Bite-Sized Pieces of Unschool Maths

So many people love the idea of unschooling and are even tempted to give it a go, but often there is one huge stumbling block… maths. Very few parents seem to be confident that their children will learn all the…

What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?

“When I grow up, I’m going to be a YouTube Shorts video creator,” I tell Amina. My pretend friend raises her eyebrows and says, “But I thought you wanted to be a graphic designer.” “I could be a graphic designer…

Watching a Child Learn

This is a guest post written by Elizabeth Johnson. As mothers (and fathers) we are blessed with an incredible privilege: watching our children’s minds unfold to the world around them. I used to take great pleasure from seeing an “A”…

Sophie’s Unschooling Holiday

On the official last day of the school term: Sophie: No more learning for two weeks! Imogen: No more learning? We learn all the time, not just in term time. Charlotte: What are you planning to do for the next…

How Younger Siblings Learn by Listening In

On Sunday Father S began his homily: “In Hamlet, it says, ‘To thine own self be true’.” Gemma-Rose dug me in the side and whispered loudly, her eyes wide with excitement, “Hamlet!” We are halfway through reading this Shakespeare play…

Latest

Learning During a Crisis

In this week’s podcast, episode 115, I’m sharing and discussing two stories: Learning From Life and Homeschooling in a Crisis I’m talking about those times when we don’t need to strew because life is rich enough without any help from us. Maybe life is sometimes too rich. We might have a crisis to deal with that prevents us from getting involved with our kids’ learning. Should we worry if we can’t do all the things we normally do? And what about our…

All About Strewing

I have a few strewing stories in my blog’s archive, and I’d like to include a couple of them in my unschooling book. Maybe Time for Some Strewing and What to Do When Strewing is Rejected would be appropriate choices. Have you read these stories? If you haven’t, you could listen to them. I’m sharing and discussing them in this week’s podcast. In episode 114, I answer the following questions: What is strewing? When do we need to do it? How do…

Spreading the Radical Unschooling Message

Not so long ago, I made a podcast called Why You Should Consider Radical Unschooling. I wanted to encourage everyone to let unschooling spill over into all aspects of life, and not just the educational part. I wanted to say, “Unschooling is very good indeed, but radical unschooling is even better. Take the next step. Don’t be scared.” Don’t be scared? Yes allowing kids to make their own decisions about all areas of their lives might sound frightening. What if they…

What if Unschooling is Wrong?

Today, I’m sharing an incomplete thought. Some thoughts are like that. They sit at the edge of our minds, refusing to enter completely. We could dismiss them, but they might hold something of value. If only we could grasp them properly and put them into the right words. Do you ever wonder: “What if unschooling is wrong?” We could be quite happy, and then one day, out of the blue, doubt descends. Our trust begins to waver. We think: “What…

How Do We Encourage Our Kids to Be Independent Learners?

I’m still podcasting while I’m writing this unschooling book series. Here’s this week’s episode! This week, I’m sharing and discussing the story Independent Learners, Toast and Heavy Washing Baskets. Show Notes Leonie’s blog: Living Without School podcast music: Twombly by Podington Bear, (CC BY-NC 3.0)…

Today I Saw Thomas

it’s our son Thomas’ birthday. This morning, the girls and I visited the cemetery. When we arrived, we saw people preparing for a burial. A grave was open. There were chairs arranged in the shade ready for the bereaved who hadn’t yet arrived. Thomas is buried at the back of the cemetery in the children’s section. As we got closer, we could see two bunches of flowers in the bowl that sits on top of his grave. Someone placed them there…

Critics, Unschooling, and Independent Learners

 A New Podcast Series Do you listen to my podcasts? I’ll still be making new episodes while I’m working on my book. These episodes will be shorter than my usual ones. Each one will be based on a blog post from my archive. Today, I published the first episode in this new series: Critics, Unschooling, and Independent Learners. If you’d like to listen to it, you can find episode 111 here on my blog, on iTunes (or should that be…

It Begins with a Question

Gemma-Rose and I gaze upon the flowers. They’re pretty, bright, colourful, showy. A gorgeous backdrop for a photo. We raise our cameras. Cameras down. We look around. There’s a Chinese gentleman. He’s standing in a garden bed erecting a parasol. We ask a question: Why? The man smiles. His eyes sparkle. Words tumble from his mouth: I’m sheltering the peonies – the imperial flower of China – from the warm Australian sun. There’s more. We lean closer and listen. The man…
1 … 51 52 53 54 55 … 109

My Unschooling Books

Parents and Kids

How All Kids Are Amazing

The other day, I read a parenting article in which the author said that parents can love their kids too much. I told my…

The Ladies Fixing the World

Unschooling: Trust, Autonomy, and The Realities of Learning

The Ladies are Fixing the World again! Cecilie, Sandra and I are discussing the words ‘self-regulation’ and ‘limits’. When we say, “I’ve let go of control, and now I’m waiting for my child to learn how to regulate his time playing video games (for example),” do we have expectations about what that regulation should look like? Do we want…

Unschooling Is Carried by Conversations

Dinner tables, car rides, bedtime chats, and café corners are the real places where unschooling lives and grows. Conversations—often unscheduled, informal, and unplanned—can become the central structure of a learning life. Gathering at the Dinner Table In our house, we never met for breakfast or lunch. Those were meals where people ate what, where and when they liked. But we…

Christian unschooling

Bringing God into the Unschooling Picture

A few months ago, I wrote a post called Why This is the End of the Line for Me. I decided that I’d explored unschooling from every possible angle. What more could I write about? It was time for me to move onto other things. Let my kids tell their own unschooling stories and find something else of my own…

Speed Angel Joy

I am sitting by the lake watching four girls scooting along the path. They are the Speed Angel Sisters and they are fast! Every now and then the girls veer off onto the grass and come to a sudden halt: a pedestrian is approaching. Now the speedway is clear again, and strong legs start pushing, wheels are revolving, hair…
Go toTop