Autonomous Education

One of the things about Autonomous Education that I have found difficult to get used to is just how difficult I have found it to remind myself that Leni is NOT doing nothing when she is sat in front of the television for hours on end. A great example of this is the fascinating conversation we had yesterday about what makes people dead, sparked by Leni having just watched a single episode of 'Tinga Tinga Tales' for around two hours solidly. She wanted to know if people are dead because they have no heart left, we talked about how its more to do with whether your heart is beating or not and went on to discuss bleeding to death...

However, to balance those days where she is engrossed in television, we have days like today. For Yule I bought Leni a book of 'Grandmother's Stories' (how I love Barefoot books!) and one story in particular caught her attention as we were reading this morning...
It is a Japanese story of an old woman who makes the best sweet dumplings in the village and how a tribe of Onis steal a plateful. It includes description of how she makes the dumplings and today Leni wanted to try it.

So we found a youtube video and discovered that they are properly called Dango, then wrote a shopping list and went off to the shops.
We returned home and had lunch, then while Fliss slept Leni wanted to paint and to fill in the entire workbook bit of the Bob the Builder magazine she asked for in the shops.

Then when Fliss awoke we made dumplings, Leni ground sesame seeds and sugar while Fliss and I rolled them...they were odd, but delicious.


The washing up fairy visited while Leni watched TV and ate dumplings, then they played with the puppet theatre I picked up for £5 in a charity shop last week. We just ate, and Leni is painting again now while Fliss plays ball with the cat.I love how simple and sweet and joyful this way of living is.

Clarexxx