Supriya's Attention-span

Lately I've been impressed by Supriya's attention-span. She has been working on her hand-stands incessantly. It felt like any time I saw her she would be trying out her hand-stands. And of course she mastered it and now can do it against a wall on demand.

Then there was drumming. As I wrote before, we'd have Billy Joel's Greatest Hits playing in the van and she would be drumming away. She kept at it nonstop and has now mastered the beat. It was a little trying on my ears on a few occasions, but my principles kept me from telling her to stop! She was learning something great out of her own volition - who was I to interfere? She has really come a long way over just the last month or so. Manisha and I are seriously thinking of getting her a drumset for her birthday in April.

I have observed the same thing in many different activities (computer games, jigsaw puzzles etc.). When she is engrossed in something that is challenging, she is in Flow and she can be at it for hours. And I consider it my solemn duty to protect & encourage such activities, for it is through them that she is growing up and realizing her potential. I guess one could call the attention-span for a particular activity a "co-incident indicator" since it signals some underlying core strength/weakness.

Reading Progress

We were at Panera Bread when Supriya picked up a copy of the menu. "This spells beaver, doesn't it?", she said pointing at the words Beverages. I said, "That's very close! There's just an extra 'a' in beaver." Manisha pointed out that there's no logic behind that spelling, since fever has no 'a' and it rhymes with beaver. Then later at night Supriya was reading Dr. Seuss's "Hop on Pop" with help from her babysitter (while Manisha and I were out to see an excellent one-woman show called Squeezebox written and performed by Ann Randolph at the Merrimack Repertory Theater) and apparently making good progress.

Winter Hike

The temperature never got to 42 as it was supposed to, but that did not deter us. We went for a short hike in the Lowell Dracut Tyngsboro State Forest anyway. There was not a lot of snow on the ground and no wind. The kids did a lot of bouldering, and Karl and I did a little. We also came across a whole heap of paintballs, a burnt beehive and a tree that looked like it was being consumed by fungus, among other things. A great time was had by all.

We have been generally busy the last couple of weeks, and the last weekend we were in NJ/NYC. The upshot is there is a lot to stuff to write about, so keep checking back here... 

Supriya's Silly Rhyme

She was chanting rhymes and trying out different combinations of words when she came up with:

1, 2, 3, 4
I think I'm about to snore
6, 7, 8, 9, 10
Then I changed my mind again

Loaf More

That's the advice (#7 out of 8) in this week's Newsweek for "New Year's resolutions that you might actually keep":

Bill Doherty, professor of family social science at the Universoty of Minnesota, wants families to hang out together on a Sunday with absolutely nothing planned. "People equate being busy with being worthwhile," he says. Better to spend unstructured time with the kids.

Sounds like unschooling to me. As a student of self-organizing systems, I believe in letting structures evolve from the bottom up rather than impose them from top-down (as in school). Loafing is definitely good in my books.

Snow-bunnies

I have not stepped out of the house the past two days, but the kids have put on their snow-gear and gone out every day to play in the snow in the backyard. Supriya was out today building a snow-castle. I saw Aseem make snow-angels. 

Alien Christmas Tree

Supriya drew this alien Christmas tree. If you look carefully, you will see the alien space-ship (with the orange outline) near the upper left-hand corner. I love the energy and the color in the picture. 

Cashflow for Kids

We had our new homeschooling friends over for dinner last night. Turns out we have a lot in common: they live 1.5 miles away, we have about the same age kids, we are more-or-less libertarians and they sing as well. The kids had a great time playing together, although Supriya was really upset that her stuff on the top bunk of her bunkbed was all moved around. Their oldest boy is into building stuff with Legos and we plan to have a Lego playdate soon.

They noticed Cashflow for Kids on our hutch and mentioned that they have played Cashflow 101 once. That piqued my interest and we ended up playing a game. It was fun. To win the game you have to build up your passive income above your expenses (financial independence, in other words). Perhaps I will use it for my discussion group.

Books that Formed My Worldview

We homeschool/unschool for philosophical reasons. I have been thinking about creating such a list for a while, and finally spent the time to write it up. Amazon.com makes it easy to create booklists through their Listmania feature. Here it is.

Fusbol

We had a playdate with the Hintons yesterday. As usual Aseem and Supriya had a great time playing with Alex and Antonio. Here they are playing fusbol (sp?), which has since become our property.

I mentioned to Janet my idea of starting a money discussion group for homeschoolers. Money is a major taboo topic in families because it wields so much power (I know how powerful I feel when I am buying something!) and also because it is so personal. Manisha and I consider education about money as our top priority for our kids' education. Anyway, so Janet brought out a game called "Cashflow for Kids". This is the creation of Robert Kiyosaki (author of "Rich Dad, Poor Dad"), whom I have had mixed feelings about. Apparently Alex and Antonio have played the game a few times with their Dad and had good things to say about it. So I have borrowed the game and hope to play it with Manisha to see for ourselves. It could become a tool for my discussion group. It came with a little book about the philosophy behind the game and I am impressed by it. 

The weather outside is frightful...

We got hit by a big snow-storm today. AllTogetherNow, our homeschooling family chorus, had a performance (paid!) at a local library and it got cancelled. The kids donned their snow gear and went out to play in the freshly fallen snow in the morning. Manisha logged in to send in email that she was working from home & many co-workers had sent in the same email!

In the afternoon I had the Andrews Sisters crooning in the background (such gorgeous harmonies!), and Supriya and I built this train-track. We recently bought a big set from a consignment store to add to ours, and now it's a lot more fun to built these elaborate tracks that extend everywhere & then loop back. 

The M is for Michael

We got a free CD at Friday's curriculum swap organized by MVHL. It's called "Yankee Doodle Mickey" (produced by Disney, of course). It has 10 wonderful songs and we have run thru it three times already today on our car-rides (As an aside, I did not know Molly Ringwald sang so well!). The first song is "You're a Grand Old Flag." I knew Supriya liked the song (& the movie "Yankee Doodle Boy", a biopic about George M. Cohan). So I asked her who wrote the song, and our budding movie- and musical-historian says, "George Michael Cohan." Manisha is amazed, "I didn't know the M stood for Michael!" Supriya remembered that detail from the movie which we watched many months ago.

Magic School Bus

We borrowed a Magic School Bus DVD from the library this week, and the kids have watched it 4 times already. It's called "The Human Body" and runs about 90 minutes. We have watched other Magic School Bus titles before and Supriya loves them. What's different this time is that even Aseem is getting it! He was asking Manisha if there is blood running through his body also.

More Reading Rainbow

I wrote a while ago about the Reading Rainbow series being a hit with the kids. This week we got two more titles: "Bugs" and "Sports Pages". The kids have already watched them once or twice, although "Bugs" is a little too scary for Aseem.

Fawn Lake Hike

We went on another nice Fall hike today at Fawn Lake in Bedford. It feels like we have had so many of them this Fall, which has been quite warm. Here are most of the kids straddling a log-bench. Aseem decided to move away from the camera just that second! Oh well...

We met another homeschooling family from Lowell. They happen to live within a mile of us.