other thing that was a little odd was that I have now been in an earthquake more vigorous than the one simulated in this display, and the earthquakes in my hometown were the reason we moved away from Christchurch.

S. took great delight in pressing the buttons that play recordings of children describing native birds. He liked some of them so much that he would listen to them over and over again, especially the ones with children laughing.

After we had explored Te Papa a bit the boys told me they didn't want to go home. I asked them where they wanted to go and, because we had nobody to visit, I decided to take them to see the Massey Memorial. We took a scenic drive around the Wellington harbour and a short bush walk up to the memorial. On our walk we saw some signs and discussed poisoning possums and rats, and how to keep ourselves safe from poisons. We also saw some poisonous fungi. The boys loved running around the giant marble edifice. They asked me to help them climb up on things, something I wouldn't normally help with. I generally don't help my boys climb up things because I want them to be certain that they are judging the risk of being up that high, and so that they know if they can climb up by themselves it's not impossible to climb down. This keeps them from climbing in places that they are too little to handle... but in this case it meant that S. couldn't see the fantastic view of the harbour, so I set aside my rule of thumb.

I explained to A. how I used to visit this place to play games with some of my friends. I don't know if he realised that I was an adult when I used to do this, but he was interested to hear all the same. I said we played a game where this was a huge castle and the walkway was a long corridor, and on the walls hung beautiful tapestries and hanging on the marble pillars were the great banners of the noble houses... and the ceiling was at some times a huge painting and other times was a mass of brilliant glowing stars... "you were pretending?" he asked, and I told him, yes.

We went for a bush walk further up the hill and it took quite some convincing to get S. to turn back rather than going through the gate that had an expansive warning about how this land was for Ministry of Defense persons only and if we were caught we could be locked up and searched. A. found a different path and S. was very enthused to be able to climb up and down the hills, looking at the sea and the plants. He has been very interested in cute little things lately, and today (after stuffing my bag pocket full of little rocks), he took a few minutes to investigate bright yellow broom flowers (which he called buttercups). He wanted to walk right to the end of the track but his older brother was keen to get home for lunch so we compromised and S. got to sit for a few minutes in the shade of a mahoe tree, before we turned back for home. A. is getting quite good at spotting tui in the trees.

Something that I have been thinking a lot on since I was reminded of it in a book the other night, is preserving passion in our kids. I am a pretty passionate person and I can easily squash my children's explorations by just taking too much interest myself. There is modelling fascination and methods for working with things, and then there's being more interested in it than they are, to the point where they give up and leave you to it. The way I see it, kids never get to feel like they are discovering the secrets of the universe if every time they share their discoveries with you, you say "oooh! yep that's right... and not just that... but this, this and this!!!!". They never get to feel like the expert, if there is someone with more experience ready to take that title from them. Now I have to walk the narrow path of being interested, but not stepping ahead - taking their hands, but letting them be the guide. Now all I have to do is give them these experiences and find out what makes their heads turn.

Onion Experiments

Today A. was watching me cut onion for dinner, and we were discussing the colours of onion. He said that the onion I was cutting was not "red onion" but "green onion". I said that most people call this type "brown onion" because the skins are brown. He asked if there were any "black onions". I said if onions were black it was probably because of mould and you shouldn't eat them. Then I shared some information with him; that although the skins were brown, some people get yellow colours out of them.

Left: cold water - clear / Right : boiling water - yellow

"Can we do that!?" he asked. I said yes but I wasn't sure whether it would work better with hot water or cold water, so we decided to find out. We got two identical glasses and two piles of onion skin as similar sized as possible, and filled the glasses at the same time, to approximately the same height. I explained that this was to make sure that the only difference between the two glasses was how hot the water was. I tried to explain to him why it was that you want to make each cup as close to the same as possible, but I doubt that the theory went in the first time. This is the sort of thing he is likely to learn over many different experiments and probably only when doing them for himself, rather than having me help him with the steps.

Something else that I noticed is that he described the experiment really well. He wanted to make a video clip of it, so we did that. He even used "left" and "right" accurately. He noticed that if you get something wrong while filming, or someone yells in the middle of it, or something unplanned happens, you have to go back for another "take". Making videos can be a time consuming process! A. took a couple of photos of the last step of the experiment where we added a couple of face-cloths to the glasses to see if they would take the colour of the water. He separated them and took a picture of the glasses sitting apart.

He likes being able to record what we have done in the day to show his Dad. I guess I should point out to him that he can always show his family and friends all over the world if we put his findings on the internet. He's probably a long way from knowing what a scientific control is, but if we keep doing experiments together, and I keep explaining the steps as we go, he will probably take it onboard eventually, but in his own good time.... and what a good time he is having!

Repaintable Rocks

 I have recently really embraced the mess that is painting. It was always something that I flinched at, but has become a lot more manageable now that I plan for the mess rather than trying to avoid it. Today we had a lovely sunny morning with practically no wind, so I cracked out the old "painting" shirts, threw down my long since defunct queen sized sheet that passes as a fantastic drop-cloth, and let the kids go mad with paint. It does help that the paint is water based, and washes off - in fact, that's part of the plan.

A couple of months ago the kids helped me paint a large rock with pink, all-weather, multi-finish house paint. The result? A rock that is always painted... even when the rain washes off the most recent decorations. S. was fascinated when he painted on our large pink rock with water based paint, and found that all the paint had come off in the rain overnight, prompting him to redecorate it all over again. To follow up on the theme of rocks that stay decorated, that can be used as great garden decorations, I recently took the children to the paint shop in Johnsonville to buy some test-pots in red and black so that I could paint a ladybird on a rock. We decided to take it for a test-drive today.

Egg cartons make great palettes. You can put a pile of paint into the different cups, and they can either be mixed together in the cups, or you can use the lid as a mixing tray. Today we had division of responsibility because all A. really wanted to do was mix colours, so his little brother did the actual painting, and he just made the colours look cool. Division of tasks is the best way I have found yet, to make sure there isn't competition over resources. When they are working side-by-side and on those few times where they can agree to who is doing what, it makes for only a few little conflicts, rather than the zillionth iteration of World War 3. My five-year-old is finally beginning to get sophisticated enough in his persuasion of his little brother that he doesn't create more conflicts than he solves.

A: "Mummy, look - purple and seafoam green!"

I've found the key to embracing painting for little kids is to focus on the process rather than the product. Whenever I unpack that thought I am taken back to the day I was naming and dating paintings at Playcentre and I asked S. what one of his pictures was. "It a painting!" he explained. Of course, Silly Mummy. "What is in it?" After assessing which painting it was, he explained "I mix with white!" This leaves me with the impression that small children aren't trying to represent things. They haven't assumed that a painting is "supposed to be" anything. That's a cultural assumption that they haven't been bogged down by yet. Freed from that presumption, they are open to playing with tools, texture, methods of getting colour or shade on things, mixing different media, asking questions, doing things impulsively and seeing what happens... "what happens if I use the back of the brush?" or even less sophisticated, "I'll push this.. ooOooh!".

"I'm a hand-print!"

My eldest boy is particularly risk-averse so it was great to see him actually experimenting with mixing colours today. He seems to like predicting what the colours will turn out like before he combines them but doesn't like to share his predictions in case he is wrong. He gets very invested in the outcome and if anyone gets in the way of his product he gets very upset. Thankfully he was over today's activity before his brother decided to combine all the colours and paint his hands so that he could make handprints all over the back step. Again I am thankful for the paints being water based because he decided to decorate the house too. A. asked if we could paint the house some time, and I said no, because it's not our house. Maybe when we get our own place he can paint his own room... or at least chose the colours. The temptation to paint blackboarding on the walls is pretty strong.

Smiley face and manawa (heart) by Mummy.

If I want a project to look awesome, I make it my own project so I won't feel let down if the kids "ruin" it. That's why I painted the ladybird by myself. I find that life becomes a whole lot more sane if I find a half a second for myself in amongst all the time I spend on my kids. Thankfully I'm the sort of person who delights in little things I can call my own. Today was Mothers' Day - a day that is supposedly a special day for me. Realistically, it's another Hallmark Holiday designed to throw a cloud of warm fuzzy feelings on the "Buy Things Machine" so we don't notice the guilt and coercion of consumer industry. Thankfully, all it was to me today, was breakfast in bed, courtesy of a husband who loves me, some warm snuggly hugs with my kids, and a chance to spend time at home with my family, doing what we do. Happy Mothers' Day!

Over heads

Yesterday A. woke me up and while I was still in bed gathering my thoughts, he brought me a book to read him. It was all about Isaac Newton, and we read about one of the most basic precepts of physics, the First Law of Motion. Then for dessert we went on to the hypothesis of Copernicus about the Earth orbiting the Sun, and had a discussion about parallax.

That evening my boys were going through a book on ocean creatures and my 3-year-old pointed out a puffer fish to his Dad, and spider crabs. This morning my older boy wanted to know more about a picture, in the same book, that he saw of an oil-rig. The caption was all about the Piper Alpha disaster of 1988. My son wanted to know if there were any survivors, so we went and checked online and found that there had been 167 deaths, and 61 people had survived. We discussed whether or not this was a lot, and counted with our fingers, and imagined how many people would fit in the room that we were in.

S. is a bibliophile: our lounge often has puddles of library books

One of the main precepts of my educating style (pedagogy) is that I don't want to protect my children from the world, but rather introduce them to the world in a way that they can comprehend. Knowing your children is really important when you hope to be their guide in learning. I know that my oldest son, at the age of five, considers death a fascinating thing. He fights his anxieties about it by thinking about it and using his rational judgements on matters of mortality. When he was three, he was the boy who insisted on watching when I killed the roosters for dinner. Because I know this, I am a little less worried when he wants to know about oil-rig fires. I don't have a large group of children to worry about so I am free to discuss explosions and rescue attempts without fear of upsetting other children and giving them nightmares. While I'm not about to let my son watch zombie movies, I can afford to share different things with him than he would have access to in a school setting.

Yesterday morning, before swimming lessons, I was asked to read a picture book called Mario's Angels about the Italian fresco painter Giotto (di Bondone). Today we looked online at pictures of his frescoes at Scrovegni Chapel - pictures of people and angels and things. If I had been the one picking their "curriculum" I would never have picked this book, partly because I am an agnostic, and partly because I am not familiar with the subject material (which is a shameful reason for someone who considers themselves a life-learner).

None of these things is really the sort of study that would be "suggested learning" for 3- to 6-year-olds. Some people would ask me "Isn't this all a bit beyond them?", but my answer is that it doesn't matter that they learn it all now. I am happy for them to encounter life as it comes. Library books offer amazing opportunities to discuss things that wouldn't otherwise come up in conversation, especially when my younger son will get out any book at the library with a colourful cover.

When we are little everything is new and alien. Humans are fantastically good at adapting to whatever world is around us, which is how human babies learn to live wherever we are, be it frozen wastes, arid deserts, tropical islands, temperate forests, dense jungles, or high-rise apartment blocks. We learn what we do. We learn what we hear. We learn what others around us do. In our family, we find things out, and we look things up.

If there is one thing that being a parent has reinforced to me, it is the gradual pace of learning. Being exposed to something once is not the same as learning it. Just because a baby has taken its first step, does not mean it can walk now. Any teacher will tell you that the secret to understanding something is using it, and "repetition, repetition, repetition". We incorporate new understandings and habits by building on our breadth of experience. We either slot new information into our previously existing ideas easily, or we have to unlearn something we weren't getting quite right to make sense of something new (assimilation and accommodation). Our earliest experiences are our fundamental understandings to which everything else joins up. They are our core; the trunk of our tree of knowledge.

Children look at their experiences through their own unique lenses. The things they learn are based on their personal experiences. They may have heard something countless times and it will only stick when they have a need for the information, or it's used in a way that reminds them of something they have direct experience of. My children have not learned that Giotto was alive in 1266, and that he was contracted to paint chapels, but they may feel like the word "fresco" might have something to do with painting next time they hear it mentioned, if they ever hear it again... and if they never hear it again, they will lose that information. The human brain is great like that. Perhaps a concept as simple as "if it's not moving, it's not going to move until something pushes or pulls it" is so self evident that it's not worth holding onto too, but there is a lot more to learn from reading books. Part of what is learned is how  it is learned, so by looking for information in books or the internet, my children are at least learning the places that you can find things out, that you need to know.

Cornstarch

Summer 2012 at our old place.

A. was wanting something to do that he hadn't done before, and I figured that a year ago is long ago enough for any play like that to be "new". I got out some cornstarch and water and I added turmeric to make yellow. He said he also wanted pink (and I'm happy to use up our food colouring on stuff that my kids aren't going to ingest!!) so I made up a bowl of that too.

While all this was going on S. was happy to just sit and build huge constructions with Duplo. He has frequently done this for about a year and, copying his brother, this has mostly been called building "towers" and "guns". Recently however he has been making me monsters, and race-tracks, and other things, which is a sign that he is starting to create for himself, rather than copying an existing form. He is probably ready to get into Lego now that he has better fine motor control and is beginning to get the strategy of overlapping bricks to make the structure more stable.

A. spent quite some time mixing his cornstarch. He puddled and stirred and slapped at it, noticing how the paste went runny when allowed to flow and firm if you ever tapped or hit it. He frustrated himself several times over by digging in it and having it crack and flick out of the bowl and onto the ground. Thankfully, he mostly did this on the bench and on the ground outside which meant that the mess was contained. He decided it was important to mix the two colours together and I discussed with him first, what colour he thought this might make if he mixed the pink and the yellow. This is a basic scientific experiment so it helps to have an idea or guess as your "hypothesis" that you are testing. Armed with a hypothesis of "it might turn an orangey colour" A. went off to test his idea by combining the two containers of gunk.

He didn't trust his own ability to mix the two colours together without making "a huge mess", so after attempting to spoon the stuff from one bowl to another he gave up and came and got me from where I had been building with his brother, to tip one bowl of mixture into the other one. I had a go at spooning mixture first, as we found that we could make swirly patterns in the liquid because it doesn't combine straight away like dye in water would. I wrote a letter in the bowl. "AHAH! What's that?!" I asked. "It's an A.!" he told me. We mixed the whole lot together and lo, we got the orangey colour that we had been guessing about. Sometimes it's nice to be right, and the only reason that he had the information to make a correct guess was lots of experience with mixing coloured paints.

I don't like to focus a lot of energy on being right, with my kids, but it's such a hard-wired thing in me that I have to work hard to be aware of it. Getting things perfect is something that it's so easy to want for, but it's not a healthy thing, because it cultivates a risk averse nature. People who want everything to be perfect all the time are less likely to take on new things, because if they aren't familiar with it, they are less likely to get it right. I want my kids to feel that they can succeed, while not having the insecurity that would hold them back from trying new things. Getting things wrong now and then is cool because you can learn something new. I try to model this every time I make mistakes myself... but it's hard to stay on top of things when you are stressed by your mistakes.

It can be a really good reframe to look at mistakes from the point of view that you are showing children that when you mess up, the worst that can happen is that you have to deal with the consequences, and the best is that something unpredictable and wonderful happens. A broken jar can be an opportunity to use the vacuum cleaner, and a chance to look at the layers inside the ceramics. A wrong turn when meeting with friends can be a chance to learn how to use a map, or it could teach you the whereabouts of a park or a previously unknown shortcut. There is a book by Carol Dweck called Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, which talks about this in more detail.

I like to focus on how "where we are at is just one step in the journey" and "the only time you really fail is when you are giving up".

Muffins!

Today I asked the kids what they wanted to do. My eldest son can not cope with self regulating his computer time.. in fact it stops all his self regulation at all and he becomes a lethargic, emotionally volatile, incontinent mess. So, after having ruled out playing on the computer, A. decided he wanted to bake some muffins.

I love baking with my kids because it's such a rich experience. Not only does it make them aware of how their food is made and where it comes from, but there are a pile of skills, from measuring and estimating, right through to the theory of how foods work together. Today we had a couple of challenges; cooking food the whole family can eat means making wheat-free / dairy-free / egg-free, and the regular recipe we use contained bananas, which we didn't have.

A. demonstrates the viscosity of gelled chia.
"It was really jelly-like, and it was fun!"

One of the ingredients that works well for us (for gluten-free, egg-free baking,) as a solidifying agent, that helps keep the muffin mixture moist, while at the same time helping it bind together, is chia seeds. The cool thing about chia seeds is that they are "mucilaginous".. or gooey when they get wet. We did an experiment today where we put some chia seeds in some water and it only takes a minute or two for them to turn into a jelly that is so gooey that you can hold the container upside down. A. Thought this was hilarious, and let's face it, chia is pretty cool.

We had to figure out what to replace banana with and A. decided it had to be something wet, squishy and sweet so he picked kiwifruit. I knew that this is a lot more acidic than banana so I added a pinch of baking soda to the mixture to cut the acidity a bit. He cut them in half and I peeled them and we popped them all in the blender with some freshly ground chia. We wanted oats, but we needed them to be moist so we soaked them. A:"this smells just like porridge."

I told him the measurements for the dry ingredients which he measured in and mixed to get out all the lumps. He preheated the oven to 180°C before combining the wet and dry ingredients and spooning them out into muffin trays.  He decided we should add chocolate chips and had to taste test a few just in case ("chef's privilege!"). He decided it would be a good idea to save at least one for Daddy when they were cooked because Daddy was at work. After we had made them Daddy called from work and asked if he could have 3 so we put them aside so that they wouldn't be devoured by ravenous children (and Mummy).

These sorts of opportunities are fantastic for my eldest, when we can get one-on-one time. This can be problematic because I have two other children also in my care. Luckily, one is very young and so she sleeps a lot, and the other is very good at entertaining himself, but today I learned the hard way that giving the more self sufficient child his turn on the computer while we bake is not the best strategy for keeping the older one interested in the activity. If there is a computer on in the house he NEEDS to be involved, which doesn't encourage him to enjoy what he's doing, but rather to frame an otherwise fun activity (that he requested!) as a distraction from the flashy lights in the other room. Not something I hope to repeat.

I wish I could have a muffin now... but they're all gone.

Plaster and Paint

My children are super lucky that we have friends and family who buy them things that we, as parents, might flinch from. For example, consider the logistical nightmare of organising painting for two boys on a rainy day... but it's well worth the effort. A. got a craft set for his birthday from his Grandma S. - to make a plaster car and paint it. I am super lucky that I have an involved husband who likes spending time with his boys. The first day involved making the plaster and there was enough left in the pack to make another car, but no other mold, so I had a hunt in the cupboards for some sort of kitchen mold and found silicone gingerman baking molds, so we used the leftover plaster to make S. a gingerbread man to decorate.

A day later the plaster was ready to paint. After  cleaning off the kitchen table and covering it in cardboard and newsprint, setting up a drop-cloth on the dining room floor, and dressing the children in "painting shirts" (some of my old clothes) they were ready to go. This all just shows how far my children have come. Now he is 5, A. is finally at the stage where he can sometimes defer gratification. He is focused on the product of his work and wants grand results. I was very worried that he was going to get upset if his car didn't turn out like the picture on the box so I was careful to try and help him frame his results so that he wouldn't feel let down. "The picture on the box is just one suggestion... you can do it however you want, really funny, or really cool, or even something like Vanellope's kart in Wreck-It Ralph! What matters is that it's all yours and you can do it how you want."

The boys had a great time under their father's close supervision, which was quite necessary as S. needs to be reminded to clean his brushes between colours to avoid huge blow ups when sharing paints with his brother. A., however was keen to let his paints dry between coats so that the colours would not all mix together. S. liked to mix the colours and started with black and added green and red and purple. It took two sessions on different days to finish the looks and only a little bit of help from Mum and Dad. The boys were very keen to make their projects look special so they insisted on adding glitter!

Projects like this are great for A. because they get him using his fine motor skills. He loves to decorate and customise but likes to have a clear idea of what he is creating, so it's a great way to get him used to making mistakes and not worrying about things being just-so. If he has unrealistic expectations he can be a perfectionist and can be so daunted by things that he doesn't try. Having Dad home to interact with is always a plus too. This month Dad is on late shifts so he often doesn't get home until the boys are ready for bed, so they have been having a hard time coming to grips with not having him home much of the time.

Having positive experiences like this let both the boys and me know that painting is not so difficult and it is rewarding for all of us.

Information Literacy - Superb Bird of Paradise

Today A. watched a documentary about jungles.

He saw a Superb Bird of Paradise.

He asked what they eat, and wondered if they ate worms.

Mummy looked them up and found out that they live in Papua New Guinea and Indonesia.

They eat fruit such as yellow figs, and a variety of insects.

Information literacy is something that my family really values. I want my children to know what information they need, how to get it, to be able to figure out if the information they have is any good, and to be able to present information in ways that other people can use.

When my children don't know something I like to first get them to make a guess at the answer, but as they grow I expect them more and more to know where to go to find that information. This starts off with me modelling the ways that I find information - books, the internet, videos, people who know more than me.

My children have some ideas about how information is stored. S. is only 3 but he knows you can look things up in books. He isn't expert enough to know the difference between fiction and non-fiction and he still has the habit of picking up adult fiction novels with great pictures on the front. I recall him picking a novel because it had a picture of an orange on the front, and one with a person driving a car. "I looking up CARS!" he declared. Children first play with ideas and approximate what they see around them... this is how we first experience adult ideas, "heuristically" - through trial and error.

Only when they get more expert will they be able to unpack how what they have learned is important, or why. At the moment the alphabet is a song, or a game... but soon enough it will be a valuable tool for hunting through the index of a book, or looking up a word in a dictionary... because, realistically, they aren't going to be completely relying on Google to do that for them. They may be digital natives, but not everything is on the internet, especially the more esoteric stuff.

Sometimes I fear that my children have too many answers at their fingertips - that somehow by letting "the cloud" do the thinking they may just not bother to retain information for themselves. In the day and age where we rely on our GPS to navigate us around town do we actually learn how to get where we are going, and form internal mind maps of our location? Will we be lost if the electrics fritz out and we are left to make out way blind... or will we just use the GPS on our phone, or call roadside assistance?

That's one reason why information literacy is so important in this day and age. Things are changing so fast that we don't know what the world our children or grandchildren live in is going to be like. We need to prepare them not for the world as it is, but give them the skills they need to adapt to a world as it will be... before it changes again. We need our children to have a very sophisticated skill-set if they hope to navigate seas of information, full of opinion, spin, bias, half-truth, sensationalism, fact, fiction... lies.

Holistic Development

One of the reasons that I enjoy and value home education, is because everything that we do can be a learning opportunity in many ways. We don't have to split learning up into subject areas or ignore personal growth in favour of academic subjects. Implicit in the "subject areas" of organised curricula is what you value. It could be argued that, in a mass schooling setting, "mathematics" has a value, but "relationship building" does not. This is where the Early Childhood Education curriculum in NZ is a step ahead of the curriculum for schools, or at least how it is delivered, because it implicitly values relationship building and protecting both mental and physical health of the children. It's frustrating to me that, in my country, normally when a child has turned 6 (by law, or 5 in common practice) they transfer to a community without parents, where they are expected to meet academic targets first and foremost, and must less emphasis is placed on developing interpersonal skills, or protecting a child's personal emotional growth.

My kids attend the local Playcentre so they can meet people, make friends and use the facilities like, puzzles, blocks, playdough and art supplies. Playcentre is a network of parent run cooperatives in New Zealand, offering childcare and early childhood education by parents in the local community. It means that I can be there in a kindergarten-like environment with my kids and let them be in the company of other children and supportive adults. Playcentres receive funding from the Ministry of Education which means that they have to meet goals and be accountable to the Ministry, deliver the NZ Early Childhood curriculum (called Te Whāriki -  said "fah-ricky"), and meet early childhood statutory regulations, to receive funding from the government.

This is both helpful and limiting. One of the points of Te Whāriki is to help educators identify what learning is going on when kids play, and a way of accounting for it on paper. It can be limiting to have other people set your objectives for you, but it's also helpful in that it provides a point of view, or lens through which you can identify facets of children's progress, and direction.

I'm currently thinking hard about what the four Principles of Te Whāriki mean to me, and how they can be used to identify and plan children's play and learning opportunities. Today my sons and I did some holistic activities. They learned and practiced all sorts of things by doing one or two activities.  I challenge you to find activities that aren't holistic, because I think that all human experience affects us on many levels. Two different people could have identified an entirely different set of growth opportunities as they watched what was happening. This is one reason I really value having a co-parent. As Obi-Wan Kenobi said: "you're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view". Looking at things holistically is a practice of unpacking  how your values are reflected in an activity. I'm sure there are plenty of things I haven't identified in how and what my children learn that other people would pick up. As they say "It takes a village to raise a child".

Today my boys did a jigsaw puzzle of Voyager of the Ancient Mariners. They encountered a sea serpent, compass, the equator, the international date-line, and the look of maps, the locations and sounds of the names of different continents and countries, and discussed how the map wraps around, and in the days where people explored with ships made of wood, there were no planes or cars. A. looked at Ferdinand Magellan's ship and said it looked like the ones he saw in the cartoon "The Mysterious Cities of Gold" (a story set in 1532).

The boys also did different tasks so they weren't in direct competition, practiced speaking at appropriate volumes, took turns, problem-solved, practiced conflict resolution, catagorised and sorted pieces, recognised patterns, matched like shapes, used their fine motor skills, and persisted until the task was complete. My children have in no way mastered their use of this skill and information, but the more they interact with it and use it for their own purposes, the more they will retain and use, and the more they will learn which things interest them, and which are irrelevant and boring.

Setting a precedent

Since my eldest broke his collarbone he has been doing more sedentary activities. I'm not generally keen on letting him sit around all day but it has stopped him from playing roughly with his brother, and feeling pain. He has been using his problem solving skills, attempting to learn how to play new video games despite being pre-literate and not able to follow the text prompts. He has been enjoying playing Lego Starwars and finished the story mode very quickly with minimal input from anyone else ("I think the bit that you're missing is you use the grapple hook to attach a rope to the walkers' legs and then fly around them in circles to trip them over." "oooooOOOohh").

He has also been watching a lot of cartoons. The way we do things, this means he has been watching things that we have chosen specifically for him to watch and he is streaming files off a server to watch in all their ad-free glory on the large screen TV. This sort of glorification of media is probably not ideal, but at least we know what he's watching and can talk to him about any messages he gets, that he needs to unpack.

Today the big question on his mind was "Why were Rarity and Pinky being so mean to Fluttershy? Why wouldn't they let her buy the cherry?"

So we had a discussion about setting precedents. If you do something one time, then people might expect you to do the same thing the next time. It's like if Great-Granny offers you a marshmallow when you leave her place, you want a marshmallow every time. If Fluttershy lets someone charge her an unreasonable amount for something she really wants, then next time he goes to sell her something he might want to make her pay more too... and Rarity and Pinky Pie didn't want that guy trying to get lots of money off their friend... so they were actually trying to be nice!

This all seemed to be straightforward enough... but I was asked, why was he charging so much? Because she really wanted something, he felt like he could ask her to pay a lot, because there was only one left. That's what's called "limited supply". If there is only one of something that people really, really want, then the person who owns that thing sometimes puts the price up, because people are so desperate to get it that they will pay a lot of money for it. It's called "Supply and Demand".

Further explanation proved to clarify this, but I doubt it will go in just yet. I think it helps to introduce ideas, even if they are a little bit over what a child has experience of. They can play with the ideas and might recognise a few things if they encounter this idea again. They may know what to look for in interactions with others. Just because a child seems to have their head around a concept the first time they encounter it like this, doesn't mean they are going to retain the information. We only hold onto information that is useful and relevant to us. That's why I think it's important to talk to my kids about how they make sense of their world, even if the experiences are simulated ones like in video-games and television programming. One of the great things about not relying on syllabi and curricula is that you can cover material as it comes up and when it is relevant to the person who is trying to make sense of their own world. It matters to them.

Say what you like about television programming, it does allow children to experience a variety of social and physical situations that they would otherwise not be exposed to, from the relative safety of the couch. My children can learn a lot about bullying, and making friends, and lions, and diseases, and X-Games, and.. supply and demand from the relative safety of the couch, and without having to be the ones making the blunders... though I doubt it will ever really stick for good until it's made real for them in their own lives.

Play, Approximation and Rote Learning

Once long ago, okay about 3½ years ago, I spoke to a parent who was bragging about her daughter being able to count. The daughtifully would dutifully recite her 1,2,3s and earn beaming smiles and coos of adoration... but she had no idea what numbers were. It was cute, but I was not as impressed as I was "supposed" to be.

My son is 3¼ (because until you are at least 6 years old, every one of those quarters matter!) and he likes letters and numbers... He can pick out an S, and A, an M, and a K. A few days ago his baby sister was chewing on a fridge magnet (as you do?) and he grabbed it off her because she was chewing on his "S"... and he found her an M to chew on instead... he's always liked things to correspond. He likes the circle shape of O but he seldom remembers its name, and he likes that Z is in "Buzz Lightyear". With my kids' literacy I have never particularly been hung up on them learning alphabetical order. Phonetics and visual recognition of "sight words" seemed more important to me. What do you use alphabetising for in reading? Not a lot. It's much more useful for doing things like navigating an index.

My older son is 5½ and he has been using literacy programs on the computer. Some of them sing alphabet songs of various sorts. Some have exercises where you have to input "2 letters before X"... for some reason. I got him a laminated card with the alphabet to aid him with such problems and he's become pretty good at counting forward and backward through the alphabet, he now knows the "directionality" - that you read it from left to right, and start a new line on the left when you run out of letters, and he has set himself the challenge of learning the alphabet song. When he asked me how he was doing I had to honestly break it to him that he was habitually missing out J. The other day he was in his room quietly singing to himself and then he hollered out to me "MUMMY!! I REMEMBERED J!!!".

My younger son loves to watch his brother. He loves to do what he can do. Recently this has meant learning how to do his own car seatbelt... and trying to learn the alphabet song. When little ones start to learn everything is guesses. It's approximating what you experience around you, trying it yourself, seeing what works and what doesn't. S. has been "counting" for a while now. It normally goes "1, 2, 3, 4, 3, 1, 4, 3, 4, 3.... 4!!" Lately he has a new favourite number which he can recognise the numeral for. "1, 6, 3, 4, 6, 1, 3, 6, 4, 6!" Adding to his knowledge of counting S. is trying to ... count? the letters by alphabet. He will point to letters on the cover of a book and start at "A, B, C..." Today he got very excited and a little confused as he pointed to all the letters, reading "A, B, C, F, G, T, U, V, W, U, V, Q, R, Z, 6, 23, Z!!"

There is a place for rote learning, but teaching a child their 123 or abc, does not make them suddenly comprehend the meaning. Using these ideas and playing with them is what gives us insights into these things. Today my son was in the sandpit and I drew a squiggle in the sand. "S!" he labels correctly and then he kneels down next to me and draws a mirror image of my squiggle "S!" he yells again. His approximation is close enough for me, and I smile. Today my son made a recognisable mark, for his own message. He started playing with the form of language, and making it for himself. Nobody told him to... he just copied what he sees around him on a daily basis. A few weeks ago he took magnetic letters off the fridge and made BZZ. I am told this spells "Buzz Lightyear!". These are the experiences through which my children gain their literacy.

Naming the Fish

On Tuesday I took the children to the after hours clinic so that A. could have his collar bone checked. While we were in the waiting room th boys were checking out the fish tank. "Mum come and look at this! I found a plecostomus!" I watched as a little fish suckered onto the glass and huffed it's way up and down searching for algae.

"Ooh! have you found our vaccum-cleaner fish?" said the receptionist as she came over to talk to us.
"It's a plecostomus..."
She rolled her eyes. "Or a whatever it is you just said..." she laughed. "I'd love one of those to clean up my place!" she joked with the kids.
The other receptionist came over to us "Are you naming MY fish?" she smiled.
"I was just showing the kids your plecostomus..."
"uh, Plick...?"
"For short" joked the other woman.
"Pleco, for short." I smiled.

I know that a lot of people don't think it's relevant or worth their time to learn about the world around them. Perhaps the names of fish is a "waste of time" to learn. Unless you are talking to people with an interest in fish you don't really need to have specific names.. you can always say "the brown one"... or "the one with the frilly tail". The problem comes when people get scared of things with big names.

One of my hopes for my kids, is that they will want to find out about things because they are curious. I don't want them to be turned off finding something out just because they encounter a big word. Big words are not difficult or scary, yet plenty of people hide them from children fearing that it is "over their heads".

Newsflash; EVERYTHING is over a baby's head. These are all things that people become familiar with through time and experience. To a small child every phrase is just a pile of syllables. People shorten words like "hippopotamus" and yet never hide words like"library", or "refrigerator". Many phrases that little children are familiar with are like giant words to them - "justaminute!" has no component parts to a small person. It's just a collection of sounds strung together. And yet by the time we are adults we freak out at words we don't know.. alien ideas... the domain of "weird", "difficult", and an indicator of "I can't".

When I was growing up my family loved words - my grandfather in particular. He liked the way they felt to say, and he collected knowledge like it was treasure. He liked to know the Latin name for anything you could point to. When I was about 5 years old I found a sea-snail shell and he told me it was a "struthiolaria"!

Struth-io-laria... feels great to say. I was raised in a family where words were a game. They were fun, and challenging and approachable. Something you can do. We had other-language words too. My mother was raised in Fiji. My brother and I we heard common phrases that were just long strings of syllables. Phrases with meanings, but no distinct words. We learned the words later.

And we had adult words, and science words, and our father would break them down for us. "Bicycle" was taken apart and it meant "two" "wheels". Instead of the daunting mess of syllables we had parts of words with their own meanings. When we look at big words, we see the familiar building blocks of meaning. I was reading a book in 2011 and saw the word "ichthyophagus" and thinking back to my "fishy-lizard" ichthyosaurus.. and my "flesh eater" sarcophagus... I pieced together "fish eater". Words are a fun puzzle if you know how to play the game.

I don't expect my children to love language the way that I do, but I don't want them to fear it either. I want them to be able to embrace new things and not put them the "too-hard-basket". So for now, we use language to get our point across. We discuss "micro-organisms" rather than "germs", and "plecostomi" rather than "vacuumcleaner fish" but sometimes we just refer to "icky stuff" or "the sucky one".

Looking Things Up

On Thursday, after swimming lessons, we met with some friends at the park. One of our friends (Miss P. 5yr) had a scavenger hunt activity sheet of plants and animals that you might find at or near your house in Wellington. I had a look through it and there were many common things that we recognised and discussed, such as tui, cats, blackbirds, weta (which S.'s cat, Minty, likes to hunt), sparrows, harakeke, and white tailed spiders. We asked A. if he had white tailed spiders at home. He said "I've never seen a white tailed spider... only black-headed jumping spiders".

Black-headed jumping spider

About a week ago A. found a spider on the ceiling of his bedroom and asked me what it was. I have recently been fearing that I give him too many straight answers, and not enough strategies for finding things out, so I said "Ooh! we could look it up!" and grabbed a book on NZ insects from the shelf. He flicked through the book and located the picture of the spider, and I read out the name to him. I now understand what a boon having a half decent home library is and how blessed I was growing up in a home with great books in the time preceding the internet.

About two weeks ago I was reading Snugglepot and Cuddlepie and there was an illustration of some scary deep-sea fish. A. and S. have been fascinated by the scary teeth and glowing lights of things like the angler fish (like in the movie Finding Nemo) and they wanted to know what types of fish they were looking at so I used a Google image search for "deep sea fish" to find the one that looked right. It turns out that it was a viperfish. At the moment internet searches must appear as magic to my children, but over time I hope they will learn a lot about finding the information they want. Now we have a couple of books on strange and interesting fish from the local library.