A Toddler’s Buzzing Mind

Guest Article by Emma Okada, Stay at Home Mother of a baby and a four year old

What does it take to get a four year old thinking about the damage of pesticides, what a chemical is, what pollination is useful for, remembering names of various flowers, considering self-sufficiency?

The joys of home-educating are endless.  But for me, recently the realisation has hit me that my son shows almost super-human levels of enthusiasm, memory and curiosity.  Not that he is anything out of the ordinary (well he is for me) – but he is just allowed to “be” and maintain and develop his wonder at the world he sees around him.

This week it is bees. Whilst attempting to slyly read my magazine whilst breastfeeding my youngest, my son desperately wanted to know about the bees- I told him I was reading an article about the decline in bee numbers over the past few years.

A couple of days later I overhear him telling his dada that there are not many bees left.  A while later he asks me if there are really only nine bees left in the world (he had counted the number of bees pictured on the page). He asks me why bees sting.  How do they sting?

I realised that this was not going to be the end of the subject. We have discussed the aforementioned article at length and established that numbers of bees have diminished (what does “diminish” mean?), but we shall not know until Spring time what the effects of our cold winter here in England has been on the colonies.

I have printed out worksheets on bees from the National Science Week website all about the plight of the bees to be devoured tomorrow morning- various bees to look out for, bee pictures to make, bee games.  It even gave me an excuse to discuss my own dreams of self-sufficiently (I have his whole-hearted support to produce honey).

I am in awe of his boundless happiness to learn about these seemingly random subjects- and he does not quickly lose interest- on the contrary, I am amazed by his powers of concentration.  Unschooling takes parents down some unexpected paths- and I have only just set out!

And I shall continue to dream about my honeybee pets…