Our boys' school is a mixed age Montessori that allows kids to work at their own pace. A central feature of the school culture is that once a student finishes their assignments, they get free time.
At the beginning of the week they get about 60 assignments so it roughly translates into twelve per day. If they finish twelve on Monday by 2:00pm, they get an hour of free time. If they finish all 60 on Thursday afternoon, they get free time all day on Friday. Earning a lot of free time results in a change in assignments (moving on to more difficult material) but the teachers vary on how much they think is too much.
Free time is for crafts, reading or writing for pleasure, board games, making movies (older kids), playing with trains and blocks (younger kids), drawing and doing research on a topic of personal interest that isn't in the curriculum (like care of a type of pet or something like that).
As a practice, what are your thoughts on this?
Free time sounds like daycare not school? Free time sounds like a reasonable reward for hard work and an additional learning opportunity?
Just curious how others would view this.
