Owl Moon and concert update

We looked at Owl Moon by Jane Yolen this week. It's a Five In a Row text with lots of scope for exploration but I'm afraid we just scratched the surface really.



The book tells the story of a little boy who goes out late at night with his father to watch owls for the first time. Not a huge amount of text and certainly no plot as such - but lots of beautiful illustrations and scope for discussions.





This is what we did in connection with the story.

We made a list of all of the different birds we could think of.

We talked about nocturnal animals and listed the ones we could think of.

We talked about why the boy had not been owl watching prior to that time. Sometimes we need to learn self restraint before we can do things - we need to be able to do less in order to do more at times.

Not all decisions about whether or not we can do things are just down to maturity. Some things are dictated by law such as driving a vehicle, getting married, buying alcohol and voting, (big discussion about what voting means and how in some parts of the world certain groups are not permitted to vote).

When the boy saw the owl he stared at it for 'one minute, two minutes or even a hundred minutes'. We talked about how some experiences can seem to distort time. We converted one hundred minutes to hours and minutes - then did lots more of those conversions.

Some of the illustrations in the book are from a birds eye view. We talked about this and Hermione plans on drawing a birds eye view of our neighbourhood - but hasn't gotten around to doing it yet.

Last nights concert was great. Hermione was one of the youngest participants but the age range probably went up to mid seventies. The music was good and the atmosphere was very relaxed. I think Nana summed it up when she said they are a lovely bunch of people who take their music very seriously, but don't take themselves too seriously.

On the concert programme there was mention of a kinder group. I'm going to investigate this when the summer break is over and see if it is something Miles could be involved in. I would really like to take up the violin again too. I played it for years when I was younger and would like to start over. I'd like it so much if we all played an instrument. I have visions of Von Trapp moments, music by the fireplace, rosy cheeks and mince pies - but then I've always been a dreamer *grin*.