Live Today: Inhabit this Moment

This is performance week for Elizabeth's show and that means, of course, that I am crazy busy. I haven't been able to do much with lessons with John for a few weeks now so he and I have a system.

I leave a list of chores and lessons for him to do independently and we check them out each afternoon or evening when I am available. It is working out nicely, though John and I are looking forward to getting back into each other's days.

This week I have had him doing independent reading of some fiction, watching a US History series on Netflix, doing programming language classes with his dad, Algebra with his dad, a few chores, some handwriting, and watching TEDtalks. Takes less than two hours each day.
Then he is to spend time exploring something of interest to him, not a computer game.

Today John watched a TEDtalk given by Arthur Benjamin: A Performance of Mathemagic. He was entranced and went on to watch other TEDtalks by Arthur Benjamin just for his own interest! John was impressed with Arthur Benjamin's passion and love of math, with his ability to apply it in interesting ways, and with the fact that we have watched an entire The Great Courses class taught by Dr. Benjamin called The Joy of Mathematics!

You see, when I think of homeschooling, of any schooling really, I think of it as an opportunity to light a life, ignite interest, get minds stoked! 

Giving John the freedom to explore his own interests has created such fun in our week:  earlier this week he did some magic tricks and sleight-of-hand, today he's learning about Fibonacci.

Tomorrow?
Who knows!