“A portrait of my child, once a week, every week, in 2016.”
Such an perfect week away with this little man: almost every second spent outdoors, exploring and playing and learning and socialising.
And in between it all quiet moments like this where I savoured him looking so self-assured, so content.
Love summer, love our campervan, and cannot wait for our next adventure.
Linking up with Jodi at Practising Simplicity for The 52 Project.
“A portrait of my child, once a week, every week, in 2016.”
Arthur has been fascinated by the remnants of charcoal in our outdoor fire, so I thought he might like to have a go at drawing with it… If you’re going to make a mess it might as well be a beautiful one, right?
Linking up with Jodi at Practising Simplicity for The 52 Project.
One of the most awesome things about travelling with Arthur is the way it opens my eyes to new experiences – both seeing the familiar in a brand new light, and encouraging me to explore places I might not otherwise have ventured into.
We managed to squeeze a surprising amount of adventures into our recent whistlestop tour to Florida – we were only there for three full days, and one of those was a wedding. But in between cooling off in various pools and making lots of lovely new friends we managed to make the most of where we were with two very different excursions.
The first was to the Kennedy Space Center. Now I love space as much as the next person, but honestly if it hadn’t been for Arthur being as fascinated as he is about all things interstellar I very much doubt my husband would have persuaded me to go. But we did, and it was brilliant!
Arthur was almost climbing out of his carseat with excitement as we approached, the models of various Saturn spacecrafts towering into the sky. Everything was familiar to him from the books we’ve read and the documentaries he’s watched with his daddy, and as we got closer he began pointing out to me the different parts of the rockets and explaining how they flew.
He got to sit inside command modules, try his hand at moon landing simulations, experience a re-enactment of the Saturn V launch (actually possibly the best bit of multi-media theatre I’ve seen) and walk beneath the Saturn V itself, his all-time favourite spaceship.
He was fascinated as we trawled round the various displays, looking at old photographs and actual rocks from the actual moon. Being there just put into context everything he’s been exploring at home, making it so much more real – and so much more exciting.
We even almost got to see a rocket launch, but it was cancelled at the last minute. Even that Arthur took in his stride, though he was clearly disappointed. It wasn’t quite the same watching the video one of our friends took when they caught the rescheduled launch the following night, though that was still kinda cool!
In total contrast to this, the next day we went to Gatorland. Now again, this was not the sort of place I would have rushed to if it weren’t for the talk of alligators piquing Arthur’s interest – and again we had an awesome, and enlightening, few hours of exploration.
There were literally thousands of alligators and crocodiles, some so close that you could almost touch them, spread around an awesomely retro site where egrets, herons and storks swooped and squawked. There was a balance of wide open spaces and smaller displays, and we had some really interesting talks about habitat and animal behaviour as we explored the park.
Arthur was also fascinated (and a little bit scared) by the snakes, peering in through the glass. Less scary (though a little bit random) was the petting zoo, where he sneaked in a cuddle with a kid before we continued on our way.
The other unexpected highlight – and one that was particularly helpful as the mercury topped thirty degrees – was the kids’ splash park. We dipped in there twice during our visit. The first time Arthur hung back, nervous in the company of raucous older children. On our return, though, he threw himself in with confidence – proud with himself for having overcome his fears and rewarded by being drenched in deliciously cool water.
For a holiday that I thought would revolve mainly around socialising, albeit on the other side of the world, I was amazed by how much we managed to pack in. It reminded me, though, of the wonderful thing about travelling with children: it might add another layer of complication to the journey, but when you begin to see the possibilities the world presents through their wide eyes it can’t help but bring a whole new dimension to the adventure.
“A portrait of my child, once a week, every week, in 2016.”
We have had a day of ‘getting things done’ today, which has meant that for much of it Arthur has been left to his own devices.
Sometimes, that’s a disaster.
But today, with Leigh and I busying ourselves with organising and tidying and planting, he has been a little star.
I found him at one point this afternoon with his balance bike upside down, bits of twigs strewn around him. I asked what he was doing, and he told me he was using his bike as a stick cutter. Obviously.
I’m still not entirely sure what that meant, but he was clearly utterly absorbed in experimentation. And rocking quite a cool outfit too…
Linking up with Jodi at Practising Simplicity for The 52 Project.
“A portrait of my child, once a week, every week, in 2016.”
Leigh and I had a very rare trip up to London this weekend, just the two of us.
Arthur stayed with my mum, and though we were only away for a night it was remarkable to see how much he seemed to grow up in just those twenty four little hours. This picture is hers, from a walk in the woods that they took before bedtime. I love the look of wonder on his face, the way he is poised for exploration and adventure.
It took us a long while to leave Arthur overnight. I could not imagine anything I less wanted to do in the first few weeks and months, and as time went on people were full of cautionary tales about how he would never be able to cope without us if we didn’t start to reduce the attachment that felt so natural for us to nurture.
In fact the opposite has proved to be true. We still hang out together an awful lot, but when Arthur is given the chance to be more independent he rises to it – confident that we will return, and full of excited stories to share with us when we do.
And cuddles, of course. There were lots of cuddles too.
Linking up with Jodi at Practising Simplicity for The 52 Project.
“A portrait of my child, once a week, every week, in 2016.”
I love watching Arthur play, especially outdoors.
He is becoming so imaginative and agile and brave: balancing and climbing and reaching and exploring. Even when he is playing on his own – in fact especially when he is playing on his own – he buzzes with the energy of all that he is discovering about the world.
He fell not long after I took this picture, balancing on the beams that spanned the brook, reaching down for his bucket that had tumbled into the water. He managed to catch the beam before he got too wet, and though he needed help to right himself he never lost his calm. Once he was freed from his precarious position he quickly re-found his focus, and carried on as if nothing had happened.
I’m not sure you can teach skills like that.
Linking up with Jodi at Practising Simplicity for The 52 Project.
It may be taking up rather a lot of time and headspace, but one major benefit of the #THISislearning campaign for me has been the renewed focus I have found on the way Arthur learns, and how I can best facilitate it. I’ve been reading lots of articles about what does – and doesn’t – inspire effective learning and I in turn am feeling very much inspired.
One of the key concerns parents and teachers have about the SATs is the space they take up – both in terms of time and the room they occupy in peoples’ heads – meaning that other learning, proper learning, is squeezed out as a result. With Arthur learning at home (and out and about) with me, I don’t need to worry about his learning time (and quality) being reduced by assessment or administration. I do, however, want to make sure that his learning does not get lost in the focus on the everyday.
This is a bit of an oxymoron when it comes to unschooling. After all, everyday life IS learning – everything we do, enhanced by talk and questions, is teaching Arthur about a different aspect of the way the world works. But all of that is fairly ordinary, and I want to make sure he is inspired by the extraordinary too – that he has the chance to explore familiar (and less familiar) objects and materials in his own way, and in doing so learn things that might challenge his perceptions and everyday experiences.
Part of that means making sure he has the time in the day to play, and to immerse himself in that extra-ordinary learning. And part of it means dedicating physical space for him to do it – space that inspires curiosity and exploration, space that is his.
He actually has various little places around the house for this – his room, obviously, and a corner of my study. The area we’ve been working on this week, though, is in the kitchen. It started off just over a year ago as Arthur’s art corner, but as the months have passed it has evolved: he has acquired an increasing amount of resources for building and creating and experimenting, and the more things we’ve had to try to cram in to his corner the harder it’s been to actually access them.
I dream of Montessori-style open shelves, with carefully curated learning materials rotated on a regular basis. But then I have to get realistic, and remember just how quickly the space around me can descend into chaos if I’m not careful. So we’ve gone for clear drawers instead – I trawled the internet to find ones which would fit on our Ikea unit and finally found the perfect ones. I’m still waiting for another column of shelving to arrive which should (hopefully) fit perfectly into the corner by the window, and then there will be space for books and boxes of miscellaneous bits and pieces.
The idea with the drawers is that each of them has one type of resource. The way I’ve grouped them has varied, but there is a logic to it all. I’m hoping each one contains something that will inspire Arthur towards creative play: very few of the resources have a ‘right’ application, so it’s going to be interesting to see how he interprets their potential.
My favourite at the moment is definitely the seaside drawer, with shells and stones and sand collected from local beaches and our travels all over the world. I have so many ideas of what we might be able to do with them, but I’m trying to hold back at the moment to see what Arthur comes up with first.
As for Arthur, he seems especially intrigued by the ‘small worlds’ drawer, and I can’t blame him. We have yet to collect all of the weird and wonderful creatures he has secreted around the house and introduce them to their new home, but the ones that are there are already inspiring some interesting play – I particularly liked this morning’s conversation between the bear and the octopus.
On the subject of creatures, this learning space is also home to Arthur’s first pets – four tadpoles collected from the pond at my parents’ place. We are both fascinated by their habits and their creeping metamorphosis – in the last forty eight hours they have just begun to grow legs. They have inspired so many fascinating conversations already – I can’t wait to see Arthur’s wonder when their transformation is complete!
There is generally something incredibly powerful about focusing Arthur’s creative and conceptual energies around this space. He tends to oscillate round it as we go through our day, picking up new things to explore or pausing to investigate something further. It has certainly become the place he gravitates towards first thing in the morning. With things being accessible and clearly laid out he has proved more likely to just leap straight in – like yesterday, when I came downstairs to find him drawing on his easel (welly boots on of course ready to escape into the garden the second I opened the door).
The more I learn about learning the more I realise I have yet to learn – which is exactly as it should be. I am just very grateful to be spending my days with such a good little teacher, and will continue to do all I can to make the adventures we have together as inspiring and enlightening as possible.
“A portrait of my child, once a week, every week, in 2016.”
We had a bit of an impromptu adventure last Thursday.
We’d been supposed to go to a mums and kids exercise class, so had set off early to get the bus. We just missed one (of course), and then the next one didn’t come, but still we were vaguely on schedule. Until we got to pretty much the exact halfway point on our journey and ground to a halt in standstill traffic. There had been an accident – not a dreadful one, but it had involved a police car so they were letting no-one through.
I pondered for a few minutes, accepted that there was no way we were going to make our class, and decided that walking home would be a really great idea – via the coast path, and a couple of gorgeous little beaches that we very rarely get to visit. I thought it would be a bit of a mission, but actually wildly misjudged how long it would take. I’d forgotten just how windy the path was, and just how much of it traipsed up and down through woodlands. It was beautiful, but by the time we’d finally made it home my phone was telling me we’d walked for eleven kilometres.
And this one managed almost all of it, only taking a break in the sling for about twenty minutes in the run up to our (very overdue) break for lunch.
I was so proud of his stamina, and his determination to keep going. So many times when I’ve been wearing him over the past three years people have tutted and said he really should be walking, that by wearing him I wasn’t giving him the chance to build up his strength. I knew deep down that this was nonsense, that he was perfectly capable of walking but that didn’t mean that his little legs didn’t need a break from time to time.
The wonderful thing about the Connecta is that it’s so easy to stash in a bag as back up, leaving us free to go wherever the mood takes us. We might not have planned to go on this particular hike, but I am very very glad we did.
Linking up with Jodi at Practising Simplicity for The 52 Project.
“A portrait of my child, once a week, every week, in 2016.”
I will never get tired of being able to just pop to the beach on our way home from whatever else it is we’re doing. And I love that this one thinks it is entirely normal: sand in his toes and the sea stretched out behind him, his world an ocean of possibilities just waiting to be explored.
Linking up with Jodi at Practising Simplicity for The 52 Project.
We spent a week in the Canary Islands over Easter, and once again I have been blown away by just how much there is to be learnt from travelling. We weren’t even motivated by anything more than the desire to get away somewhere warm and spend some quality time as a family, but the tremendous scope for discovery and new experiences that Lanzarote had to offer completely surpassed our expectations.
We were especially lucky, I think, with the base we chose. We stayed in the most wonderful eco-resort in the North of the island, away from the main tourist trail. We slept in gorgeous yurts, which was an experience in itself. Our closest neighbours were chickens, ducks and donkeys, and there was a lovely solar-heated pool. Not forgetting the playground, which was right outside our little complex: it had a trampoline, and climbing frames, and a boat, and sand, and dump trucks, and little houses, and for Arthur it very quickly became home.
Outside of our little idyll, there was a whole new world to explore.
Unsurprisingly, the sea was central to much of our experience: admiring it, travelling across it, eating its many fruits, and of course swimming in it. We found an incredible lagoon, and some magical tidal pools. Between those and the pool Arthur well and truly shook off any wintery reluctance to jump right in, and his confidence and skill in the water came on in (literal) leaps and bounds.
He was mesmerised by the little fish that swam around our ankles as we paddled and splashed, but it didn’t stop him enjoying them on his plate, too… I’m not sure how many three year olds would demolish boquerones with quite as much relish as this one did. I like that he’s happy to eat fish that looks like fish, though – and that it gave us the opportunity to talk about where it came from and how it had been caught. I don’t want to freak him out about the food he eats, but I think it’s useful to be able to make the connections and understand our world better – especially when it’s him asking all the questions!
Away from the sea, there were of course the volcanoes. In the run up to our trip we’d watched some videos and talked about the volcanoes we were likely to see there, and wherever we went Arthur was full of questions about the nature of the mountains around us. We took a (very windy) trek into the lava fields, climbing up to the top of one volcano to peer into the caldera and walking into the depths of another. Both were long dormant, but that didn’t stop the incredible power of nature being evident everywhere we looked.
One of the other highlights of our trip was completely unexpected. I had never heard of Cesar Manrique, but he was an inspirational artist and architect who through his work and his vision had an enormous impact on the infrastructure of the island. We visited several of the sites he created, and Arthur soaked up the paintings and the sculptures and the unusual spaces, as well as being fascinated by the exhibitions about the landscape around us.
Last but very much not least, inspired by an advertising board that caught Arthur’s eye in the airport, we took a trip on a submarine. It was the first time any of us had been on an actual submarine voyage, and it blew all of our minds a little bit – but especially Arthur’s. Just the whole mechanics of it was pretty exciting, watching the little screen at our seat compute our depth, the pilots with their illuminated control panel and the propellers at the rear. And out of the window we saw wrecks, lots of fish, and even a diver feeding a huge ray. It was pretty cool.
It was all pretty cool, actually. And it really got me thinking about how we can work some longer trips into the next few years. It’s one of the main reasons I’m not super keen about getting stuck back into the constraints of the school system any earlier than I have to, and why I’m trying to evolve my working life into one I can take on the road with me.
We shall see…
For now, though, we have plenty of memories to be mulling over. I’m going to make a photobook for Arthur so that we can pull it out from time to time and be inspired afresh by our experiences. It’s a lot to compute for a growing mind after all!
Sophie is... 