Autonomous Education in Action

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Dd1 opened her hand and showed me the millipede she had caught in the garden.

'He's going to be my pet. He's got very tiny legs. He's got more legs than a spider'.

'Yes, a spider has eight legs'.

'And he's got more than a sponge'

'Really?'

'A sponge has zero legs.' She laughs.'Because zero is none and a sponge doesn't have any legs at all. None. Zero.'

'Would you like to put him in a box? ' I say, passing her a tupperware tub.

'Ooh yes!'

'You'll have to put some soil in to -'

'-I know! I was just going to do that!'

She returns with some soil.'It's nice and moist,' she declares.

'That's right, 'cause he wont like getting too dry will he?'

She pauses: 'I wont take him on my scooter though.'

She puts the box on the side in the lounge and goes out to play.

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Yesterday the boys attended a workshop with a costume designer to make block-printed scarves based on a collection of wild birds in the museum. They seemed to enjoy it, though, as always, it was difficult to draw any information about the session from them. I took dd1 to a small indoor play centre to spend a bit of one-to-one time with her (and catch up on a bit of reading when she was otherwise distracted!).

Today I decided I needed to get the front borders tidy and make some space to plant out the remaining plants in the greenhouse before we go camping. The front border is heaven for slugs and snails, so anything planted there has to be tall and unappetising to molluscs. I thought I'd better tie back some plants before the postman started complaining that he couldn't get up the path; one year the milkman started leaving the milk at the end of the garden path because he got fed up of getting his trousers wet from all the plants hanging over the path!