How to Make Evernote Unschool Records Look Impressive

Every two years, an Authorised Person (AP) from the Education Department comes to visit our family as part of our homeschool registration process. We have to show her what we’ve been doing. We have to prove to her that my…

Unschooling Resources: Discoveries of 2014

This week’s podcast is all about resources. I talk about some of the interesting things we discovered during 2014 and… I answer the following questions: How do I discuss at least 17 resources in only 30 minutes? Do I talk…

Unschooling Jane Austen

Every time we walk past the cinema, on our way to our favourite cafe, we glance at the posters advertising the movies that are currently screening. And I always say, “We haven’t been to the cinema for a long time.…

Giving Up My Perfect Start-of-the-Year Plans

On the other side of the world from us, homeschoolers are ‘going back to school’. Catalogues have been browsed, curricula, resources and books have been bought, plans have been drawn up, and hope and excitement are in the air. When…

I Need Your Help. Do You Need Mine?

I decide to abandon my unschooling blog, leaving it online to look after itself while I move on. But then I discover I can’t actually do that. Blogs need attention, whether we’re writing on them or not. If I don’t…

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Are You a Daring and Adventurous Parent?

Last week, my husband Andy and I took our four youngest girls away on holiday. We spent a few days at a salt water lake, swimming, kayaking and making sandcastles. Two of my girls are young adults, but they were just as keen to make sandcastles as their younger siblings. “Will they ever grow up?” joked Andy as we sat on the sand watching our girls. “Will our daughters be making sandcastles forever?”Later, I told Imogen, our 21-year-old daughter, what…

Unplanning Notebooks for Strewing and Unschool Record-Keeping

I have an unplanning notebook. It’s filled with all kinds of interesting resources. Whenever my girls are looking for something to do, I say, “Why don’t you take a look in the unplanning notebook? I put some new things in there the other day.” I use the notebook too. If I feel like watching a documentary, I might browse my notebook and then say, “Hey girls, I found a video about the history of surgery. Would you like to watch…

How We Can Trust Kids and Dogs

We look up from our cameras to see two lean and muscular dogs racing towards us. They grin and circle around us before disappearing along the bush track.  A tall man appears. He pushes his long curly hair behind his ears as he says, “Good morning! You’re up early.” We nod. “It’s a beautiful morning,” we say as we look out over the river. “It was worth getting up early to see the sunrise.” There’s a mist hovering above the…

Of Babies and Bombs

You will enjoy this post, I’m sure. It’s the first in a new series of guest posts and was written by Hamilton Carter from the blog Copasetic Flow. If you need a good giggle, keep reading! We’re a baby-wearing family. It’s mostly because I’m just not cut out for strollers. I get that they have a certain convenience, and a certain traditional flair, but long before we had kids, I was ruined by the baby-bearers of Boulder. I watched mom…

Parenting Teenagers: Why I Don’t Make Rules

Every now and then, I stumble across a blog post containing a long list of rules for keeping teenagers safe from the dangers of the world. Teenagers may not be happy to abide by some of these rules, but does that matter? Parents might say: “We have to lay down the rules even if our children protest. Parenting isn’t about being popular.”…

A New Series of Unschooling Videos

Have you subscribed to my Youtube channel? Perhaps you’re one of my recent subscribers? (If you are, thank you!) Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve had a few good news emails: Frodo has subscribed to you on Youtube! These emails made me realise that it’s been rather a long time since I last made a video. “New subscribers will be expecting new videos,” I told my daughter Sophie. “Perhaps I should make one. I might even make a few…

Would You Like to Be My Guest?

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I could say, “Come over for coffee!” We’d sit around my kitchen table, sipping and chatting. We’d talk about all kinds of things. We’d share our stories, ponder questions, encourage each other, deepen our friendship. Maybe, one day, that will happen. But even if we never meet, you can still be my guest. What if you wrote a guest post for my blog? You could share your thoughts and experiences. You could tell your story.…

How to Turn Movies into Homeschool Records Notes

Our kids are watching movies. Of course, they’re not wasting time. They’re busy learning. But will the education authorities agree when it comes to homeschool registration time? How do we turn movies into acceptable homeschool records notes? This is how I do it: Label the Movie with a School Subject. Some movies appear to be more ‘educational’ than others. Pride and Prejudice is definitely English. This is easy to see. It could also be History. And how about Creative Arts? We could…
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My Unschooling Books

Parents and Kids

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: 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 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

Kids, Needs, and Church

Should unschooled kids be forced to go to church? I wonder if this is the wrong question to ask when our kids protest about coming with us. Would it be better to ask, Why doesn’t my child want to go to church? In this week’s podcast, I talk about this question as well as : The importance of trying to see…

Is Trying to Impress Others a Waste of Time?

Strolling between the gum trees on a winter’s morning with Nora and Quinn, my fingers painful with the cold, I meet Matilda. I smile and stop. So do my dogs. They thrust their grinning heads into the undergrowth, happy to sniff up all the smells of the bush while I exchange a few words with my next-door neighbour. We talk…
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