you can’t stop the learning
Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009by a learner
Bingen am Rhein, Germany
Every day I happen across older kids with their maths textbook open or copying out Latin vocabulary, smaller ones are continually badgering for “how to spell” something, especially the ones who were writing *nothing* six months ago, and pictures are constantly being churned out.
You really can’t stop the learning.
I had wondered if, with fewer craft supplies on hand, the amount of *creativity* exhibited at home might diminish while we were on the road. My fears are proving to be unfounded. These kids just make do with what they’ve got. If they have a space of four square metres to play in, they make up games that fit that space. If we get a couple of hot nights and they realise that it’s going to be roasting by the time summer hits, they start ruminating about how to make a fan……check out Jgirl14’s journal entries about the process:
Tuesday 2nd June
Success!
If we forget the fact that Kboy10 and made the previously mentioned fan and it didn’t work on account of the brackets not being stable enough, the shaft not being straight and the fan heads not being efficient, because they were a) too fat, b) the wrong shape and c) couldn’t spin fast enough due to the first two problems…..if we forget about that, which I highly doubt, given that it took two and a half hours to fashion the pieces needed and fully assemble….if we can forget about all that….we had two successes one was the shopping and the other was the fan.
The shopping hilarities can wait until the matter of the fans is closed!
While Kboy10 and I were despairing over our un-co-operative fan that, instead of spinning, went up and down like a seesaw, I had a brainwave. One minute Kboy10 was saying, “I knew it wouldn’t work, even in our test run it didn’t” (which was entirely true), and the next minute he was asking, “Are you sure it will work?”
An hour later we had transformed it into a paddle fan. The brackets stayed the same, but everything else was moved around, and the rotational fan heads….they’re history.
Now the brackets have three strings holding them at 45 degree angles to the roof. In the middle of these strings is a strip of cardboard (5cm x 8cm) secured lengthways for stability.
We kept the shaft and it now has a paddle on each end.
As the trial run was successful we even decorated the paddles.
Finally the shaft was taped on to the cardboard strip. There’s a string on each end of the shaft so at the pull of a string you have a fan that works!
As Grandpa says, we are now Punkah Wallahs 😉
Everyone learnt today what happens when you go over a bump on a bicycle too fast. Unfortunately for her, Tgirl5 will probably remember the lesson the longest, with scraped hip, grazed elbow and donked cheek and forehead. She will be back on the carrier tomorrow, urging the driver to “don’t go too fast”.
We have had all sorts of encounters with *nature*.
From the crow snatching a sparrow for lunch…
to watching little flitty birds build a nest on the side of a house in Reichenau (where, as it happens, Mboy6 observed that the ones clinging to the house must be men…..when asked for a reason he replied, “Well the ladies are the servants doing all the work”….and I realised he needed to help out more round the van – not that there is a lot to do each day!)…
to listening to birds sing all night long in Rothenburg – literally All Night Long; they simply didn’t stop…
to dipping in a mountain stream…
to catching a glimpse of a woodpecker and a deer…
to listening to the song of a cuckoo day after day in the woods behind us (and y’know, we haven’t *seen* the cuckoo, but we know that’s what it is, because it sounds JUST like a cuckoo clock – very realistic – so it must be!)
From wheat fields to waterfalls, from pollen to poppies, from mountains to watching the Rhein grow wider and wider.
And travelling through Europe you can’t help but have an historical experience. We have observed, compared and contrasted churches, chapels and cathedrals. We have delighted in quaint little villages, tudor houses and all manner of solid old buildings.
Actually, we are having a Wikipedia Holiday…..it may not be the most educationally advanced way of seeing the world, but I saved offline a Wikipedia page for every place we are planning to stop, and that gives us a snippet of background information. Not good for Lonely Planet, but informative enough for us! Besides, we find a lot of the reading we have previously done coming to mind and to life.
the learning goes on and on and on….
rayres