h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It's a bit like a tame version of rock climbing.

Climbing boulders. Less far to fall than from a cliff.

Well - punctuation is largely unnecessary. (. But if you insist on teaching children to spell...just so long as it's mainly by giving them lots of interesting books to read!

Yes - let's have them indoors learning Important Things instead of all this bouldering and falling off logs nonsense. It's vital to prepare them for a life of drudgery as wage slaves for The Man.

Being able to spell and write is important for writing an novel, blogging, and changing the world as well. I do wish I had learnt to spell protein at some point before the age of 30, it was rather embarrassing when my PhD Supervisor had to point out to me that it wasn't protein.*

Why is outdoor stuff more important?

*i before e except after c, they said...

I didn't learn punctuation and spelling. The year I got my English GCSE you were not marked down unless it detracted from the overall sense of what you were saying. Since I've gone into the world of work I've struggled.

Other indoor things I'd include
write and act out a play
beat one of your parents and chess
thrash both your parents at computer games
draw a comic (either on paper or a computer).

Parents are much more involved in entertaining their children now. With a moral split between 'worthy' and 'unworthy' play.

I have mixed feelings about the unsupervised play. I like the idea but when I was young we did somethings that were really dangerous (climbing inside trucks, playing on the railway, trying to put out an fire on the embankment) and I don't really want my son to do those things. The two boys I ran wild with both went to borstal for breaking into the post office sorting office (just to see if they could).

"*i before e except after c, they said... "

They did? Weird.

That's a pretty good list. I had done a fair amount of it but not all of it.

Not a bad list. Number one son has probably done half by age seven. But we like the outdoors.

I think the point is that it is a NT list, which is why there are no indoor things on it.

On the unsupervised play, the issue now is how they avoid getting running over on the way to do it... I am sure my kids would play reasonably nicely in the local park on their own, but I'm not at all sure they wouldn't get run over on the way there or back.

Cars everywhere now.

sprout

>>I think the point is that it is a NT list, which is why there are no indoor things on it.

They own some decent historic buildings, why don't they encourage kids to take an interest in those?

Booooor-ing!

Mind you...they usually sell nice rulers and sweeties and stuff in the gift shop.

>>Booooor-ing!

Presumably even the National Trust can't be bothered to argue with that, else they'd have suggested it. Yet they do provide things for kids to do, dressing-up, and activities sometimes.

Mine like castles. Especially if there are cannon.

sprout

mine are disappointed if they can't actually get to chop someones head off

Actually I confess that we live close by (1 mi) the HQ of The National Trust for Scotland, I my kids have always enjoyed running round their gardens. There are lots of little nooks and crannies and shortcuts that only children can find. It was a tradition to photograph them there every birthday.

http://www.nts.org.uk/Property/Greenbank-Garden/

The house itself is fairly crap, mind.

Number 27, watch the sun wake up.

I was 9 year old, my mum send me to the orchard (about a mile away from home) to pick up some cucumbers. I was sent early to avoid the scorching summer sun. I saw the sun rising, I sat down and observed it in awe. It was the first time I noticed those orange strips on the surface. I thought I´ve just made a discovery! would scientists know about it too?


Peanut:

<<<What about schools?

According to The self-sufficient gardener (Seymur) you can have an orchard or mini orchard practically in anywhere.

Some schools organize activities and even the school life around the school garden. Most subjects and ages can take advantage of having a school garden. There are many projects already working and available in the web.

I think it´s a good a idea, not the list itself, but to bring to light the need to have more contact with nature.
Life processes are better understood if children are close and observe them directly.

number 24, make a grass trumpet


ahem... that translates into spanish something like "make a marihuana joint"

My son and I made 'grass trumpets' (although this is the first time *ever* that I've ever heard them called that) at the Scottish Museum for Rural Life - again, near home.

We were told to cease and desist because it was scaring the horses.

Ooo, you've been accused of scaring the hourses too?

"Is there a sense in which outdoorsey things like balancing on logs and collecting frogspan are thought of as more wholeseome - 'better' - for children than indoorsey things like playing with Lego and watching cartoons?"

Some people probably think so, yes. I think the problem comes when you have too much of one and not enough of the other. I think it's fundamentally healthy for people - adults too, not just childern - to go out, make your lungs earn their keep, and get covered in shit every now and again. But that doesn't mean you should never be allowed to look at a screen or read a book.