Going to Africa

I’m not sure N quite has a grasp on places.

Usually I’m amazed by some of the places he comes out with, and I wonder where he’s heard about them.

I keep trying to remind him of where we live in the UK, and how it’s made up of counties.  Most geographic references come about from comments I might make while driving.  So the other day we went to Batsford Arboretum, and in just 15 minutes, we’d driven through 3 counties to get home.

N does soak up the information like a sponge though. I just have no idea when he’s going to repeat it back to someone. If I asked him what we’d talked about or where we’d been 5 minutes before, he’d have no idea, but 3 days later and he’ll be repeating it.

The other day he decided to go on holiday as he was playing.  Off he went to another room, then returned to tell me

‘I’m going to Africa, I’m taking my bear with me’

‘Ok, that’s a long way’

‘No it’s not far. I’m going on the tractor’

‘You’ll need to fly so I’m not sure a tractor will get you there’.

‘Yes it will, it’s not far’.

Ten minutes later in he comes again.

‘I live in Africa, Mama.  I’ve walked to come and see you with my dog’.   Okaaayyy.  There’s no changing

Next thing I knew and he’s returned with his inflatable giant dinosaur.

‘It’s my pet dinosaur from Africa.  It’s only friendly to me’

Thankfully I was able to stop the ‘dinosaur’ attacking me before N got bored of holidaying in Africa.

It did mean that a couple of days later when he had his huge map of the world out we could talk about how far Africa really was, how it was a continent and actually made up of lots of other countries.

N wasn’t that impressed with the distance.  I don’t think anything will impress him as much as knowing that his mum and dad flew half way round the world to New Zealand. That’s the one that he always asks about when the map comes out.

Next stop, a globe!

Are your children interested in geography? How have you encouraged it?