Changes

After reading "Free at Last" by Daniel Greenberg, a book about Sudbury Valley school in MA, I'm making some radical changes to our homeschooling.

I'm letting the kiddos take their own responsibility for their own learning. We have had a talk about what it means and they are off!

It's a little too early to tell how long this will lasts, but so far it's going pretty well. They actually pace themselves pretty well. The first day, W clean up his room in the morning. Mostly he vacuumed. I also noticed both kids make their own beds every morning even though the rest of the room esp. their clothes could still use some organizing instead of piling on their bed.

J, out of her own initiative still wants to do her math when she have time while W plays, draws, and reads. Even though W dropped his math worksheets, he made improvements in telling time. And he frequently wants to add the money (bills and coins) in my wallet. They also still out of their own initiative, practice their instruments, and their dance. They haven't watched any TV but did want to play some computer games. Even that was very telling. I tried to encourage W to just explore the different buttons on computer assuring him nothing disastrous will happen if he presses some wrong button.

They also determine when they want to eat and make their own breakfast and lunch. If they need help, they ask. W made coffee for me all by himself this morning. When he took a little long, I was a little anxious and almost asked J to go down and see if he needs some help but he showed up a little later all smiles upstairs with my coffee.

J had an idea about Chinese today. She said we can speak English during the day, then from 4:00-4:30 learn Chinese and then speak Chinese for the rest of the night. We'll certainly give that a try.

I'm going to just take one day at a time and enjoy the ride and see where this leads us.