Occamy Projects

What are Occamy Projects? That is a name I’ve come up with for some of the projects that my kids bring home from school. My kids have a pull towards any project that involves Photoshop, video editing, video making, arts and crafts etc. They will work on these projects for eternity and forget that other homework exists.

Occamy is a beast in the Harry Potter related series – Fantastic Beasts and where to find them. This beast can grow or shrink based in the space available. There is this one scene in the movie where the Occamy gets loose in a store and Newt lures it with a cockroach that is placed in a small teapot. This beast comes for the cockroach and then proceeds to shrink itself to the size of the teapot and Newt traps it there.

So, just like that, when my kids start working on these creative projects, they will happily spend even 6 hours trying to make it perfect. So, I started telling them to work on other homework first and then focus on these so that they can work in peace without worrying. But what we noticed was that if they first finish all other work and only have an hour for this creative project, surprisingly they are able to finish it and get a 100% grade.

As I noticed this I started joking that these projects are like the Occamy and will take up their entire time if they let it. Initially they didn’t like it, but they started calling these Occamy Projects as well. Now, when they get homework, they will automatically say “amma, I have an Occamy project. So, I’ll do that at the end.” It’s amazing how they’ve learned that. Here is a perfect example of an Occamy project in our house – Art Work with Reusable Utensils

Now, that’s a common phrase we use at home not only for their homework but for other things that will take eternity.