We Saw The Whole of the Moon

Through the eyes of a child

As adults, we spend a lot of our time telling our children that we wish we had paid more attention in school and listened more in some subjects.

I really do wish I had listened more carefully in some lessons, others I just didn’t care for.

What I do find now though is that I find it more interesting now that my daughter is learning the same things.  I like nothing more than browsing her school books and homework or just listening to her wax lyrical about a current topic.

There are many things that I have a great passion for and to hear my daughter speak with such passion about a subject makes my heart sing.

One such lesson where I really didn’t do very good listening was Geography.

Since starting in Year 5, my daughter has been learning about the Solar System.  She is really enjoying it and has voluntarily made up songs and a poem and drawn some wonderful pictures and chatted happily about the planets.    I love to see this genuine interest and I’ve listened earnestly to her knowledge and she has in fact taught me much that I didn’t know.

On my school trip to the Planetarium in Baker Street back in the day, I spent the whole time wishing we were next door in Madam Tussauds.  The solar system was not floating my boat back then.  I found it boring.

As we live fairly close to Greenwich and it is one of our favourite places, I decided that there was no time like the present to book a show at the Planetarium.  There was also an ulterior motive as we were craving some of the fabulous food that they sell in the market.  Two birds and all that!

We saw two shows, the one most relevant for all ages was ‘Meet the Neighbours’.  A lovely lady made the show really fun and invited participation from the audience whilst the room was in total darkness.  This meant that the more reticent among the audience could simply shout out their answers in the dark without fear of having to put up their hand in front of everyone.  It was great because all of the children (my daughter included) really got involved and shouted out quite comfortably.

Fortuitously, it would seem that all of our stars were aligned yesterday as not only did we experience the delights of the Planetarium but we were told that we were also to be treated to a Lunar Eclipse overnight.

Whilst there was no setting of alarm clocks in our house, as luck would have it The Kid woke the household at just the right time needing a drink.

Amusingly, we then spent the next thirty minutes all scrambling round the bedroom trying to get a look at the red moon.

Quite unprepared for the event, my husband and I were like Mr & Mrs Wobbly bumping into and bouncing off everything and each other and knocking things over in the way that one does when they are woken from their slumber.

Of course, on such an occasion batteries fail and phone cameras declare there is insufficient memory but we did manage to pull it together and get a couple of shots.  Astronomers we aren’t but it was great fun.

A distant moon

We have a keen astronomer in the family and I wonder how he would rate our efforts!

A telescope would have come in handy!

The highlight being my daughter foraging in her toot box and producing her binoculars that she has had since she was 3!

Star Spotting

The greatest thing to come from yesterday apart from having great fun together was that I was also able to give my daughter a real life example of how I’d wish I’d listened more at school.

I am sure all of our children get fed up with hearing us telling them how important it is to listen and what we would do if we had the opportunity again but I do feel I have been able to go some way towards substantiating this well worn record.

I really do wish I’d listened more to a lot of things as a child but hindsight is a wonderful thing.

I wonder does this resonate with you at all?  Have you learnt something new from a child?  Maybe you’ve had a similar experience where you wished you’d had the wisdom to listen more carefully to something when you were younger?

Would love to hear your stories.

Nicky
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