Helena came to me yesterday as I was painting the house and said she would like to cook dinner “all by” herself, choose the recipe EVERYTHING. It was so easy for me to butt out as I was focused on my painting.

She chose the recipe, worked out if we had the ingredients, found them, measured, chopped, stirred etc and even converted ounces into grams!

all with the help of our 3 year old neighbor who she kept happy and engaged the whole time, even delegated some appropriate tasks to him.

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I have just come across a good idea. I have always thought educating children for the future is a bit odd because we just can’t predict what that will entail, we can’t even assume that the values of today will be the values of the future so I like the idea we reflect in the moment/teach/model what we would like the world to be like ….. and there was Helena being part of a community, being inclusive, considering others, being independent, using practical numeracy and literacy skills, and feeding her Whanau (we didn’t eat it all so the neighbors can have some)…

We were both so proud her and I.

P.s she cleaned up the mess!