We have been learning through life and adventures at home together as a family for over 5 years now!  Many of our previous adventures and learnings were included in one of our old blogs Mandarin Motion.   I started that blog so long ago when I was a Mandarin Teacher, it evolved into our family home learning blog as we integrated Mandarin into most of the things we did. But what and how we learn now has changed as we have grown and developed.

It’s time for a bit of a reset… a fresh blog! We thought we should have a blog that encompasses how we have evolved and that encompasses our whole learning….so this is it:  Being In Our Element

We have amazing future adventures in our heads, but of course the world has changed and adventures like hiking Manaslu and Mont Blanc, or Kungsleden and Kilamanjaro will have to wait.

We were thinking Te Ararora in New Zealand might be an option for our next adventure, surely a travel bubble between our two countries down under will open soon? But we are accepting that Australia is our classroom at the moment, and it’s not a bad classroom really 🙂  But even interstate travel is going to be a yoyo of uncertainty for a little while to come.  We were thinking the Bibbulmun Trail in Western Australia could be our next adventure, WA just opening up its borders.  But even as I write this, only a few hours after opening, SA has had a Covid cluster and WA have now closed their border to them before it had even opened. So on the one hand, even though our states are opening one minute and encouraging other Ozzies to come and spend their money there, on the other hand requesting leave and booking airfares at the moment would be insane.

This uncertainty has reminded us how important it is for our wellbeing to be in the moment.  We have started this new blog Being In Our Element as a reminder that often life throws in these uncontrollable elements that make our future goals uncertain. Every day is an elemental layer of our life’s journey.  We have our big goals and dreams, but to be is our present goal, and if we can do that ‘being’ in our element, then bonus 🙂

Our adventures have always been exciting ways to integrate Maths, English, Chinese, Science, Geography, Health, Humanities, Technology and the Arts learning outcomes.  We will be continuing to prepare for some kind of long distance trail, hopefully in 2021.  This blog will be to document our journey for our own record of learning and memories…but of course any family is welcome to follow if you are planning on doing an adventure and learning through it 🙂

Whatever may be…we will continue to be in our element 🙂