Conversations

A lot of what I post here is photos of the things we do. It's an easily-annotated way of sharing our days for posterity. But sooo much of our unschooling is conversations. Conversations about things we see, things we watch, things they noticed three days ago... of all the things in our unschooling lives the conversations are my favourite :)

One of yesterday's meandering paths went like this...

Sprout: There was a real hand there.
Me: Where?
Sprout: Coming through the curtains.
Me: Which curtains?
Sprout: The white ones. In the room at the house where the man and the girl were.
Me: Which man and girl?
Sprout: On TV before when I was watching Chimney on here [his pc]. Can I see it?
***Much searching and rewinding ensued, wrong house, right house, wrong scene, right scene***
Sprout: There! It's a real hand, not a cartoon hand. I think the person was in the bath behind one of those curtains that hangs from the ceiling. [Points to a poster of Psycho]
***Brief conversation ensues about the film premise, the original Psycho house, where it is, the fact that I've seen the house, and (unrelated lol) why we don't have a shower curtain at the moment***
Sprout: What are those white things behind walls called?
Me: In showers?
Sprout: No, like this. [holds hands up, palms facing me]
Me: Can you tell me more about them?
Sprout: The walls aren't there. They're in Flushed Away. [Moves hands a bit]
Me: Oh a mime!
Sprout: Is that what they're called? Ok mimes. They wear plastic tops and it looks like there are things there that aren't. There's one in Tangled too.
Me: Not sure about the tops, but yeah. There's one in The Mask too I think. Where's the one in Tangled, I don't remember that part?
Sprout: It's the blue thing, I'll show you when we get home.
Me: Cool. I bet we could find some good videos of mimes online too. [Do mime of pulling myself along a rope, Sprout laughs and tells me I look funny]. Ooh do you know what? There's a game called Charades that's kind of like miming.
Sprout: If you want to play capture the flag you should get the paintball mod for Minecraft.
Me [Slightly thrown by handbrake turn of conversation]: In Charades?
Sprout: [Look of disdain]: Nooooo. On Minecraft. It's the paintball mod. It's got exploding briefcases. Can you really get exploding briefcases?
Me: I'm not sure, let's look it up when we get home.
Sprout: Ok but do you know what? There's a red team and a blue team just like in laser combat the other day. I was nearly the last one standing in the last battle.
Me: I know, that was so awesome! You avoided being shot for so long. Was it fun?
Sprout: Yeah but Tam, is there an Angry Birds theme park? You know in REAL LIFE?
Me: [Googling on phone] Yep there's one in Finland.
Sprout: Did you know you can make Angry Birds pumpkins without scooping the insides out?
Me: Wow really? Cool. I get slimy hands scooping the insides out. Do you want to make those this Hallowe'en?
Sprout: Oh. My. God. Yes!
Me: Ok let's put a reminder in my phone then.
Sprout: [Noticing the scene on Neverending Story that Squidge is watching]: Why does the horse die?
Me: Because it's the Swamp of Sadness and it makes him too sad to move.
Sprout: This used to make me sad in 2012 and I didn't want to watch it but I don't mind now. It's still sad but I'm okay now it's 2013. How tall was I when I was 6? These trousers say 8 on them. I'm 7 but only as big as 6 I think. I'm not taller than last week.
Me: You've grown lots the past couple of months dude, I've bought you age 8 trousers 'cause you've grown out of your 6-7s. Shall we measure you tonight? See how tall you've got?
Sprout: Ok. I don't think I've grown since yesterday, I feel the same. What's this? [Holds up toy chimpanzee]
Me: It's a chimp.
Sprout: Like a monkey?
Me: Similar. Did you know chimps can learn sign language? Like we used to do before Jay could talk?
Sprout: [Signs 'milk' at me] Like this?
Me: Yep. I think some gorillas have learnt it too.
Sprout: No. Way. [Laughs uproariously]
Me: Yep :)
Sprout: Do you remember that place that is short of money for the animals?
Me: Gentleshaw wildlife centre?
Sprout: Yeah that one. Do you remember the monkey?
Me: Toto?
Sprout: Yeah. He kept knocking on the window at us. He was talking to us.
Me: He was definitely communicating, yeah.
Sprout: He had spiky hair. [Laughs]
Me: Shall we phone them up and ask if they'd like us to take the animals some food one day? That might help them.
Sprout: Okay. But Tam?
Me: Yeah?
Sprout: I'm hungry. I've only got one hunger left so I need lots of chicken. What's gogo juice?
Me: [Googling on phone] Mountain Dew and Red Bull. It's got lots of caffeine so makes people feel like they have more energy for a bit.
Sprout: I need chicken.
Me: Ok dude. Let's go get you some chicken.