it needs kittens

Things I loved about today:


Kissing my girl's cheek as I sat next to her, watching her do some maths. 


Hearing my boy call out how much he loves Billy Bug in his Life of Fred: Decimals book.


Drawing fact families (like 8 + 4 = 12 and 12 - 4 = 8) with my girl on imaginary fruit in an imaginary orchard… and my girl saying, "It needs kittens!" Which morphed into my girl getting a new, huge piece of paper, and drawing kittens kittens and more kittens. All in groups of three, so we could write fact families on their leaping, swinging, building, playing, kitten-y bodies.

Introducing: KittenWorld!

Next, I loved


Talking with my girl about whether she might like to try writing something non-fiction. Like about a book she'd read, or a country she'd learned about… and my girl saying, "I could write about KittenWorld!"

My first response (disappointingly!) was, "Oh, but that's not non-fiction."

My NEXT response (which thankfully came almost instantly after my first response) was, 
"Wait. That doesn't matter! That sounds like an awesome idea."

Listening as my boy said, "I want to write a report too! About where Kyries live!"

All of us talking about and planning what might be in the report…

It would need a flag. Yep. And we'd need to know the population, and the size of the country. 
And what the country's location is (my boy's land hovers in the air over Mt Everest, and my girl's world can only be entered through a portal)

And what language is spoken, and what currency it might use (KittenWorld's currency is fishbones)

and

"Mum, where would you write that it's in the mountains?"

"Oh, you might put that under Location, or Terrain."

and how Terrain came from the word Terra, which means Land

All of us researching and learning

about northern and southern hemispheres, 

and about different climates, like temperate and arid, and "Do you guys know what arid means?" and "It's not always hot and dry. Did you know Antarctica is arid?"
and about Australia's climate

and about the difference between an anarchy and an autocracy, 

and what a parliamentary democracy was 

and whether a Lord could be a monarch, 

and "What's the word for when you can speak lots of languages?" 

and when Medieval times were

and, and, and, and, and!

and the kids sat and Created for hours. My girl focussed on her flag, and talking about her ideas. My boy wrote and wrote. In fact he was just beginning his country's History when I went out for bookclub tonight. 

I love that in my kids' days, 

an idea is given space to grow, change and build from and upon the information all around,

I love that an idea

is free to fill and swell and take over from any and all thoughts or plans that came before…

I love 

that I could never, ever have planned where things went today…

and

I love that saying YES

and living YES

opened up such an extraordinary path

where we learned so much

and

had a truly happy time.

:)