listening

Small people like to be heard.

They don't always like to listen.

Come to think of is, big people like to be heard too, and big people aren't keen on listening much either.

So we've been doing some experiments with listening. At different times of the day we all pause and try hard to draw what we can hear. It's an interesting thing to do and I would recommend it.

Our combined list includes some of the following:

Birds - in particular crows and next doors chickens.
The wind in the sycamore behind the house
Lb singing (he cannot keep quiet so sings softly whilst we're all listening. Normally a made up song about being quiet.)


The water running through the ponds - this ranges from a soft trickle to a raging torrent depending on how much rain we've had.
Kites - they call to each other all the time.
Tractors - there seems to be a constant low hummmmmmm of them in daylight hours at the moment.
The fridge
A birds wings as it takes off
Bumble Bees
Aeroplanes
Crickets
Next door's dog who "Yips".
Giggling, because no one can manage to be silent for more than a couple of minutes without a few of these escaping.

I see us doing this again in the Autumn, and again in the Winter. I'm going to keep the sketches and stick them all in a scrapbook together. Hopefully it will be a lovely reminder of seasons past, as well as a slightly different way to record all of our developing artistic abilities.