Getting Kids to Help with the Chores

Should parents expect kids to help with the chores? How do we encourage kids to have a generous attitude and want to be part of the family team, helping with the work? Here’s a simple suggestion that doesn’t involve chore…

Pi and Tea, and Our Dog’s Tea Bag Collection

Our puppy Nora has a tea bag collection. She keeps it under the conifer tree at the bottom of our garden. Every day she pushes her long doggy nose between the wooden slats of the compost bin, in search of…

Aiming for Love, Not Perfection

 I had a vision…  By the age of 18 all my children were going to be perfectly brought up and perfectly educated. I wanted them to fly off into the world without a problem. I was going to sit back…

Falling in Love the Jane Austen Way

My older girls are busy introducing their younger sisters to the delights of Jane Austen. “You must watch Persuasion,” insists Imogen. “I’ll explain all the difficult bits,” she adds, as she notices the uncertain look on nine year old Gemma-Rose’s face. So we…

My Homeschool Records Book

Tomorrow is the first day of the final term of the school year. Andy is busy preparing lessons for his school class (he is a primary school teacher). And I am not busy preparing lessons. I have hardly thought about the new…

Latest

Giggling in the Cemetery

Three little stories to celebrate our son Thomas’ birthday. he worst day of my life could have been the day that Thomas died. Or maybe it was the day we buried him because it was then that I knew I’d never see my son again. But perhaps, it could have been the day after the funeral when all the busyness was over, and I was alone with my sorrow. Would I survive? Could I move forward and live the rest…

Motivated to Learn

Did you ever hear my physics story? When I was in grade 11, we moved house, and so I had to go to a new school. On my first day, I turned up at a physics class. The teacher who’d never had girls in his class before said, “What are you doing here?” And I told him I’d come to learn physics. He replied, “We’ll see about that!” I was told that I’d have to prove that I was worthy…

Some Real Life Covid English

The other morning, while we were driving to town, my daughter Gemma-Rose did something that’s socially unacceptable: she sneezed! “It’s okay,” I said. “We belong to the same bubble.” Then we had a very interesting conversation about words. Since covid-19 appeared, how many words have gained additional meanings? Bubble used to conjure up images of filmy spheres that delight children (and adults), and now when we hear that word we think of the people who share their everyday lives with…

Unschool, Martian, and Risqué Stories

A few days ago, we all got very excited when a box of Frost Hands landed on our doorstep. My daughter Imogen opened it, eager to see the print version of her latest novel for the first time. Would it look good? We all agree that Frost Hands looks fabulous. My daughter Charlotte designed its cover and we love it. Imogen talks about the exciting arrival of her books in the latest episode of my podcast. Yes, Imogen is joining…

Doing What Kids Ought to Do

Years ago, we lived in a back-to-front cottage. The back door faced the long driveway that led to the road, and the front one turned towards an endless paddock of chewing-the-cud cows. Around the cottage was what the real estate woman had called a yard: “It’s nothing fancy,” she’d said on the day when she’d shown me the house. Her yard was my garden, and my garden was my kids’ magical world. They loved the untidy grass, the crabapple tree,…

Do We Have Trouble Trusting Our Kids Because of Our Own Experiences?

Can kids be trusted? If we give them the freedom to direct their lives, won’t they do nothing much at all? Won’t they choose to be lazy? I wonder if we have trouble trusting our kids because we remember what we were like when we were children. Perhaps we weren’t hardworking. Could we have spent lots of time trying to avoid such things as chores? Maybe we weren’t dedicated to our school work and needed someone to push us along…

Unschooling, Plot Holes, and Twonk

Yesterday, something unexpected happened: I recorded a new podcast episode! It had been a long time since I last headed into my closet, set up my mic, and started talking. Yes, I’d been neglecting my podcast. But why? A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog post called Falling Apart. I explained how I was feeling overwhelmed and needed to take a break from some of my regular activities. I wrote: It’s been a long time since I made my…
1 … 27 28 29 30 31 … 109

My Unschooling Books

Parents and Kids

The Ladies Fixing the World

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…

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…

Christian unschooling

A Genuine Invitation for Christian Unschoolers

Sometimes, invitations aren’t genuine invitations. They might sound like proper invitations. We say the right words, “Would you like to…?” but expect a particular response that doesn’t include the right to decline. Then, some invitations are issued without a personal touch. We wonder, “Does it matter if I accept? Will anyone notice if I’m there or not?” This happened to…

When We Don’t Know What to Do

I’ve just updated my blog. I started at the first post I ever wrote and then worked my way through 14 years of stories, reading each one before deciding whether to keep it or revert it to draft. I then checked the formatting of the retained posts, rearranging paragraphs, eliminating dead links, and changing or improving the images. As I…
Go toTop