The other day I wrote about Esmé and how her project has shifted lately. And what about Hawk? In Project-based Homeschooling, Lori talks about the importance of supporting the very young in their interests, not only to demonstrate respect for their curiosity and emerging passions, but also as a way to include our youngest kids in the family culture of life-learning and following our interests.
For a long time, Hawk loved brooms. Remember that? Super fun to document that with pictures and to watch him seek out brooms wherever we went. He managed to find one pretty much every where we went! That went on for ages.
Less so these days. He’s into what Esmé is into (BUGS), and he still loves brooms, but a new interest usually catches him first. I can see how he ended up where he is now, starting from brooms. From brooms to janitor carts to cleaning to recycling & garbage, to garbage trucks, to vehicles in general, to all things with wheels. Which is where we’re at now. Not in the “I love toy trucks” sense, although that’s part of it. It’s larger than that, and to be honest, he doesn’t have a lot of interest in the toy versions, other than the odd passing fancy.
He likes wheels in real life. He points out trucks and cars that catch his interest, and watches them carefully until they’re out of sight. He likes to follow the garbage- and recycling trucks around the neighbourhood. He points out planes and buses, gets excited when he notices the Skytrain, and rushed to watch the train go by each day when we camped near the tracks at Porteau. And he loves his own wheels, perhaps best of all.
His second birthday is coming up, and we’re hoping to go on a tour of the city dump, if we can arrange it. He’d be thrilled to watch the dump trucks come and go. If we can’t do that, we’ll go to the airport to watch the planes from the observation deck. Either way, we’ll make sure the day is packed full of wheels of all sorts!
