Basking in the Reflected Glory
Not so long ago, early one morning, I put on my coat – there was a bitter wind blowing – and set out on a solo adventure with my camera and a travel mug of coffee. Thirty or so minutes…
Discouraged
I’m feeling discouraged. I wonder: why am I doing this? Why am I blogging and podcasting? I know the answer: I want to spread the word about unschooling. I want to pass on what I’ve learnt. Tell others about the…
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…
Sew Easy
When I’m not writing, I love to sew clothes for my girls. And when I’m not sewing pretty skirts, I like to sew pictures. And the pictures I like to sew are red work embroideries. A few years ago,…
Is Our Unschooling Life Rich Enough?
Some unschooling families seem to live very adventurous lives that make ours look rather ordinary. And I wonder: Is our life rich enough for our children? Are they getting all the opportunities they need to learn so that they grow…
How to Turn Cooking into Unschool Maths Homeschool Records Notes
When you hear the words ‘real life maths’ or ‘real world maths’ what do you think of? Cooking? That’s the usual example, isn’t it? “My kids did lots of real life maths today. They cooked a cake for morning tea.” When my children were younger, they often made cakes and biscuits and even whole meals. And each time, I’d jot down some notes in our homeschool records notebook and label them as ‘maths.’ When I first started doing this, it…
An Adult Learning Unschooling Challenge
I have an adult learning unschooling challenge for you! It’s part of a series of challenges that I’ve written that, hopefully, will help turn unschooling principles and ideas into something real in your lives. Years ago, I used to think education was for kids. I’d been to school and completed my education. Now it was my children’s turn to work (and their turn to suffer.) It was me against them. Some days getting them to learn was a real battle.…
Judging and Other People’s Opinions
Why do we judge each other? Why do we worry so much about other people’s opinions of us? And what would everyone think of me if they knew what I did? In this vlog, I tell a story about a duck murderer, and another one about death and a bar of chocolate, as I ponder the above questions. Something Extra I also wrote the death and chocolate story as a blog post: Unschooling: Judging One Another Photos I took…
Delights: An Unschooling Challenge
I‘ve experienced many dark days over the last couple of years. There have been lots of times when I’ve wanted to run away, but that hasn’t always been possible. Where can one go when no one is allowed to leave home? I’ve had to find another way to survive the strange times we’re living in. I decided to search for the beauty that I was sure was still in our world. Each day, I looked for delights. Many times, I…
Have I Changed My Unschooling Mind About Screens?
If I had younger children, would I give them iPads of their own? Would I encourage them to spend as much time as they liked using technology? Is this the right unschooling thing to do? I’ve pondered these questions a lot. Not so long ago, I’d have said, “Kids learn a lot from the Internet and their devices. Books are good, but technology is even better! Yes, there’s nothing wrong with giving young kids unlimited access to the Internet and…
How to Be Brave
The other day, I was thinking about bravery. What is being brave all about? Are we brave when we do something that might make people stare, such as having our hair cut startling short? Or is there more to bravery than that? After pondering a few thoughts for a while, I headed to my front doorstep with my phone camera and made a vlog on this topic. Along the way, I told some stories about open casket funerals, disastrous haircuts,…
Meander the Unschooling Way
There are two routes to our local town. The first one is the efficient way. Once we’ve left the road that leads out of our village, we drive along the highway, through multiple sets of traffic lights before we arrive in town. The other route is the meandering one, the one that winds its way through bush and paddocks, round bends, and up hills and down. If I’m not in a hurry, I like to avoid the traffic and go…
How Unschooling Saved the Dragon Mother
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.…
A Few Raw Thoughts on a Crumpled Piece of Paper
I discover a crumpled piece of notebook paper in my handbag. I smooth it out and read the scrawled inked words: unschooling things everyone…
An Interview with a Teenage Radical Unschooler
Last week, in episode 109 of my unschooling podcast, I was chatting about radical unschooling. This week, I’m interviewing Sophie (16) who is a radical…
Unschooling Poster Kids
All seven of my unschooled kids went to university when they were 14 and got their degrees before they reached adulthood. No they didn’t.…
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…
The Role of Repetition in Learning, Unschooling, and Shaping Identity
What if kids want to watch the same movies, read the same stories, or play the same games again and again? Should we try to move them on to other activities? Or is there value in repetition? Does repetition have an important role in our lives?…
Unschooling: How Do We Know They’re Learning?
There are loads of unschooling questions we could ask about learning: How do we know unschooling kids are learning? Should they be learning particular things? Is there knowledge that all kids need? Are our unschooled kids learning enough? Can they get behind? Should we just trust our kids are learning? But what if we have doubts? Or what if we…
How to Write a Million Unschool Love Stories
I used to think the defining word of unschooling was freedom. Freedom attracted me. I wanted to be free to do whatever I liked. I wanted to get up each day and do anything or nothing at all. But I soon realised there’s a problem with freedom. If we always do whatever we like, won’t we become self-centred? Thinking only…
Christian Unschooling: Are Desires Important?
Do you have great desires? Are there things you want to do with your life? Maybe you know in a vague kind of way that you need to do something, but you don’t know what you should do. Or perhaps your desires don’t feel important. When I was a child, I had desires, but they came to nothing. Other people…