What on Earth is ‘Strewing?’

It does not mean making a stew. Here are a few examples of strewing.

1.  Anthony bought ‘The Big Book for Loo’ a book about interesting facts.

It is by the toilet in the bathroom. In effect you could say he ‘Strewed’ (ooh that sounds really odd) He strewed it there…He left it there and the kids pick it up and they learn about whatever is in this book, 100 pointless things you need to know. The kids LOVE this book. I LOVE this book. Did you know that humans are the only animals to have chins? (I debate that, I am sure all our cats have chins, I have seen them, I have scratched them!)

2. My strewing example, Anthony and I go to look at an amazing fresco, in Perugia, I go to the bookshop, I see a book and think ‘oooh the kids will LOVE that’ it is an illustrated book about Rafael as a young boy, I ‘strew’ it on to the table. No one looks at it…ever….never…ever. (I weep in to my book about the young Rafael and slowly as I turn the pages think, maybe…one day…)

Strewing just means putting things down and seeing if they pick them up as opposed to saying

‘I have bought this book about all the useless facts  you could possibly ever know, you should read it, I am going to pop it in the toilet’ actually I think that is what Anthony did, he did the latter and it worked brilliantly, he didn’t strew at all!!

I think personally, just be normal, sometimes you strew sometimes you don’t. And if you do it naturally you probably aren’t even aware you are ‘strewing’ you are just putting things down on the table.

I think that ‘strewing’ is just a word but the thought behind it is a good one, to keep the kid’s eyes and minds open to all sorts of things but I think that kid’s eyes and minds are open most of the time anyway. It is just that if interesting things are on the horizon then that can only be a good thing. The idea, for me is also the fact that you may not actually know what grabs your child’s imagination and so by putting out a different range of things that are even out of your own mental repertoire then you may just be able to set their minds on fire with something that you never even expected them to look at.

It can be anything at all, books, posters, maps, a historical garment, an electric toaster and a screw driver that has the plug taken off and needs deconstructing…. You name it you can strew it!

And if you are interested here is a link to the Bumper Book for The Loo.

This is an exert from ‘Unschooling the Kids’ by Lehla and Anthony Eldridge-Rogers