Sunday, May 26, 2019

Week 8

Yet another week of holidays essentially. He did not ask a single question :-(. His hockey camp continued and he really enjoyed it. He did follow his routine to some extent but disruptions like a play he went to watch really put him in a catch-up mode for most of the week. He did do some writing in both English and Hindi though. I hope he is able to follow his routine better next week and also ask some questions for Meenal.

Sunday, May 19, 2019

Week 7

This week, my niece, Meenal started a new exercise for him - she wants him to ask 10 questions from things he does during the day. The idea is to build out his curiosity by tapping into his inquisitiveness. At the beginning itself, it became evident that it was difficult for him to ask that many questions. He has asked about 12 questions overall this week so far, but we are hopeful that he will catch up and ask more questions eventually.

This week went in a blur for him, playing hockey and tennis in the summer camp, and doing his regular soccer and chess classes. He did some sums and we were trying to work decimal places, but it needs a lot more work. May 18th is celebrated as International Museum Day, so we spent some time doing mask painting and watching the animated Hindi remake of an old classic movie by Satyajit Ray "Goopi Gayin Bagha Bayin" at the local Children's Museum.

On his mother's insistence, we have also created a timetable for the next week. Let's see how far, if at all, we can adhere to it.

Sunday, May 12, 2019

Week 6

Yet another week of holidays. It means yet another week when he was busy playing with his friends or doing things that do not fit into the planned scheme of things. So far, the month of May has been a washout when it comes to the structured way I had planned to go about things. My wife's worries that he is wasting his time are getting accentuated.

But then I heard a podcast today: https://www.cnbctv18.com/buzz/why-my-daughters-dont-go-to-school-anymore-natasha-badhwar-talks-about-the-power-of-unschooling-3261471.htm
Great words stemming out of experience!!

And he suddenly decided to pick up on a project he had wanted to do but had not come around to. He wants to understand the stock market and the first step is to understand the companies that are actually listed. So he spent the day trying to find out about Maruti Suzuki - I helped by getting him a stock price movement chart but he did the rest. It is a project that will be done over some time and I hope he gets something out of it - what I am not sure though.. and that is the beauty of this experiment. It keeps surprising us with the breadth of interests and learning that can be catered to.

Sunday, May 5, 2019

Week 5

The first month over! It has been a good learning about managing our own expectations. One of the big reasons to take him out of school was the fact that he needed to build out his physical abilities and I am happy that this month was all about that. He spent time playing hockey and now has started tennis. While it might be too much experimentation and it would be good to focus, the idea is to try and exercise different parts of his body hopefully.

We are in Pune for his half-yearly karate camp and then I have some work on Tuesday, so the last few days have been holidays for him. When we get back on Tuesday, I hope he will be able to pick up pace in his studies again and work more on some more written pieces. Initially we were thinking of doing some video pieces this month but I guess, we will push that for the next month and continue to focus on his writing skills for the time being.