Awedinary

The Wonder of Everyday Things

Awedinary isn’t another framework to follow.

It’s something simpler than that…

A fresh way of noticing the everyday and asking the questions that bring learning, curiosity and connection to life.

A collection of questions about the everyday things we walk past, use, eat, breathe and barely notice. Questions that open into something surprising, something vast, something that makes you pause and think about things differently.

What is weird about water? What is bewildering about brains? What is radical about roads?

Each page takes one utterly ordinary thing and looks again. Really looks. And what you find there is quietly extraordinary.

Awe, it turns out, does not require a mountain or a masterpiece. It is already here, in the grass, the glass, the simple act of breathing. We just need the right question to unlock it.

Why it matters

Research shows that when people experience awe two to three times a week, even through entirely ordinary encounters, something measurable happens:

Cortisol drops. Inflammation falls. Curiosity rises. The brain shifts into a state of open, expansive thinking. People become more collaborative, more creative, more connected to the world around them.

For young people specifically, research shows that children who experience awe ask more questions, retain more, and connect ideas across subjects in ways that rote learning simply cannot produce.

And yet, in our rush for answers, we are losing the questions. When every lesson has a learning objective and a right answer, we are quietly telling children that the world is already fully mapped. Awedinary gently, joyfully, pushes back on that.

Who is it for?

Awedinary was written with classrooms, staffrooms and kitchens in mind. It belongs in them all.

For teachers and school staff, it is a five-minute starter, a cross-curricular spark, a behaviour reset, a staff room moment of joy. No prep. No plan. No scheme to follow. Just a question that opens the room up.

For school leaders, it is a practical, evidence-informed tool that brings awe, curiosity and connection into everyday school life without adding a single thing to your workload.

For parents, it is a conversation starter at the dinner table, in the car or on a walk. The kind of question that gets children talking, thinking, wondering, and connecting with the adults around them.

For anyone quietly curious who is willing to look again, it is a reminder that curiosity is an invitation to find the extraordinary hiding in plain sight.

This is just the beginning…