The Rose Round – children’s fiction

I have just finished reading Meriol Trevor’s  book The Rose Round to Sophie and Gemma-Rose. They were enthralled with the story from the very first page. So was I!  The book description on Amazon doesn’t say much at all:  Young Matt…

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…

So How Do You Feel On a Monday Morning?

When I was a child, I’d awake on a Monday morning with a pain in my stomach. I was always reluctant to get out of bed and face the week. Five days of school stretched out ahead, and the weekend…

Latest

How Our Unschooling Lives and Kids Don’t Need to be Picture-Perfect

Do you ever feel discouraged when you see social media posts of unschooling families that seem to have everything worked out? Do you wonder why your unschooling life isn’t picture-perfect like theirs? Are you doing something wrong? Why isn’t unschooling working for you? Is it time to do something else before family and friends start to criticise your choices? In this article, I offer reassurance and reasons why you should ignore social media and critics, stop comparing, and continue unschooling.…

Do Unschoolers Drift Aimlessly Through Each Day?

Years ago, when I was researching homeschooling methods, I thought unschooling sounded good because we’d be free to do whatever we liked. And if we didn’t want to do anything, that would be okay. There would be no rules, no control, no expectations, no pressure to do anything in particular. But then one day, I wondered whether unschooling is another word for wasting time. Shouldn’t we make the most of each day? Aren’t we obliged to think carefully about how…

Is Unconditional Love at the Heart of Unschooling?

Recently, while travelling to town with two of my daughters, we talked about unschooling and how it’s impossible to say to another family, “Unschool in the same way as us.” Each family is different. Kids have their unique needs based on their personalities, interests and missions in life. And families have different circumstances such as number of children, health, commitments and responsibilities. Even the place where a family lives affects unschooling. We chatted about the disadvantages of our home town.…

What to Do When Unschool Kids Have No Interest in Topics They’re Required to Learn

‘… if we’re curious people, the whole world is a source of fascinating things to investigate. But this doesn’t mean we will all enjoy learning about something the same way. Sometimes we need to find the right angle. Can we find a way into a subject that appeals to us? Can we approach it through the back door?’ -Challenge 50, The Unschool Challenge What if we think something is boring and don’t want to know about it? Is this a…

Unschooling Charlotte Mason

Charlotte Mason often entices families away from unschooling. Maybe that’s because of three words often associated with this method of homeschooling: beauty, truth and goodness. Aren’t these what our souls yearn for? Aren’t they what we need? Could Charlotte Mason be the right way to live? Or can we find everything our souls crave in the real world of unschooling?…

Why Are We Willing to Endure the Pain of Parenthood?

While walking around our local lake, I met a woman with two chihuahuas. They were the same colour and size. The only difference was that one looked like he’d put on his long fur coat before leaving home, while the other was prepared to brave the cold day without one. I asked how old the dogs were, and the woman said, “Twelve,” and then added, “I don’t know what I’m going to do when they die. They’re my family.” When…

Goodbye, Stories of an Unschooling Family

TThe other day, I found a 5-star review of my book, The Unschool Challenge, on Amazon. It was written by Patrice Fagnant Macarthur from Today’s Catholic Homeschooling website. In The Unschool Challenge, Elvis provides short essays on various topics related to unschooling and then she provides challenges for readers to do. This is a pick and choose sort of book. You don’t need to read it in order. You can select which topics interest you and learn more about them, pursue some…
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My Unschooling Books

Parents and Kids

What Is Unschooling?

What is unschooling? I’ve been blogging about unschooling for over 5 years now. You’d think I would already have written a post with this…

The Ladies Fixing the World

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…

Unschooling: Coping With the Unexpected

I used to think I could control my life. To achieve a perfect life, all I had to do was organise everything well, including my kids. What is a perfect life? My perfect life vision included a graduated row of good-looking and well-behaved children. I wanted people to admire my family and home, saying, “Sue is such a good mother!…

Is It Working? Wrestling with Doubt in Unschooling

A grey day arrives that completely blots out the memory of all the preceding good days. We feel overwhelmed, tired, worried and lost. We wonder why we ever decided to unschool. A puddle of doubt about unschooling forms around us. What do we do? Cecilie, Sandra and I are discussing unschooling doubts and sharing our experiences in episode 10 of…

Christian unschooling

Unschooling and Trust

I have been struggling with this post for a while now, and wondering why I’m having so much trouble finding the right words. And I have decided it’s the language. I want to write a story from a personal point of view like I normally do. And I can’t. We had such a gradual transition to unschooling, I didn’t really…
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