What to Do When Unschooling Kids Reach the Teenage Years

Yesterday, I scrolled through my blog archive hoping to find some inspiration for a podcast. I went back through a year’s worth of posts before discovering two unpublished stories about teenagers. I decided to share them in this week’s podcast,…

Does the World Need Unschooling?

Kids won’t work hard if you don’t make them. I was thinking about these words as I was getting ready for bed last night. Why do some parents insist their kids won’t do anything unless they are forced to? Are…

A Better Way to Get into University

The HSC (or Higher School Certificate) is the exam all school students in our state take at the end of their final year of school. Homeschoolers are not eligible to sit the HSC. So how will our children get into…

Unschooling: Absorbed

Many of us have a hard time focusing on the things we really want to do. We are easily distracted. We check emails or our social media notifications because that’s easier than getting down to some serious work. I had…

Teenagers, Rules and Rebellion

“My daughter will be 13 soon,” says a mother. She groans: “There’s trouble ahead!” The other mothers nod in sympathy. Yes, life is about to get very difficult. It always does when there’s a teenager in the family. But are…

Latest

Resisting the Temptation to Interfere

Or trusting children to learn in their own time  I have been rather busy recently, my eyes glued to the computer screen, my mind miles away.  “Please can we use the scrapbooking paper, Mum?”  “Yes, you may.”  “Please can I borrow your stapler, Mum?”  “Huh? Oh yes, it’s on my desk.”  For a couple of hours I was vaguely aware that Sophie and Gemma-Rose were very busy doing something. I wasn’t sure exactly what they were doing…  “Mum, look! We’ve…

Drawing, Geometry and a Happy Girl

Sophie is happy. She grins from ear to ear. “I’m off to do some maths, Mum!” What a change from a couple of weeks ago. Not long ago, she was battling her way through an online maths course. But no more. After some thought and reflection, and talking to myself sternly about what feels right and what makes sense, I have given Sophie permission to turn off the computer and ignore the ‘perfect’ and structured maths course we have subscribed…

I am a Pirate King!

Or the delights of Gilbert and Sullivan.  A few years ago, the Dominican nuns from Ganmain came to our homeschooling camp. They swept in, resplendent and imposing in their spotless habits with plans, not only to teach our children the catechism but also help our teenagers stage a production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore. Sister Augustine had the scripts and music all arranged. She’d trimmed down the original production to a manageable level: the children had only four days…

Let’s Talk Maths

My girls have been learning maths in a formal way rather than as a consequence of life. But I have been thinking…  The girls used to use workbooks, the sort that cover one school year at a time. They filled them in with correct answers and moved from book to book. And they didn’t complain. It was interesting enough. It was just something that was expected and they did it.  Then about 18 months ago, I found an online maths…

Yikes! Do They Know About Filtration?

I was chatting to a friend on the phone the other morning. She was telling me about a dialogue her daughter is writing as an English exercise. “One of the speakers is a professor and he is talking about filtration. We did that in chemistry the other day.” Filtration? I began to wonder: do any of my children know about filtration? Did we ever talk about it together? Is it something they need to know about? Perhaps there is a…

Lunch with Charles Dickens

We are sitting around the table. It is lunch time and as we eat, someone starts a lively conversation. “Do you remember that strange old lady in Great Expectations?” “The one who sat in her wedding dress, day after day after day?” “Yes, Miss Haversham. She sat there with one shoe on and one shoe off… for years.” Gemma-Rose has forgotten why Miss Haversham sat by the decaying wedding feast in her fading dress. We remind her that her fiancé…

The Photography Girls Head into the Bush

The other week while the girls and I were at the lake, we spied a track that disappeared enticingly into the bush. I promised we’d return another day and head along the path in search of adventure. So last Wednesday afternoon we packed up our exploring kit. We grabbed a basket and tossed in small bars of chocolate (bushwalking requires lots of energy), a large thermos flask of hot chocolate (it was a cool day), a packet of almond fingers for…

A Jane Austen Education

I was on my way to bed when I noticed the older girls’ bedroom light was still on. As I stood outside the door I could hear Imogen’s voice. It sounded like she was reading out loud. Pushing open the door, I saw both girls sprawled on their beds. Charlotte was listening enthralled as Imogen read from the book Pride and Prejudice. Both sisters were obviously having a wonderful time so I crept away and left them to it. This…
1 … 104 105 106 107 108 109

My Unschooling Books

Parents and Kids

The Ladies Fixing the World

The Math Myth: How Do Unschooled Kids Learn Math?

There are many unschool maths questions. Here are just a few of them: Can kids really learn maths without formal instruction? What does unschooling maths look like? Can we strew unschool maths? Is it possible for registered homeschoolers to unschool maths? How can we provide evidence kids are learning maths when we don’t have formal records like workbooks and test…

Learning to Read and Trusting Unschooling

It is absolutely essential that we are curious people who are excited about the possibilities in life. The atmosphere in our homes gets picked up by our kids so they think it’s normal to learn, to be curious, to follow thoughts and ideas and try things out… I was battling with my kids for a while. They kept saying, ‘Why…

How Unschooling Doesn’t Guarantee a Fairytale Life

Yesterday evening, like all Sunday evenings, my kids who live locally came to dinner. Six of us gathered around our dining room table, savouring a meal cooked by my husband while enjoying the usual end-of-the-week lively catch-up conversation. There was a time when we dreamed that all our children would buy houses on the same street as our family home.…

Christian unschooling

Reading Out Loud and a Generous Christmas

Do you like listening to stories being read out loud? I have to admit that this isn’t my favourite activity. My mind tends to wander and I miss half the words. But my kids are different from me. They love reading aloud time. Even though most of my children are grown up, they still like to gather whenever anyone opens…

Christian Unschooling: Disciplining With Unconditional Love

If our children misbehave, what do we do? Make them sit on the time-out chair? Punish them? Perhaps we should withdraw our love. Be cold and distant. Make things unpleasant for our kids because they need to know how upset we are, don’t they? We want them to feel bad because then, maybe, they’ll remember to act in the right…
Go toTop