Monday 23 July 2012

Summer holidays? Never!

It may well be the summer holidays for those of a schooly inclination, for us us it's always about the learning. Well, apart from when we're not. So forgetting for a moment the days where everyone is so happily engrossed in something I can practically ignore the children and read or sew or crochet or whatever and call it autonomous learning, remember that life is learning and we can squeeze educational benefit from our everyday tasks and challenges.

For instance the topic of this weeks learning shall be wholly relating to our annual trip to the fabulous Camp Bestival. We can tick off all our learning boxes and they (kids) won't have a clue!

I give you the following examples.

Q1, How will family Phillips manage to transport 4 adults, 4 children (varying sizes and ages), 1 baby to Camp Bestival, with 2 cars and 1 roof box, stopping on route to pick up 2 more children?

Q2, How many pairs of pants can each person take to cover 4 festival days and 6 more camping in Cornwall, taking into consideration the above information?

Q3, How long will it take family Phillips to reach its Lulworth Castle destination? Factor in baby feeding, changing, crying, wee stops, coffee stops, traffic jams and Somerset detour.

Q4, How much fuel will that be? (second thoughts don't answer that *gulp*)

Q5, Can you program the Sat Nav so that it does not always want to take us round the M25 or through a field? Please, anybody?

Q6, Can you estimate how many portions of cheesy chips Mia will eat whilst being surrounded by fabulous food options?

Q7, Research the likelihood of precipitation, providing detailed water cycle and jet stream mapping. (okay so they might not do this but they can use multiple apps and get the info on an hourly basis)

Q8, How many different ways can you fold a 5m Bell tent? And then fit it back into its bag with all the poles?

Q9, You have £9.56 left in your bank account after feeding everyone at the festival for 4 days, how will you feed everyone for the next week in Cornwall?

Q10, It's Monday can you rustle up costumes appropriate to the theme "silly Olympics" in 3 days without buying more supplies?

And the list could (will) go on and on until we are wedged into the cars and heading down the road. We will have faced all manner of problems, including how we sit through another of Oliver's James Bond theme CD mixes. But it will have been worth it and who could argue with the educational validity of those questions?!!!


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1 comment:

  1. This sounds so familiar! We went through it just the same and discovered that's the beauty of HE life; learning IS life and not separate from it.
    Been enjoying your posts! x

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