Wednesday 25 July 2012

Our Learn Nothing Day 2012

Yesterday was Learn Nothing Day, a day where unschoolers everywhere try their very best to stop all learning in its tracks. To switch those brains off, and gain nothing in the way of knowledge.

We decide not to risk leaving the house, so started off with a quiet morning in the garden on this unusually sunny day. Alas, within minutes Sprout and Squidge both realised that the more they pumped their new water pistols up, the higher the pressure of the resulting water jets. Fail!


Not to be discouraged by this blip, we ploughed on and eventually wandered inside out of the hot sun. 

I popped Moppet into her sling and went to make the boys a snack while they went and cooled down a bit. To my horror, when I went to join them Squidge was playing with a little plane he'd got down from one of the shelves. A solar plane. He was watching, transfixed, as he moved it closer to the window and it span round on its pedestal faster, then slowed down as he moved it away. Hmmmm. Well maybe if I pretend I haven't seen it, it won't count.

Things spiralled downhill quickly from there however. Sprout watched Who Let the Dogs Out? on CBBC showing how to train a dog to use a skateboard (his new ultimate aim for Fly the puppy!), and then before I knew it he was watching Brainiac: Science Abuse. Well that's officially educational isn't it. Damn. Minutes later Sprout shouted me over to see the mechanism he'd just designed on Minecraft that drains swimming pools. While I was watching that in action Sprout pushed his Animals and You magazine under my nose with instructions on how to make a koala bear shaped cake, so a koala bear shaped cake it was.



Conceding defeat, I took them to their karate lesson where Sprout learnt maegeri (front kick) and ushirogeri (back kick).  

On a veritable learning roll by that time, we came home and Sprout asked us to get their Q U heads down from the loft, and they gave us several hearty renditions of They Might be Giants' Q U Song.



Having failed epically, we'll take more time to prepare for Learn nothing Day in 2013!

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