Latest / The BIG Home Ed Conversations | Home Education / Topic Challenge: Lesser Known Sports (Weird & Wonderful Games, What Counts as a Sport, and Why Movement Matters)

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Topic Challenge: Lesser Known Sports (Weird & Wonderful Games, What Counts as a Sport, and Why Movement Matters) · The BIG Home Ed Conversations | Home Education

• 0:14
  Hello everybody, welcome to the big home Ed conversations.
• 0:18
  My name is Kelly Rig, I'm a home Ed mum of two and a qualified
• 0:21
  mindset and ADHD coach. I'm really passionate about
• 0:24
  supporting parents and neurodivergent families as they
• 0:26
  navigate children not OK at school and ultimately then the
• 0:29
  transition from mainstream schooling into home education.
• 0:33
  I am here together with my lovely Co host Ashley Venerio, A
• 0:36
  fellow home Ed mum of three and former primary teacher, we
• 0:40
  created the big Home Ed Conversations podcast with what
• 0:42
  began as honest, heartfelt talks around the coffee table and has
• 0:45
  now grown into a space where hundreds of listeners now tune
• 0:48
  in for real, unfiltered conversations about alternative
• 0:51
  education. We tried to cut through the
• 0:53
  noise and focus on what really matters to home educating
• 0:55
  families. This season we have been
• 0:58
  sponsored by a home education logging app called Strew.
• 1:02
  It's an app that's been created by a home educating mum and her
• 1:06
  brother. And essentially they reached out
• 1:08
  to us wanting us to give the app a go, use it ourselves and then
• 1:12
  let you guys know honestly what we thought of it.
• 1:14
  And we have been using it the past few weeks and obviously
• 1:17
  have been talking about it on the other episodes.
• 1:19
  You'll hear a little bit from each us each week on what we
• 1:23
  have been using it for and what we've liked about it and some of
• 1:26
  the features that it's got. This week I've been paying a bit
• 1:29
  more attention to the AI functions.
• 1:31
  So this is a lovely optional element to this app.
• 1:33
  You can turn it off. So if you're not a fan of AI or
• 1:35
  you don't want to be using AI, you can toggle it off.
• 1:38
  But if you decide to use it, then actually what I've really
• 1:41
  found helpful is when you put in, say a picture and then you
• 1:46
  write out what you did, obviously in as much detail as
• 1:49
  you can be bothered, it will then assess it for you.
• 1:52
  And what it does is it helps to pull out whether it's kind of
• 1:55
  covered personal, social and emotional or literacy or
• 1:58
  mathematics. So it will assess it and tell
• 2:01
  you if it thinks it's covered. Some of those areas.
• 2:04
  It will also then give you kind of like a summary, like a really
• 2:06
  lovely compressed sort of sentence, I guess, or short
• 2:09
  paragraph that will have the key learning outcomes that you have
• 2:13
  actually kind of achieved by doing that task.
• 2:15
  And sometimes it obviously picks up things that I myself haven't
• 2:18
  recognised. I've been, I've been home
• 2:19
  educating for a while, so I tend to be reasonably good at picking
• 2:22
  these things out. But it definitely really helps
• 2:24
  sometimes, especially if you're new to home Ed, is to actually
• 2:27
  kind of have that lovely summary that helps you to realise all of
• 2:30
  the amazing things you have covered by doing that activity.
• 2:33
  And obviously when you save it, you add it into the system and
• 2:35
  it's obviously keeping track on the, on the study points.
• 2:38
  That helps you just show kind of how, how much of each area you
• 2:41
  seem to be doing. So like you might be doing loads
• 2:43
  of literacy, but actually mathematics you're not doing as
• 2:46
  much. And that might help to just not,
• 2:48
  again, not to put any pressure on anybody, but to kind of have
• 2:51
  that kind of thought in mind of, OK, maybe we can have a look at
• 2:55
  some ways to integrate maths into our fun day-to-day stuff
• 2:58
  that we're doing. Is there anything here that
• 3:00
  maybe I'm not logging or I'm not kind of making a note of that
• 3:03
  counts, etcetera, to kind of help you to see where your
• 3:07
  balance is and to see how you're doing.
• 3:08
  But I'm finding that's really informative and very helpful to
• 3:11
  look at. So it's certainly something
• 3:13
  which is really helpful, I think, and, and well worth it.
• 3:16
  It's really great function of the app anyway, with no further
• 3:19
  ado obviously we could talk about that forever and we are
• 3:22
  supposed to be talking to you today about lesser known sports,
• 3:26
  which was the subject we picked from the the hat or technically
• 3:29
  a bag last week. We are.
• 3:33
  We were both just chatting very briefly before we came on, like
• 3:35
  without trying to give each other away what we actually have
• 3:37
  to say because we try and keep our actual conversation about it
• 3:40
  live instead of us like having the whole conversation the first
• 3:43
  like we always used to do, then forgetting what we'd said.
• 3:46
  So we basically have actually found this one quite hard,
• 3:49
  haven't we? We've both said that actually,
• 3:51
  beyond the initial go away, go onto YouTube and say what are
• 3:57
  some weird and wonderful sports of this world?
• 3:59
  Give me some fun videos, like sitting and binging some fun
• 4:03
  videos of the crazy sports that this world has come up with.
• 4:06
  I mean, like in the UK alone, there's shin kicking contests
• 4:10
  and the cheese rolling, which most people will have heard of,
• 4:13
  which is just like they throw a lump of cheese down a hill and
• 4:15
  you chase after it. I think the goal is to reach the
• 4:17
  bottom before the cheese does, but that thing's moving at like
• 4:20
  70 miles an hour. Like this is one of the most
• 4:22
  dangerous things that have watched in my life.
• 4:23
  You've got people over, I think it's Indonesia who are playing.
• 4:26
  It's called fireball, but essentially it's a football kind
• 4:29
  of thing that's been set on fire and they're playing football.
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  But it just the things that we can come up with as human beings
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  to entertain ourselves for. Like obviously like for
• 4:38
  religious rituals, for celebrations and festivals, like
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  the things that we use sport for are just incredible anyway.
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  But some of this stuff's weird, right?
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  I mean, did you come across any that really shocked you
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  actually? Totally.
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  I think that the thing I thought was this reminded me of is like
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  how creative people can be. And do you remember that Friends
• 4:58
  episode where Ross Chandler and Joey create?
• 5:01
  I think it's called Fireball actually.
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  And it's separate, end up with like oven mitts on and like
• 5:07
  Joey's got like the fire extinguisher.
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  I don't know if I'm remembering that correctly, but like, it was
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  just hilarious. And I'm like, Oh yeah, if you do
• 5:14
  set a group of people loose, they might come up with
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  something ridiculous. So I think the funniest one that
• 5:19
  we came up with, Well, so I say we didn't go straight to
• 5:22
  YouTube. Let me start with that because I
• 5:24
  had a feeling, feeling we would get distracted by either cat or
• 5:27
  horse videos which tend to always come up first as we like
• 5:32
  those. So we found a couple podcasts
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  and one of them was about lesser known sports and particularly
• 5:40
  from the angle of women in sports in India.
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  And so the woman that hosts it is in India and she was talking
• 5:48
  about this one which I had like, I just the girl side in the car
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  were shocked. It's called chess boxing and it
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  is from actually a graphic novel, a comic book artister
• 6:00
  that had created this. And the purpose of the game is
• 6:05
  to have like a mental and physical exercise.
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  And so you play 11 rounds of alternating chess and boxing.
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  So like, you play a round of chess and then you fight, you
• 6:19
  play round of chess and then you fight.
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  And you do this for 11 rounds until either someone gets a
• 6:25
  checkmate or someone, well, I guess the final, the final
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  checkmate in round 11 is what would determine the winner if
• 6:32
  someone hasn't already been knocked out.
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  It's like, that's hilarious. And I, you know, kept a really
• 6:39
  straight face as we were listening to this.
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  I was like, just like, you know, I'm like silently shocked as
• 6:43
  we're listening in the car and the girls were like, this is
• 6:46
  interesting. And then at the end I was like,
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  what does anyone think of this? And my oldest was like, well, I
• 6:52
  don't know about the boxing part, but I like the other part.
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  I just could. Could you picture?
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  Sounds like it's born from siblings.
• 7:01
  It sounds like it's. Yeah, like you lose a match so
• 7:04
  you start fighting. Like literally lose a match, now
• 7:07
  we have a fight and we're going to go again.
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  Like we're not settling this until we get to 11 rounds.
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  And then like, you know, like, couldn't they do like rock,
• 7:13
  paper, scissors? Like best of three, No, best of
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  five, no best of 11. Like, it's funny enough what's
• 7:18
  happening here. Rock paper, Scissor was another
• 7:21
  one that she talked about and how it's like gaining so much
• 7:23
  traction in America. So beyond using it to like, you
• 7:26
  know, decide who's going to set the table or who's going to take
• 7:28
  out the trash, they it's actually a game.
• 7:33
  And she makes a joke. Like obviously it's not very
• 7:37
  physical because you're just moving your hand.
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  So like anyone can do it, which is great.
• 7:41
  But it's about more strategy statistics, knowing your
• 7:45
  opponent. So it kind of teaches a very
• 7:47
  different aspect of gaming, which I think is also like
• 7:50
  really important for any sport. I really thought that was
• 7:53
  interesting. But anyway, so back to chess,
• 7:55
  boxing. Yeah, super interesting.
• 7:58
  The girls and I definitely want to watch a video about it.
• 8:00
  Apparently it's very big in Germany.
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  I believe she was saying. Anyway, she went on to talk
• 8:05
  about other sports, like all the different disc sports.
• 8:08
  So ultimate Frisbee, disc golf, and these are things that I have
• 8:12
  played. We would absolutely play
• 8:14
  ultimate Frisbee not only in school, but like when I lived in
• 8:20
  San Francisco and it was just a lovely day and we would go to
• 8:22
  the park and it was like an open field.
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  Like you would play that with your friends.
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  So I have absolutely played that.
• 8:27
  I've played disc golf. I, I dated a guy who was really
• 8:31
  into it in New York and like we would travel to like
• 8:34
  Pennsylvania to find like the disc golf course.
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  I was not particularly good at it and did not particularly like
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  it, but it was a very supportive partner.
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  But so it was just really interesting to see how these
• 8:47
  things have changed. And there was also another one
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  she talked about and I, I'm not going to know the name of it.
• 8:52
  I would pronounce it if I tried, but we can put in the show
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  notes. That's like a combination of
• 8:56
  like volleyball martial arts and then like gymnastics.
• 9:00
  And I just that is one that we definitely want to take a look
• 9:02
  at. We haven't done yet.
• 9:04
  So I'm going to find a couple videos to show the girls because
• 9:08
  we really couldn't visualize it as we were listening to it.
• 9:13
  Like volleyball, Martial arts? Like where are we going there
• 9:16
  You. Might be talking about Kromagaw.
• 9:18
  I think it's cool sort of like that is when they play with
• 9:20
  their feet. Is that the one you're talking
• 9:22
  about? It's another kind of one.
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  Play Indonesia. Or something.
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  The name was the name was longer than that, that Kromagaw would
• 9:27
  have known. So yeah, unless she was
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  pronouncing it differently. Yeah, I know.
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  Or maybe it has a different name.
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  So yeah, I, I have the podcast, so I'll, I'll, we'll put it in
• 9:37
  the show notes and you can have a listen.
• 9:38
  It's a very short, it's like 15 minutes.
• 9:40
  Definitely worth a listen. But yeah, that was the one that
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  was super shocking to us, the the chess boxing and it
• 9:45
  definitely stuck with us so. I think there's so many
• 9:48
  interesting ones and there's like toe wrestling and all sorts
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  of stuff. So anyway, I won't ruin it for
• 9:53
  you because I'm sure this is going to be a fun one to do with
• 9:54
  your kids at some point is to just go and either listen or
• 9:57
  watch some really great stuff around this.
• 9:59
  And, and there's so many good videos that go through like
• 10:03
  loads of different sort of weird and wonderful sports around the
• 10:05
  world. But it led to some great
• 10:07
  conversations around like what is a sport and what constitutes
• 10:12
  a sport versus a game? And the definition of the words.
• 10:15
  Obviously we've got out of the dictionary and we looked at the
• 10:17
  definition and that was always a nice thing when they're actually
• 10:19
  kind of reasonably interested in using a dictionary.
• 10:23
  And we, and we also did some fun stuff around kind of talking
• 10:28
  about what we would create. There's, there's people out
• 10:31
  there who play Quidditch. They put like a broom between
• 10:34
  their legs and they run around and they actually have like the
• 10:37
  goal posts set up and everything.
• 10:39
  I was just like, oh, I really hope there's somewhere in this
• 10:42
  country that actually, please don't join it.
• 10:45
  It'll be so much fun. I was like, if not, then I'm
• 10:48
  totally making it happen because my kids are both instantly like,
• 10:52
  yeah, I want to play credit. And they're like, they literally
• 10:54
  like put gold face paint on someone and wear them, wear like
• 10:57
  a gold T-shirt or something. And then they have to like run
• 10:59
  around really fast and try not to get caught.
• 11:06
  It just looked so funny. And they were both like, yes, I
• 11:08
  really want to do that. Another one is Worm Charming
• 11:11
  where you, you like get like a square meter of fields and
• 11:15
  everyone's like trying to make the worms come out.
• 11:17
  The person who collects the most worms wins.
• 11:19
  It's just like honestly, the things that we can come up with.
• 11:21
  So I think we we had a really good chat around like anything
• 11:25
  could be a sport as long as it involves some physical activity,
• 11:29
  has rules and there's some sort of element of competitiveness to
• 11:34
  it or is just, yeah, like, so like you're counting sport like
• 11:39
  points or scoring points or something, like all the
• 11:42
  different things that you can do with it.
• 11:43
  But the definition was really interesting and it definitely
• 11:45
  led to us having some conversations around like how
• 11:48
  playing chess alone would be just considered playing a game,
• 11:52
  not a sport because it's technically sitting down, moving
• 11:57
  pieces around. Like it's not a physically
• 11:59
  active thing. But obviously the boxing element
• 12:02
  makes it physically active in this case.
• 12:04
  And it's, there's so many, so many different kind of bits
• 12:07
  around that that just led to some interesting chats around
• 12:09
  it. But then I was a bit stuck.
• 12:12
  I've got to be honest. After that, I was like, well,
• 12:14
  what do we do now? Aside from trying some of these
• 12:16
  strange sports, which we actually will like, we've
• 12:19
  learned a bit about some, we'll give some a go.
• 12:21
  We've talked about this. And I was like, now what?
• 12:25
  Like, I don't really know what else there is to do at this
• 12:27
  point. And I did get a little bit stuck
• 12:30
  for a minute. I don't know about you.
• 12:31
  Did you have like a clear like next step from that?
• 12:34
  Like I was just like, it didn't really come to me straight away.
• 12:37
  We. We did, sort of.
• 12:40
  So obviously my kids are really into horses and we have hobby
• 12:45
  horses and we've all seen the silly hobby horse memes where
• 12:48
  you think it's a joke. I thought it was a joke, but
• 12:51
  actually there is competitive hobby horsing and hobby horse
• 12:56
  riding. I'm not sure what the term would
• 12:57
  be, but they they go around and have competitions like you would
• 13:04
  if you were riding an actual horse.
• 13:06
  And what gets me as how they like talk about their horse as
• 13:10
  if it's alive. So they'll talk about the traits
• 13:13
  that their horse has and like all the stuff, which I think
• 13:15
  that's where I got a little bit like, OK, but my kids love it.
• 13:22
  And they definitely they'll be like, they'll pull their horse
• 13:24
  out, like should we put her in the stable or like, did you
• 13:26
  groom her yet? And like, it's so it's so funny.
• 13:28
  I mean it just the imaginations like the creative play, the make
• 13:32
  believe. Yeah, I love it.
• 13:34
  And carrying that into my adulthood.
• 13:35
  Why not like we could all benefit from a little make
• 13:38
  believe, right? So.
• 13:39
  We sure could. Yeah, I need, I kind of checked
• 13:41
  myself on that. But so we have a little group of
• 13:46
  hobby horse lovers and had set up again, like just perfect
• 13:51
  timing, had set up a play date to bring the hobby horses.
• 13:54
  And so that happened last Friday and we were able to set up jumps
• 13:59
  and the girls did like little like jumping competitions, just
• 14:03
  taking their horses around. It was nothing super fancy, but
• 14:06
  it was just super fun and they loved it.
• 14:09
  And they did get a ton of exercise and just doing
• 14:11
  something they loved, you know, and it was lovely weather.
• 14:13
  So we'll definitely be doing more of that.
• 14:16
  I did actually talk to a woman whose daughter has done a
• 14:21
  competition. And so I am looking into that
• 14:25
  because I actually think my kids would love that.
• 14:27
  And it was just also just expand the horse network, which we're
• 14:30
  always looking to do so yeah, so we did get to do some hobby
• 14:34
  horsing and that was great. We've not done any research into
• 14:39
  like the history of how it came about or anything like that,
• 14:42
  like how it evolved from just like a child having a hobby
• 14:46
  horse into actual competitions. So do you want to do that?
• 14:50
  I think that might be interesting just to learn a
• 14:52
  little bit more about it. And when we were listening to
• 14:56
  some other, because I just go to podcasts like we I introduced
• 14:59
  new topics in the car just always seems very approachable
• 15:02
  that way. And so we had listened to that
• 15:05
  one from the woman in India. And then we listened to another
• 15:08
  podcast about a guy who kind of built a company initially around
• 15:13
  like lesser known sports, but really for for all sports.
• 15:16
  It is for all sports popular and not.
• 15:20
  And he basically is a technical person, you know, builds apps
• 15:27
  and and, you know, writes code and all of that.
• 15:29
  But his own sports trajectory led him through a series of
• 15:34
  lesser known sports back before the Internet.
• 15:37
  So it was really interesting to hear him speak about this
• 15:41
  because we all think about now you like you and I, we both
• 15:45
  said, oh, let's go look at some YouTube videos like what are
• 15:48
  lesser known sports? But honestly, back then, there
• 15:51
  wasn't that option. And television networks did not
• 15:54
  cover them. This was like pre ESPN having a
• 15:56
  million channels. And so he found out about
• 15:59
  fencing because he walked past it in the school and there was a
• 16:03
  classroom door open and a couple kids were fencing.
• 16:06
  And he was like, what is this? And then he went home and told
• 16:10
  his mom he wanted to start fencing.
• 16:11
  And she was like, do you mean like, you want to build a fence
• 16:13
  in the backyard? Like, she had no idea what the
• 16:15
  sport was. He'd never heard of it.
• 16:17
  And so his idea was like, let's create an app that allows us to
• 16:24
  kind of, and I'm, I'm probably not wording this right, go
• 16:26
  listen because I'm, this is his vision, not mine.
• 16:29
  And I might not be doing it justice in my description, but
• 16:32
  basically to have a repository where players, coaches,
• 16:36
  trainers, physical therapists, everyone can come in.
• 16:40
  It's one spot to like follow an athlete and follow a sport.
• 16:44
  And so if you had a player on your team who had an injury, you
• 16:48
  could open up their account to a physical therapist.
• 16:51
  And that physical therapist program would be tied into it.
• 16:55
  So the coaches could see at the trainer could see it and provide
• 16:59
  feedback and just get this player back into the game.
• 17:02
  And also it would have a component where you could just
• 17:06
  find out more. So like a ton of videos and if
• 17:08
  your kid starts fencing and you don't know fencing, you can go
• 17:10
  in and and watch like fencing videos and understand how to
• 17:14
  help support them. Because he acknowledges that for
• 17:17
  younger athletes, for our youth, the parents are coaches, they
• 17:22
  are, they're helping out, they're the ones taking them
• 17:24
  back and forth and, you know, keeping their spirits up and all
• 17:27
  this. It was, it was really
• 17:28
  interesting. But the thing that was so
• 17:30
  interesting was about his athleticism and how he was a
• 17:35
  smaller guy and wasn't able to participate in some of the
• 17:39
  sports that he would have preferred to do because of his
• 17:41
  size. But he was incredibly fast and
• 17:44
  became like a fencing state champion, went to to university
• 17:49
  on a fencing scholarship, got into like an Ivy League school
• 17:53
  because of it. I'm sure of his intelligence as
• 17:55
  well. But then got injured and
• 17:56
  couldn't do fencing anymore. But really like tennis.
• 17:59
  And his tennis coach was like, well, tennis is trending to the
• 18:03
  taller athletes. So, you know, you're not 6 feet
• 18:05
  tall. This isn't going to work for
• 18:07
  you. But you have a great backhand
• 18:09
  and you're really fast. So you should try squash.
• 18:11
  And he's like, I don't know what that is like, do we eat it?
• 18:14
  Like what is squash became like AI don't know if it was a world
• 18:18
  champion or or just a champion in the in the US.
• 18:21
  But like after university, he continued to play and like was
• 18:24
  like a top squash player. So it's just like the ability to
• 18:29
  find some of these sports that maybe you haven't heard of, but
• 18:33
  like can be really fulfilling as like something you do, but also
• 18:38
  like you might be really great at it.
• 18:40
  So it was really interesting. So we were listening to that and
• 18:42
  what I thought it was, I didn't know if it was a little bit dry
• 18:46
  or a little too advanced of a conversation.
• 18:48
  But when I turned it off to play something different because I
• 18:50
  felt like we had it's a long podcast.
• 18:51
  That one my girls were like, wait, why are we turning it off?
• 18:55
  And I was like, OK, like we can, we can keep listening.
• 18:58
  So they really liked it and. I think it's interesting as
• 19:01
  well. Like, sorry to interject, but
• 19:03
  like when I was growing up, I do feel like you get kind of you
• 19:06
  get the sports that you know, just like basketball and netball
• 19:10
  and yeah, tennis, etcetera. And it's kind of become like
• 19:13
  the, the standard sports that we all do or pay attention to.
• 19:16
  And fitness was not something I've ever found easy to access,
• 19:19
  right? Like I've, I've always found it
• 19:20
  difficult, boring, repetitive. Like I don't always particularly
• 19:25
  love the competitiveness either, mainly because I was never very
• 19:29
  fit. So I never never did
• 19:32
  particularly well. And there was a game called
• 19:34
  bench ball that we used to play, um, like just for fun, like in
• 19:38
  in PE sometimes at school. And I loved it.
• 19:40
  I thought it was so much fun. Like it was just such a like it
• 19:43
  was a high stakes game. Like you were constantly being
• 19:45
  like people trying to get you out and everything else.
• 19:48
  But I was actually quite good at it and I really enjoyed that.
• 19:51
  And I think it's such a shame sometimes when certain things
• 19:54
  get considered a sport that's recognizable and can be kind of
• 19:58
  like considered of almost like a prestige attached to it when
• 20:01
  really all that is is PR, right? That's just because that sport
• 20:05
  has been picked up and. Like put in the media.
• 20:09
  Exactly. If we'd actually allow some of
• 20:11
  these other sports to come to the forefront, then actually
• 20:13
  those could become exactly the same in time.
• 20:16
  And obviously we know like certain industries around tennis
• 20:19
  and football, etcetera. Like the the money that is spent
• 20:22
  in those areas, like if if they become a top athlete as a as a
• 20:26
  sportsman in those areas, they're being paid millions
• 20:29
  every year, which is just crazy, crazy money.
• 20:31
  And I think ultimately we put a lot of energy and money and time
• 20:34
  into certain sports. But actually we, we do kind of,
• 20:38
  if we feel like we've got to participate in a well known
• 20:40
  sport in order to be fit or to have any kind of exercise like
• 20:44
  running or swimming or whatever. Like then actually we find
• 20:47
  ourselves limited, I guess, because we might find something
• 20:52
  really fun that's a little bit out there, a little bit random,
• 20:56
  but still gets us moving and still gets us having fun and
• 20:59
  spending time with our friends and enjoying ourselves.
• 21:01
  And I think this is one of the things which definitely made me
• 21:04
  smile when I think like the home community is not particularly
• 21:07
  competitive. We are dealing with a lot of
• 21:09
  neuro divergent kids as well. So that is typically
• 21:11
  competitiveness is not always received very well in the in the
• 21:14
  home education community. And so actually we do need more
• 21:16
  of these just for fun like sports and games and things that
• 21:20
  are genuinely not about winning. They're not obviously.
• 21:23
  I know that a sport in definition almost needs to have
• 21:26
  a winner, but ultimately, if you can just play it just for your
• 21:31
  own entertainment and for fun and not against anybody else,
• 21:34
  some of these sports become the most entertaining.
• 21:39
  Like going kayaking just for the fun of it, Having a game of
• 21:42
  darts by yourself just because you're just enjoying playing
• 21:46
  with the darts. Like there are so many different
• 21:49
  things we could physically be doing with our bodies.
• 21:50
  We just don't necessarily think to do them or know that they
• 21:53
  even exist as a fun game to go do, but actually could be really
• 21:56
  brilliant fun. And I think that's yeah, that's
• 21:58
  my my thought off the back of what you were saying.
• 22:00
  So hopefully you haven't. Made lots of train of.
• 22:02
  Thought now no. No, no, no, but that's important
• 22:05
  too, right? Like if you don't enjoy it, you
• 22:07
  shouldn't, you shouldn't do it. I think it just, it ends up
• 22:11
  being a job, not a sport. Like I have a friend who's
• 22:14
  incredible snowboarder and I always asked him why he wasn't
• 22:18
  doing it professionally and he would, he just always had
• 22:22
  sponsors coming up to him and, and kind of was involved in that
• 22:25
  world, but he never wanted to do it.
• 22:27
  And he said, you know, the second I do that, then it's a
• 22:28
  job. And he's like, I, I don't want
• 22:31
  it to be a job. I want to keep loving it.
• 22:32
  And I know that once I make it a job, I'm not going to love it.
• 22:36
  And so it was just so interesting to have that
• 22:39
  recognition and, and kind of be able to say like, no, I'm, I'm
• 22:43
  just going to not not do that. So it is important to keep the
• 22:47
  fun in it. And I think what we were
• 22:49
  thinking that when we were like listening to some of these
• 22:52
  podcasts, and particularly the one about the app creator, is
• 22:58
  that a lot of these lesser known sports are finding their way
• 23:01
  into the Olympics. And so kind of two thoughts came
• 23:04
  out of that for us is 1. How does a sport get to the
• 23:07
  Olympics? So we're going to start
• 23:09
  researching that. I thought that would just kind
• 23:11
  of be a fun thing to see if we can either maybe find a video
• 23:13
  about it or just a little bit of information.
• 23:15
  Nothing crazy, but just again, get like a little history behind
• 23:18
  it. But he talked about fencing and
• 23:22
  how when it entered the Olympic, there was not a lot of awareness
• 23:27
  about it. There was only sort of entered
• 23:29
  around 2004 and there was only around 100,000 people playing it
• 23:36
  across the world. And in 3 1/2 years after that
• 23:41
  aired, it was up to 1,000,000 1/2, which is crazy.
• 23:44
  And the same thing happened with curling, like curling, such a
• 23:47
  random sport. Every time I watched it, I'm
• 23:49
  like, what is this? But it was the same thing.
• 23:52
  It was really unheard of. And then suddenly you put it in
• 23:55
  the in the Olympics and they're playing it all over the world.
• 23:58
  And it's really incredible to see how that like you were
• 24:01
  talking about once it's put out there, once it's advertised,
• 24:05
  once people see it and become aware of it, they're like, oh,
• 24:07
  OK. And then it gains that traction.
• 24:10
  And there was this he talked about this show that was created
• 24:14
  called Wide World of Sports. And this was back in the, you
• 24:19
  know, 60s and 70s. So I I've never seen it, but
• 24:22
  apparently it was created just because they needed to like fill
• 24:26
  a gap on a Sports Network or even just like, I don't know if
• 24:29
  there's regular news network, I'm not sure.
• 24:31
  And they thought it would just be fun.
• 24:32
  And it ended up running for something like 37 seasons
• 24:36
  because everyone loved it. People love finding out about
• 24:39
  this stuff. It's entertaining, it's
• 24:41
  interesting. And one of the ones that he said
• 24:45
  like was really people love watching like the Scottish stub
• 24:49
  throwing, axe throwing, like see again, things you like toe
• 24:55
  fighting, like you mentioned, like what is that?
• 24:57
  Like things just tuna tossing. People chucking A literal tuna.
• 25:01
  I mean, why? Yeah, I don't know why this
• 25:02
  happens, but we just get into it.
• 25:03
  I don't know what's going. On I guess local region,
• 25:06
  regional, regional things, right, regional trends.
• 25:08
  So yeah, I think it was it was super interesting.
• 25:11
  And so I think our our process for this was let's listen and
• 25:16
  then we'll see where it branches out.
• 25:18
  And so I think, you know, from this, we'll probably do some
• 25:23
  research into the Olympics and how we've researched the
• 25:27
  Olympics, but not how sports get to the Olympics.
• 25:31
  Like, what is the process for that?
• 25:32
  Like there were some new sports in the recent Winter Olympics
• 25:37
  who voted on that? Like, you know, when does that
• 25:39
  come out? So people have enough time to
• 25:41
  train, right? Like that process.
• 25:43
  I think it's really interesting. And then, you know, you bring up
• 25:47
  like the difference between like a sport versus a game and just
• 25:50
  sort of the history of sports in general.
• 25:52
  Like I think the history of lacrosse is so interesting is
• 25:55
  something that's always stuck with me.
• 25:56
  But just sports in general, like how did we get here?
• 25:59
  And you know, how did that change?
• 26:01
  You know, obviously we went to Rome recently in the Coliseum.
• 26:04
  And so, you know, sport there was very popular and what what
• 26:07
  that was like. But I think just seeing how
• 26:09
  sports have migrated across the continents and all that, it's
• 26:12
  just so interesting. So we might take a look into
• 26:14
  something like that. Nothing crazy, but I think
• 26:16
  that's our our next steps. I think what I really love about
• 26:19
  topics like these as well is that yet again, a bit like we're
• 26:22
  talking about last week, these subjects can ultimately allow us
• 26:27
  to cover every single area that you would cover in school.
• 26:29
  We can absolutely talk about series.
• 26:32
  There's competitive cooking and there is competitive eating.
• 26:35
  There is geography, there is history, there is maths, there
• 26:38
  is like keeping score and pounding points and rules.
• 26:42
  And like you could do some writing out of rules for a game
• 26:46
  that you can sort of try and actually go through like, OK, so
• 26:48
  this is football. Like what are the rules of
• 26:50
  football? How do we like, how do we keep
• 26:52
  it fair? Like what are some of the
• 26:53
  decisions we have to make? If this happens, then what
• 26:55
  happens next? So this is even like basic
• 26:57
  algorithm work and computer like coding understanding like like
• 27:01
  if this they're not, there's so many different areas to this
• 27:04
  that ultimately you could in one one hour session do like every
• 27:09
  single subject, so to speak. And I think this is where like
• 27:12
  deviating slightly from the point of these episodes, I find
• 27:15
  myself feeling frustrated with our current school system and
• 27:17
  not embracing more of these things themselves.
• 27:20
  Because ultimately we, we have these kind of really segmented
• 27:24
  sort of learning moments that are meant to be kind of like,
• 27:28
  we're going to sit and do maths now.
• 27:30
  And that becomes like, oh, it's maths and oh, we're going to sit
• 27:33
  down and focus on maths and we've got to do numbers and it's
• 27:35
  going to be stressful. But if you kind of wove a bit of
• 27:37
  maths into some conversations about other stuff, you can
• 27:40
  absolutely cover these things sometimes without having to do
• 27:42
  this. Like really focus like it's now
• 27:44
  Tuesday and it's now maths. But I think that we, we get a
• 27:48
  bit, we've segmented them all out and, and putted them into
• 27:51
  these little kind of categories so that we can test them
• 27:53
  individually. We lose the actual relevance of
• 27:56
  these subjects. And I mean, I literally went to
• 27:59
  the shop with my kids yesterday. We picked up a couple of
• 28:02
  activity books. My husband had to go have a
• 28:04
  quick hospital appointment and we just went and sat in his Cafe
• 28:07
  and went and did these activity books.
• 28:10
  And when I was logging it on strew later that day, actually I
• 28:14
  was running through everything we did.
• 28:15
  We did some maths, we did, we did some writing, we did some
• 28:19
  coloring, we did some obviously reading and learning about the
• 28:24
  facts of different animals in the magazine, like where they
• 28:26
  from. We looked at the map and we saw
• 28:28
  where they're from. We talked about why they have
• 28:31
  the features they've got. Like it was incredible.
• 28:34
  We literally, we had a chat with a lovely gentleman sitting next
• 28:37
  to us. He was curious about why they
• 28:38
  went in school and wanted to have a conversation about what
• 28:40
  we're up to and like was was really enjoying watching them so
• 28:44
  engaged in what they're doing with their magazines.
• 28:45
  And he was sort of complimenting in the complimenting me on their
• 28:49
  lovely behaviour and how they were kind of handling being out
• 28:52
  in public. It was nice.
• 28:52
  Sitting nicely in a cafe doing their activity, books, not
• 28:55
  causing a ruckus, not on screens as well.
• 28:58
  It's always nice when you get someone going.
• 28:59
  It's so nice to see your children out just doing things
• 29:01
  and not like just sat on a phone.
• 29:03
  But ultimately we just had this really lovely couple of hours
• 29:07
  and it literally ticked every box.
• 29:08
  They were looking at the pricing on the magazine before they
• 29:10
  bought it. They were comparing them.
• 29:12
  They were looking at all the things that were inside of them.
• 29:13
  They were deciding whether or not that's the one they wanted
• 29:15
  to do. Like it was excellent.
• 29:17
  And it when I looked at it, I was like, Oh my goodness, that
• 29:21
  couple of hours that was so fun and so relaxed and I did not
• 29:26
  have to push anyone to do anything.
• 29:28
  They were just completely self-directed.
• 29:30
  Was it basically ticked all of our school for the day and the
• 29:34
  week probably all in one go. And I think when we look at
• 29:37
  certain, but we kind of bring it back around to kind of the
• 29:39
  concept of sporting and like having fun with these things.
• 29:42
  It really can Like we we kind of think of sports sometimes as
• 29:47
  hobbies or nice to haves or extras, but we a lot of our
• 29:51
  education in this country is focused on the brain.
• 29:55
  It's all about cultivating intelligence and knowledge, and
• 29:59
  it's much less about cultivating our connection with our bodies
• 30:02
  and our physical health and our mental health.
• 30:04
  That comes from having a good physical, which is like a chance
• 30:09
  to get all of the feelings outright.
• 30:11
  So sometimes people like to go for a run or go and box or
• 30:14
  whatever they like to do because it actually helps to dispel that
• 30:17
  kind of like frustration or like to get their endorphins up to
• 30:20
  cope with their daily life. Like we've kind of completely
• 30:23
  forgotten how important our connection with our bodies is.
• 30:26
  And I think this is what's really nice about this subject.
• 30:28
  And what did kind of come up with What sports do they like?
• 30:32
  Why? Why do they do them?
• 30:34
  Like are they doing them to be competitive or they doing them
• 30:36
  because it's just fun or because they like moving their bodies or
• 30:39
  they like being fit or they like being able to do things.
• 30:42
  Like they don't want to be a be unable to do them.
• 30:44
  Like the thought of not being able to climb a tree.
• 30:47
  Like my son even got a bit upset thinking about it as I called
• 30:49
  the like, it'd be really hard, like if I wasn't able to climb
• 30:53
  or I wasn't able to run or like to play because I love those
• 30:56
  things that those things are really fun for me.
• 30:59
  And it just made me smile because it was it was basically
• 31:01
  just a lovely kind of opportunity to think about how
• 31:04
  how vital sports and physical activity is to culture, to
• 31:09
  ourselves, to our communities. Some of these things are like
• 31:14
  super important for local communities to help like bring
• 31:16
  people together. Like the cricket field would be
• 31:20
  right in the middle of a typical village and everybody would
• 31:24
  congregate around that cricket field to have a game and to
• 31:27
  watch it and to have picnics together and to catch up with
• 31:30
  their neighbors that this would have been a significant part of
• 31:34
  their culture. Absolutely.
• 31:37
  The same as like have feet and other things like loads of
• 31:39
  different sports that are really vital to community spirit.
• 31:43
  Equally, sporting can become an opportunity for people to to
• 31:48
  kind of deal with their disputes and to kind of overcome anger
• 31:53
  towards each other as well. Like to, to fight it out, so to
• 31:56
  speak, settle a dispute. But you've also got there's such
• 32:00
  a lot of history in terms of like, I don't know, certain
• 32:04
  football teams being against other football teams and hating
• 32:06
  that football team for that because of old racial issues or
• 32:10
  whatever, right? Like it's, it's really quite
• 32:12
  interesting once you delve into these things as to kind of how
• 32:15
  deeply rooted sport is in the human culture.
• 32:19
  And it certainly is not just a hobby.
• 32:21
  Like it's not just a nice to have.
• 32:24
  No, no. And it is absolutely the same in
• 32:26
  the States. So with American football, there
• 32:29
  are rivalries, there are allegiances.
• 32:32
  It it is draws a line in marriages like it can be a real
• 32:37
  thing. And then it's it's interesting
• 32:39
  too, if you look at the different parts of the country
• 32:41
  that are heavier into sports than others.
• 32:44
  So I think when you go down South, I mean, you've got seen
• 32:47
  Friday Night Lights and that TV show.
• 32:49
  And I mean there is a reality to that.
• 32:52
  Like football, like going to watch the local football game.
• 32:55
  I grew up on Friday nights before I was even in high
• 32:59
  school. Like going to the the football
• 33:01
  game on Friday night at the high school was like where you met
• 33:04
  your friends. Like that's what you did.
• 33:06
  And then when you were and there was a whole, it wasn't even
• 33:08
  about the game half the time, right?
• 33:10
  Like many times I didn't even watch the game.
• 33:12
  We were hanging out behind in the behind the football field.
• 33:15
  So I was just a whole thing it it is such a cultural thing that
• 33:23
  there is absolutely the entertainment piece to it.
• 33:26
  And then what's really interesting speaking about like
• 33:28
  allegiances, when you look at Italy, for example, in Siena,
• 33:34
  they have the horse race there and you are born into, you know,
• 33:40
  a quote, UN quote team. And that is yours for life.
• 33:45
  And you go and you represent that region for that horse every
• 33:50
  single year. And it is again, like dividing
• 33:54
  families, dividing spouses. It is incredible.
• 34:00
  There's so much history around sports.
• 34:02
  And if you think about it, it was the first like Netflix,
• 34:05
  right? Like, yeah, that's what you
• 34:08
  take. In a lot of ways, isn't it?
• 34:09
  It's fun. Absolutely.
• 34:11
  Social. It's communal, yeah.
• 34:13
  These things are vital, so vital to our cultures.
• 34:16
  And obviously depending on where you come from in the world, like
• 34:19
  the culture will be very different and you'll have very
• 34:21
  different sports and things. And obviously in villages and
• 34:23
  small towns and places all around the UK there we came
• 34:27
  across some really weird ones. When we're looking up the weird,
• 34:29
  wonderful sports of the world, there's so many from like
• 34:31
  England and Wales and Scotland and stuff.
• 34:34
  Clearly we really entertained ourselves by doing the most
• 34:36
  random of things, but I think what's really lovely about this
• 34:40
  subject, it's as difficult as it has been.
• 34:43
  The kids were really receptive. Again, conversations felt really
• 34:46
  easeful with them. And I think if we were, it could
• 34:49
  spider out like we've kind of, I mean, I've thought of so many
• 34:51
  things whilst you were talking and like vice versa, that both
• 34:54
  of us would probably would have had all kinds of thoughts that
• 34:56
  we might want to go on to do with our kids further off the
• 34:58
  back of just having a chat about it.
• 35:00
  Because I did get a little bit stuck just sitting thinking
• 35:02
  about it myself. I'm trying not to lean too
• 35:04
  heavily on AI. It will always give me ideas,
• 35:07
  but sometimes I'm really trying to make sure I don't.
• 35:09
  I do use my brain as much as possible too.
• 35:13
  But ultimately I think it could spider out into so many
• 35:17
  different areas. We did do some health related
• 35:19
  things. So we did a whole like taking
• 35:21
  their blood pressure and their pulse when they were at resting,
• 35:25
  completely sat and chilled. And then we got them to like do
• 35:27
  Simon Says and had a really fun like crazy active Simon Says and
• 35:30
  then quickly did their blood pressure and pulse again.
• 35:33
  And then we talked about what's actually physically happening in
• 35:36
  the body and why it increases. And that was really interesting.
• 35:39
  And they really found that fun. They wanted to do it over and
• 35:40
  over again. I was like, we can't keep taking
• 35:42
  your blood pressure. It's not, it's not good for you,
• 35:43
  but we could keep doing the pulse if you want, like, but
• 35:47
  that we'll see it again. Another great conversation and I
• 35:49
  think my kids are really receptive to just having a chat
• 35:52
  about things. Obviously, I know a lot of us
• 35:54
  have kids who maybe don't want us to.
• 35:56
  It's not, Again, certainly not like lecturing.
• 35:58
  They don't particularly like it if I sit and give them a long
• 36:00
  diatribe. My my youngest ones asked me a
• 36:03
  question and I gave her a short answer and I said I can give you
• 36:05
  more detail if she wants. She goes, Oh no, you're going
• 36:07
  forever and ever. All right, rude.
• 36:14
  For next time. I get in, I get involved.
• 36:16
  I'm sorry, I get excited to share knowledge with you.
• 36:18
  Whatever. It does make me laugh sometimes.
• 36:21
  But but yeah, I think keeping it, I think this is something as
• 36:26
  well though, that I don't necessarily focus on sport.
• 36:29
  We're not very kind of sporty people.
• 36:30
  We don't tend to like watch sport on TV or go and watch
• 36:33
  games and things like that. I did used to enjoy it a little
• 36:35
  bit as a kid, but not so much as an adult.
• 36:38
  And so I think there's sort of keeping the sustainability there
• 36:40
  is important and trying to actually keep that a part of our
• 36:43
  life, not necessarily as a constant conversation.
• 36:47
  But I do definitely want to help them to experience more culture
• 36:52
  and to experience like to if there is like a cheese rolling
• 36:55
  thing somewhere in the UK, go and watch it, like go and see
• 36:58
  people doing it or go to the races or go see a football game.
• 37:02
  Like we should go and try and participate in some more of
• 37:05
  these things. Even if it's not something
• 37:07
  that's a big thing for me, I think that it's an opportunity
• 37:11
  to just experience the atmosphere and to and to see if
• 37:16
  you enjoy it. Because ultimately these are
• 37:19
  experiences and these are things which can either give you great
• 37:21
  memories or can make you kind of solidify that you don't like
• 37:24
  something or whatever. But I think they would enjoy
• 37:26
  that. We've seen like jousting up at
• 37:28
  Warwick Castle for example, which is just awesome and like
• 37:30
  just some really cool stuff like that, that I think just going
• 37:33
  and having these moments is just really vital for them.
• 37:37
  Yeah. But yeah, I'm not sure how else
• 37:40
  I'd keep it sustainable. I'm going to do my best.
• 37:41
  I'm going to definitely try and weave this in a little bit more
• 37:43
  because I think it's fun and I think it's it keeps it, it's a
• 37:46
  nice light thing. It's not heavy and stressful.
• 37:50
  Exactly. I think it's something that is
• 37:52
  easy to do once you have that initial awareness of it.
• 37:57
  Like anytime you're mentioning like you travel, when you go to
• 38:00
  different areas, just a quick peek into the local sports, like
• 38:03
  what is happening locally, Is there a local soccer team to go
• 38:06
  watch? Is there something unique that's
• 38:09
  happening? That's amazing.
• 38:11
  I think we also appreciated, again, coming back to the
• 38:14
  Olympics, just the timing of that was great for this
• 38:16
  conversation because it's fresh in our mind.
• 38:19
  We flew to Italy while it was going on, not to watch it, but
• 38:22
  just coincidentally. And so there was a ton of
• 38:25
  propaganda around kind of marketing and all that stuff.
• 38:28
  Anywhere you look, it was something about the Olympics and
• 38:30
  who's sponsoring it and who's playing in it and what to watch
• 38:35
  and all of this. And there's shops selling a ton
• 38:38
  of merchandise and all of that. So it's really right in our
• 38:41
  faces. But what was really interesting
• 38:43
  is we actually went twice. We went there through the
• 38:46
  airports, once when it was the Olympics and then once for the
• 38:49
  Paralympics. And obviously it's on TV
• 38:52
  constantly because they were held in Italy.
• 38:55
  And so we were watching the in the airport, we were waiting for
• 38:59
  a flight and they had on the Paralympic hockey finals.
• 39:03
  And it was amazing to watch these men with various different
• 39:09
  abilities play a very aggressive and physical and dangerous
• 39:16
  sport. And we had so many questions
• 39:19
  about like, what is the apparatus that they're using?
• 39:21
  What are they sitting on? What, why do they have two
• 39:24
  sticks? How does that work?
• 39:25
  Can they use both sticks? Like everything was just really
• 39:29
  incredibly interesting and sparked some conversation around
• 39:32
  kind of to your earlier point of like, you don't necessarily have
• 39:35
  to have the physical attributes that you think of initially when
• 39:39
  you think of people who play professional sports or who
• 39:42
  aren't, you know, good at sports versus not good.
• 39:46
  I think that the lesser known sports introduces this as well
• 39:49
  because they do cater to different physical abilities.
• 39:52
  But even if you want to do something and you might have a
• 39:57
  physical limitation for whatever reason, there's probably a way
• 40:01
  to accommodate that. Like don't give up.
• 40:03
  Like the, you know, these men showed and we only watched the
• 40:06
  men. So we're speaking to that
• 40:08
  incredible resilience. I could not believe like how
• 40:12
  they were just taking what life has given them and turning it
• 40:17
  into a profession and or maybe for some of them it's just a
• 40:21
  hobby, I'm not sure. And just enjoying it and having
• 40:25
  a good time and creating great friendships and building a
• 40:28
  wealth of experiences at the. They're going to remember their
• 40:30
  whole lives, like, you know, they went to the Olympics.
• 40:33
  That's incredible. So I just think, yeah, there's,
• 40:35
  there's a ton of ways to like you were saying earlier, look
• 40:40
  at, you know, what we're trying to educate on through the lens
• 40:44
  of sports. And I think it's also just
• 40:46
  really important to point out that you don't have to have like
• 40:51
  the traditional look, you know, to, to play sports like you, you
• 40:58
  can, you can make it work for you as well.
• 41:00
  So, yeah, I, I, I mean, it was, it was good.
• 41:03
  I, it was, I wasn't sure what I was expecting when we first
• 41:06
  introduced the topic. I wasn't quite sure how it would
• 41:08
  go. But obviously anytime we can
• 41:10
  talk about horses is a good day. So we did that and then branched
• 41:13
  off from there. I think there's so many
• 41:16
  different ways this could go. So if you guys are following
• 41:19
  along and doing this challenge with us or if you're listening
• 41:21
  to us and then going off and enjoying the topic yourself,
• 41:23
  please do come and tell us. We'd love to know what you guys
• 41:26
  are doing as well. We also doing our best to get
• 41:28
  you out of blog to go with each episode.
• 41:30
  So just sort of lists out all of the resources that we've
• 41:32
  mentioned on the podcast as well to save you kind of trying to
• 41:35
  Scrabble to remember them all. But ultimately there is a
• 41:38
  million and one different directions you could take this
• 41:40
  to have fun with it. Follow your kids interests and
• 41:43
  and certainly this challenge is never about kind of making
• 41:46
  people feel like they're not doing enough.
• 41:48
  By all means, we all do plenty. This is just a bit of fun and
• 41:52
  something for you to kind of to spark some creativity.
• 41:54
  I suppose. Sometimes I find it really
• 41:56
  difficult to feel kind of like a spontaneous like, oh, what
• 41:59
  should we learn about right now? So this has been quite fun to
• 42:01
  just mix things up and to give us something to talk about each
• 42:04
  week, which is really good. So yeah, a.
• 42:06
  Little variety A. Little bit of variety is always
• 42:08
  good. So we obviously now have the job
• 42:10
  of picking the next one. I am also later today actually
• 42:14
  recording an episode with Jen Hodge, but that will be an
• 42:18
  episode about the children's well-being in the schools Bill.
• 42:21
  So we should also have an episode coming out soon about
• 42:24
  that and what's happening and what might be changing and what
• 42:28
  we need to be doing etcetera. So do look out for that
• 42:30
  happening as well. OK, let's pick a subject.
• 42:35
  Oh, this one's a good one. They're all good.
• 42:39
  Oh no, you're laughing. That's great.
• 42:41
  It's a good gooder. It's good.
• 42:43
  Good, I think it's going to be great.
• 42:44
  I'm really happy because we've actually ended up doing a lot of
• 42:47
  this at the Co-op the other day. So I've actually got some stuff
• 42:49
  at the bank already. So it's town planning, town
• 42:54
  planning or like a street furniture.
• 42:57
  So like basically you think the street furniture, meaning things
• 43:02
  like benches and lampposts and like, I don't know, like curbs
• 43:08
  and St. lines on the on the roads.
• 43:10
  It could be anything really, but kind of like the concept of
• 43:13
  physically planning a town and making it work.
• 43:16
  This one I came up with when I was thinking about it, just
• 43:18
  because it seemed like it was such a random something that we
• 43:21
  take for granted. Like we walk around our roads
• 43:24
  and we sit on a bench that happens to look out over a
• 43:26
  lovely view spot. And we never truly pay any
• 43:29
  attention to who's responsible for putting that there and how
• 43:33
  is it made? And why do we have them there?
• 43:36
  And who else these benefits like you don't really like?
• 43:39
  I know it sounds really random, but even just a bench has a
• 43:42
  million and one different like bits to it, right?
• 43:46
  There's the making of it and they're putting it there and the
• 43:48
  reason why we put them out and stuff.
• 43:50
  So anyways, there's I thought it could be interesting.
• 43:53
  It's it's a really random. One I'm sure it will be any
• 43:55
  direction. Just just making a face.
• 43:59
  I'll find out. Woman really good.
• 44:02
  Really good. It's a very you don't have
• 44:04
  loving is that we are bouncing all over the place.
• 44:08
  Yes. It's not like any of these
• 44:09
  topics are feeding into the next like we are because it kind of
• 44:13
  could have done that if we if they were picked differently, I
• 44:18
  guess yeah. And yeah, but I love just just
• 44:21
  the sporadic approach we have. I think it's awesome and it's
• 44:24
  definitely refreshing, so. My son was not happy that he
• 44:27
  doesn't get to do the picking out of the hat thing.
• 44:29
  And I was like, well, he it gets done on the podcast live, so I
• 44:32
  can't, I can't let you pick it ahead because that's cheating.
• 44:35
  I don't know why it's cheating. He could have done, I suppose,
• 44:38
  but I said we can absolutely have our own jars.
• 44:39
  It's actually kind of like created a whole thing for us at
• 44:41
  home and we're going to have our own jar of ideas to cover,
• 44:47
  including like for them to teach me something or like for them to
• 44:50
  decide that we want to go for a day out or something and be
• 44:53
  like, OK, like at some point this week there that this is
• 44:57
  your window could do it on Tuesday.
• 44:58
  Where do you want to go? Like what should we go do this
• 44:59
  week? And let them kind of say, I want
• 45:01
  to go to see a museum or I want to go to soft play or whatever.
• 45:05
  And anyway, so yeah, so I said to like, we'll try and have like
• 45:07
  a jar that maybe is like, as I was thinking like it could be
• 45:11
  like, oh, a weekly jar that's got lots of different things
• 45:14
  that it's, we have to try and do all of them in a jar every week.
• 45:16
  Or it could be a topic jar like this one where we just pick a
• 45:19
  random subject every month and then we can just cover that for
• 45:22
  a while. Whatever really.
• 45:23
  But. That's great.
• 45:24
  It's I love that idea. That kind of idea, just to keep
• 45:27
  it interesting because sometimes when we actually have some
• 45:29
  school time available, I call it school because it just helps me
• 45:32
  to kind of categorize it as intentional educating time.
• 45:37
  I have 3 hours. What are we doing with this?
• 45:39
  Three hours? And so I'll often say to him,
• 45:42
  like, what do you fancy doing today?
• 45:43
  And they're like, oh, I don't know, I don't want to do this.
• 45:47
  I don't want to do that. I'm just like, OK, that's fine.
• 45:49
  We don't have to do that. We don't have to do this.
• 45:51
  But let's like, what do we want to do?
• 45:53
  Like anyone got any ideas? And often like in the moment,
• 45:55
  you can't think, can you? And then we're all stuck with
• 45:59
  our limited like generator brain in that moment and not really
• 46:02
  know what to do. So I think something like this
• 46:04
  could be really helpful to be like, OK, let's just pull
• 46:06
  something from the hat and learn about that.
• 46:08
  Why not? I love it for the like 9:00 PM
• 46:11
  questions when you're like go to bed and like, but why is the sky
• 46:16
  blue and you're like, well, this is a longer conversation than we
• 46:19
  have time for my friend. So remind me tomorrow like that
• 46:23
  I think is perfect for that. Just there's like little like
• 46:28
  we'll add it to the jar and then when we pick it out, like
• 46:31
  that'll be, that'll be the one we do.
• 46:33
  Because I do think that I get a lot of those questions.
• 46:37
  And also to your point, like when you you could say a lot
• 46:40
  about the topic, but that's not, that's not what's being asked in
• 46:43
  the moment. So you can say, OK, well, we'll,
• 46:46
  let's add this deeper dive to the jar, right?
• 46:49
  And you know, why, why do we have constellations?
• 46:53
  Like, how did that even happen? Why did they someone decide that
• 46:55
  that looks like Orion's belt? Like why, you know, and that
• 47:00
  that's a long conversation when you're supposed to be about 20
• 47:02
  minutes ago. So that's that's for the jar.
• 47:05
  I think we might do that. I love that idea.
• 47:08
  Talking of bedtime, I had a win last night.
• 47:11
  I feel like I just need to share.
• 47:12
  I have apda autistic daughter who basically has to come
• 47:18
  downstairs 20 times before bed. So last night I gave her a hug
• 47:21
  and a kiss and I went right now have one for the first time.
• 47:24
  You want to come downstairs? And then I gave her another hug
• 47:27
  and a kiss and then another one and then another one.
• 47:29
  And then she's like, one more. And I was like, OK, but that
• 47:31
  means that we're covered for all four of the potential.
• 47:35
  Coming back downstairs is OK. So you've got a hug banked and
• 47:37
  ready to go. She didn't come back downstairs
• 47:40
  for the first time. It's amazing.
• 47:42
  And I think, well, I don't know. How old is she now?
• 47:45
  6 1/2. I don't know if we've ever had
• 47:48
  an evening, but she has not come back downstairs.
• 47:51
  And I was like, holy moly, I have a win.
• 47:53
  So if anybody else is having this challenge, try it.
• 47:55
  See if it works for you. Just thought I'd share that one
• 47:58
  without further ado. I think that's us done though.
• 48:00
  I think that's us for this week. So next week we'll be back
• 48:03
  talking about town planning and St. furniture.
• 48:07
  And the children's well-being Bill in schools.
• 48:10
  Yes, and we'll have that one coming out soon too, hopefully.
• 48:12
  Yeah. So yeah, that'll be here next
• 48:14
  week or the week after. Brilliant guys.
• 48:16
  Well, have fun and enjoy joining him with the challenge again.
• 48:20
  Come and find us and let us know what you're doing.
• 48:23
  But in the meantime, farewell, have a great week.
• 48:26
  Bye guys, Take care. You've been listening to the Big
• 48:32
  Home Ed Conversations podcast. Thanks for tuning in.
• 48:36
  Don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share with a
• 48:39
  friend. Follow us on Instagram and
• 48:41
  TikTok at Big Home Ed Podcast for updates.
• 48:45
  Also, check out our new website at bighomedpodcast.com.
• 48:50
  We'll be back next week to talk about the children's well-being
• 48:53
  in schools. Bill, thanks for listening.