So today, July 24th, is officially Learn Nothing Day. Instigated by Sandra Dodd (I believe it may be her birthday), Learn Nothing Day is an effort in futility. Since, as unschoolers, we all know that there is no way you can go a day without learning anything.
This morning I told Kai that today we were supposed to learn nothing, and I asked him if he thought we could go a whole day without learning anything. He looks somewhat concerned, and answered with a resounding ‘No’!
Our attempts to learn nothing today have failed dismally. While Kai was watching some episodes of Sponge Bob (possibly a rare occasion when it *may* actually be possible not to learn anything!?), I found an exoskeleton of a millipede in the vacuum bag.
We pulled it out, and Kai examined the rings under his new microscope. None of us knew if millipedes shed their skin, or whether the exoskeleton just gets left when they die. So we looked it up. They shed their skin……….
Kai wanted to know if Samurai’s and Ninja’s hold their swords with one hand or two. We looked it up. Seems like they both hold with two hands….
Kai told us he could blow air out of his eyeballs if he held his nose and blew. He showed us. Brett said he might hurt his ear drums if he kept doing it. Kai asked what ear drums were. Brett explained……
Yesterday we went to a Japanese Cultural Day at a library in town, and today we learnt how you write KAI in Japanese……(カイ)
I did some work today, and finished off an information leaflet about climate change, fire and biodiversity. So, I learnt a whole lot more about that. And I learnt how to preserve hyperlinks in a word document when you turn it into a pdf!
I also learnt that Kai has a lot more words he can sight read than I thought when I watched him on the computer. But, apparently ‘I’m not reading, I just know which one is the word EXIT and which one is PLAY.’ Can’t argue with that!
Kai helped me with dinner, and chopped up the paneer cheese into cubes for the curry. Whilst chopping into cubes he discovered some things about fractions and times tables….for example….he determined that when you chop one square in half, then quarters, the quickest way to get the most cubes with the least cutting is to cut two quarters at once into four!
After that, we watched the end of Merlin, and Kai and Brett asked what Camelot was. I thought it was the castle of King Arthur, but wasn’t sure, so we looked it up (I know – it’s outrageous we don’t know that, but we’re biologists !)…I was right, and we learnt more stuff about the history of Camelot.
And right now we are all watching ‘Great Migrations’ doco on TV and are learning a whole lot of other stuff about migrating animals.
When school children get home, their parents often ask them what they learnt that day at school. How often do they say ‘Nothing’? (Fairly often if they are anything like I was!). I don’t think an unschooled child would ever consider a day when they couldn’t learn anything…….
Since I didn’t have a blog last year on Learn Nothing Day, and since we had such an amazing day last year, I thought I’d post a pic this year…. we spent Learn Nothing Day 2010 snorkeling on the Florida Keys….Kai learnt to snorkel, and spent the afternoon underwater with the crabs, fish and other sea stuff….another total fail!
I challenge you to inform me if you and your family actually managed to learn nothing today!
I hadn’t heard about learn nothing day – what a brilliant concept! And even better that you proved how hard it is to do!