Knowing leads to understanding. Getting the joke or the message. I love sharing books with my children but it’s the conversations – the communication and the doing that interests them and causes learning to happen.

When I likened a dandelion to the girls, as being the sun (petals) the moon (gone to seed) and the stars (when I blew it) they had a better understanding of its importance and life cycle. How the air, the sun (fire) the earth and water give the plant life.

We read about Midas and the girls realised why we refer to someone as having a Midas touch.

We read about coal today. We’re into rocks right now. We read how it forms. How coal burns but other rocks don’t and why. This went on to us talking about and getting hands on with discovering:
Sea level rising and falling over many years,
The different types of coal,
How we mined it,
The dangers of mining,
The effect on the planet’s atmosphere,
The carbon cycle and fossil fuels
Coal seams,
Non renewable energy,
Canary birds in coal mines,
Gas,
Gas we cook with and it’s smell,
What not to do in a leak.
How like coal, we also have power and potential in us that we can release and use to do great things.

© 2025 Juliette Proffitt
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