School is not B6’s favourite thing at present. I believe there are other 6 year old boys who feel the same way. When the girls were around his age I remember we hit a bit of a slump with our school work as well so I invented a world travel unit. They had tickets to fly on our own family airlines, travel journals to fill and a world to discover. We recreated many famous landmarks in our own school room. Exotic foods and original crafts were tried.

I am attempting to capture B6’s interest by creating something similar. In the mailbox yesterday was a challenge. He has to travel round the world in forty days. He must visit at least 25 countries, travel by ten different modes of transportation and take pictures every where he goes. He might encounter danger, be captured or have to eat strange food.

I’m glad to say he accepted the challenge. As soon as he had filled out the requisite form he received a list of items he had to gather together before he could begin the challenge. A world map, pencil, eraser, travel journal, scissors, ruler, cell phone and binoculars were easy enough to find. Getting a passport took a little longer as did raising $500. Fortunately for him, his sister works at the passport office (actually she is the passport office) so by this morning he had a beautiful new passport. He earned his $500 doing chores around the home so he was ready to start. B6 believes that the letters and instructions are coming from me but as he doesn’t have any proof he has started saying that they are coming from “the community” and that I am part of “the community”.

His first assignment was in the mailbox today, a trip to Nunavut. Reluctantly he worked out what was written on the page. It was no use asking A10 and L12 to help, they were banned from reading it to him. After reading that he was going somewhere cold he had to list the clothes he would take; he drew them. I know that was clever of him, but I made him write the names anyway. After all, this is replacing his language work. I met him in Nunavut and showed him around, via books , then he built an inukshuk. His cellphone came in handy to book a hotel room for the night as he is yet to complete the whole assignment.