"5 Ways To Help Your Children Turn Their Dreams Into Reality"

A very nice post that fits in nicely with our ideas of unschooling. To me this (turning one's dreams into realities) is what life is all about.

Aseem and Spelling

"I know how to spell TOY!" Aseem declared and spelled it for me with much glee. He was watching Toy Story and had evidently made the connection between the word and its spelling. I aked him, "So how do you think you spell BOY?" After a moment's thought, "B-O-Y!" came the reply.

Today as we were driving I wanted to build on this. He remembers ZOO from "Put me in the zoo". So I asked him, "If Z-O-O spells zoo, how do you think you spell zoom?" "Z-O-O-M!" "And what is Z-O-O-T?' "Zoot!" He was on a roll. Later at the mall I wrote zoo -> zoom, zoo -> zoot, boo -> boot, boo -> boom, too -> toot, and he made all the connections. On the way back he went through M-O for mo and N-O for no and D-O for do. He is really getting it.

Next on my list are two words he already knows the spellings of: dad and mom.

Supriya and Divisions

So last night Supriya came up to Manisha and said, "I am really good with this line with two dots!" She had found a deck of division flash cards. She knew what it was about and had worked out many as well - she just did not know that the "line with two dots" was called division!

She showed me how she worked out the problems and I have to say it's a unique method. She just solved "49 / 7". She drew 49 dots on paper. Then she drew lines around groups of 7. At the end she had 7 such groups, which is the answer. This is a brilliant method and shows a high degree of understanding of what division is all about. I am truly impressed.

She is sitting right next to me and working out the rest of the problems from the deck. I can see that she is in a state of Flow. She is fully absorbed and engrossed in the challenge. She is in it for her own reasons and it is building up her self-image and self-esteem. It's a pleasure to watch...

Guinea Pigs!

Supriya turns 9 in April and she got an early birthday present today in the form of two guinea pigs. They are both females and we got them as a pair (plus all the paraphernalia). The kids have been playing with them practically non-stop for the last six hours they have been home. There has been much discussion about what to name them - Monkey, Kenny, Penny, Goldilocks, Teddy, Bouncy, Teddy Bear, Nine (?). They might settle on some names soon, or they might not! The pigs may remain "the brown one" and "the black and white one" for all I know (or care!). It's a good thing the guinea pigs do not mind.

Chef Aseem

Today Aseem helped me make dosas. He made one for himself and one for Supriya. He really enjoys cooking (something Supriya never did) and regularly helps me make omelettes - from cracking the eggs to pouring them in to flipping it over to serving it in a plate. He is getting better and better at it and it's great to see his self-image develop as a chef.

More Drumming

Yesterday we got the muhurta to go for Supriya's second drumming lesson, a full two months after the first one. Apparently Supriya and the instructor picked up where they had left off. "A pleasure!", he said to me after the half hour session, "She is a very quick study." Supriya had a greaat time as well. Before the lesson she had been vacillating about whether to continue lessons or not. It was a different story afterwards. Now she really wants to continue and I am happy about it.

So we spent about half an hour tonight on reviewing her lesson from yesterday and went over the assignment. She did very well. She had a couple of complicated rhythms to play and she could hold her own even when I sang a song against it.

Supriya's List to Make Money

Supriya is doing the personal finance and investments class I am teaching at Voyagers. The assignment I sent out for next Monday was: Write down 25 ideas which you personally could use to make money. I also sent out a list of ideas I can see myself using for making money. I told Supriya about it and the next thing I knew, she was sitting down with her notebook and writing down her list! Here it is:

• Walk a dog
• Clean some windows
• Make a movie and sell it
• Get a job for money
• Buy a home and fix it up
• Sing for money
• Get a farm, grow beans and sell them
• Be an actor
• Make background for plays
• Do work such as watering tomatoes
• Read for little kids
• Find lost toys
• Babysit pets
• Teach how to do stretches, handstands, monkeybars
• Make newspapers
• Make books for all
• Make game consoles (Wii, Playstation, Gamecube etc.)
• Make clothes and sell
• Make TV shows
• Help people with problems such as directions and safety
• Help little kids to keep them safe
• Be a clown
• Sell art (drawings and paintings)
• Make playgrounds (climbing structures)
• Make websites to visit and learn

I am still impressed by this list. My purpose behind giving this assignment was to encourage out-of-the-box thinking. Evidently it worked!

Supriya's Art

Supriya, Aseem and I have been on an art spree the last couple of weeks. The idea is to create something every day and to explore color, texture and have fun doing it. For a year in 1999 I did art regularly. I basically created one piece of art every day. Obviously not all were great, but that was not the point. The point was to establish a groove and develop my skills and imagination, and I did accomplish that goal.

I have started the same ritual this year. So some time in the morning, Supriya, Aseem and I do art. Supriya is really getting into it and doing some wonderful work. She had a really good time smudging the pastels and creating funky textures. When anybody's piece is good enough, we spray it with hairspray to fix it. If not we just move on. It's turning out to be a lot of fun.