“Once upon a time there was a little boy named Dodgit. He was walking along a track and smelt the beauty of the sea…”

How awesome is that for an opening line to your first short story?! Don’t mean to brag, but My Miss Moo just wrote her first story. It all happened so organically and naturally because it was all her idea. I had to staple the pages together and that was the sum total of my involvement.

Being a (no longer working) teacher, I have quite strong ideas about the importance of play and not pushing formal education on our peeps too early(by that I mean before year 1). I’m not one to ‘teach’ anything per-se, but am more than happy to facilitate and help with anything she wants to do or learn. For example, I don’t teach her the alphabet, but when she asked me to teach her how to write her name when she was three and a half, of course I showed her. When she’s ready, she runs with it… She has started asking me how to write some words, and so I do, because she’s telling em she’s ready, and has a purpose. I just don’t set out with any ideas in my mind as to what exactly she should be learning. I leave that up to her at this point in time! (anyway – isn’t day to day life just full of natural learning opportunities!) I digress…

To sit back and watch her enthusiasm and her sense of focus (she layed on the ground for about 45 minutes and completed the whole thing) was just amazing. It makes me oh so happy when I see people who are self motivated to accomplish something. When people get an idea that they love and work hard at seeing it come to fruition. It’s really a great honour to be able to stand by and watch as the idea blooms and grows into something beautiful.

And honestly, it doesn’t get any more beautiful than a story about a little boy named Dodgit, bouncing high into the sky on his trampoline and smelling the beauty of the sea now does it?!

Love to you,
Donna