Cool learning and connections

I'm confident that learning happens for each of us, every day, often in ways that aren't obvious at the time. Some days though, the learning seems to be jumping out at us and we are all making connections and it's like we can feel our learning jumping ahead.

In the last couple of days there have been lots of little incidents of delight where people expanded their knowledge or understanding of the world.

LiAM and a friend were outside after the rain and saw water running from the driveway, so they followed it all the way to the bottom of the hill and then saw more water running to that point from the other direction, and followed it up the hill to the top of the dam. On the way they saw a blue tongue lizard, and discovered lots about waterways.

Millie was going through all the odd numbers (1 is odd, 2 isn't, 3 is odd, 4 isn't...) and on the way discovered that the digits repeat through each decade of numbers - so 0 is the same as 10, and 20, and 30, and 1 is the same as 11, and 21, and 31, and 2 is the same as 12, and 22.... She's come back to it several times and keeps exploring the idea further and finding it holds no matter how far she counts. She's quite excited about it.

Caitlin has been practicing doing handstands on a raised surface like the couch - so feet starting on the floor, then hands on the couch and legs up - it was pretty tricky at first and she kept practicing and it didn't take long for her to get it. She also learnt some cool ways to flip into the foam pit at Gravity Zone Trampoline centre yesterday, a round off and some other aerials that she couldn't do before - doing them into the pit gave her more support and flexibility so it won't be long until she can do them on the ground.

Watching BTN yesterday there was an article about a whole bunch of new words being added to the Australian National Dictionary. I was interested in the words that had been added and we chatted about some of them, and I was pleased to hear about the dictionary and didn't think I'd heard of it before (or not in a way that was memorable). About an hour later I was reading a book called 'The Bush and the Never Never' - I had picked it up at the library that afternoon, partly because we've just been to the Never Never, and partly because it was written by a man whose name was almost exactly the same as one of my uncles. I was already feeling a bit weird because that same uncle had rung me up this afternoon (after I'd borrowed the book) - and we'd had a great chat about our trip and he was saying how much he'd learnt about Australia by reading my blog, and I was talking about things I'd learned too. On the 2nd or 3rd page of the book the author was talking about the meaning of the 'bush' in Australia, and that words related to the bush take up more room than any other in the Australian National Dictionary. A dictionary which I now know something about because of the kids' news program, and one that I am going to find out more about because 2 mentions of it in one hour has made a fun connection that I want to explore further.