Are You an Unschooling Troublemaker Like Me?

ome years ago, the education laws in Australia changed. The minimum school leaving age was raised from 15 to 17 to ensure that every child receives a better education. Well, that was the official reason for the change, but I…

Why I’m Not a Good Homeschooling Teacher

Everyone thinks I homeschool my fourteen-year-old daughter, Charlotte. I don’t. She homeschools herself. I try to help her: “Charlotte, I have a new book we’re just about to start reading. What you like to join us?” “No thanks, Mum. I…

Unschool Cemetery Maths

The mist drifts across the field and through the cemetery. Together with the rising sun, it streams between the trees and onto the graves. Golden rays fall upon a black marble monument which rises high, taller than the surrounding stones.…

Locked Out, Locked In, and Lies

This afternoon, I was poking about on an old blog of mine, reading old stories and remembering when my children were much younger. Locked Out, Locked In, and Lies is one of those stories. I wrote it four years ago…

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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 very fast? How many free trial accounts can I sign up for? Can I really find an alternative way of doing things by thinking carefully? How many times can I say, “I Googled it”, in one podcast? Has anyone ever…

How Jesus Was Stolen & Other Christmas Tales

Last night Jesus disappeared.  While eight heads were lying on eight pillows, four feet padded down the hallway towards him. In an instant, in the quiet of Christmas night, Jesus was abducted.  I slept on, oblivious to the danger. I must have been tired. I didn’t even hear the cry of triumph, the presenting of the gift.  When I got up this morning, Mary’s arms were empty. “Baby Jesus has been stolen!” I shouted to the girls. “Keep a look…

Why We Are Rotten Parents and Other Christmas Stories

I almost recorded this week’s podcast on my own. Then at the last minute, just as I was about to begin, Gemma-Rose appeared. “I’ll talk with you about Christmas, Mum.” This week in my Christmas edition podcast, we chat about: A magical Santa Christmas A magical Christmas without Santa Advent and Christmas traditions Why the Three Wise Men set out to find Jesus before He is even born Why St Nicholas isn’t very reliable Why we are rotten parents Why…

Chores and Kids: What if We Said, “Yes”?

My most popular post ever is Getting Kids to Help With the Chores. After publishing it, readers flocked over to see what I’d written. Had I discovered the secret to having helpful and considerate children? Some readers were very skeptical when they read my words: “That sounds too easy!” But sometimes the easy sounding things don’t turn out to be so easy after all. And sometimes we are called to do the difficult things of life. Have you read my…

Books, Music, Burnout and a Mystery!

This podcast is a few days late or a couple of days early, depending on how you look at it. It’s also not the same podcast I originally recorded. This week I reveal what happened to the first one and I also talk about… Beginnings: How do we capture an audience’s attention? Books, especially Australian ones Free music which can be used for podcasting, video making and any other purpose My new Zoom audio recorder and how it performs What…

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 new treasure to add to her pile. One day Nora decided to sample more than tea bags. A few hours later she wished she’d hadn’t. I did too. “We can’t have the dog gulping down everything we put into the…

How to Talk and Save Lives, and Can I Mention the Weather?

I ponder a few questions in this week’s podcast: Is it okay to talk about the weather or should that topic be avoided if you want to have an interesting conversation? Is it important for our children to have good conversational skills? How do they get such skills? We know bushfire fighters are heroes as they battle to save lives and property, but can school teachers also be heroes? Should we all know how to do CPR just in case?…

My Old Portmanteau

This morning, as we drove along the back road that leads into town, we saw three children waiting for the school bus. One of them was sitting down reading a book. I thought at first he was sitting on his school bag, but he wasn’t. He was sitting on a rock. “I don’t suppose modern school bags are much good for sitting on,” I remarked to the girls. “They’re not like my old port.” Port? “When I was a girl…
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My Unschooling Books

Parents and Kids

The Ladies Fixing the World

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.…

Unschooling: Trusting the Process and Letting Go of Control

“I kind of love my title for this podcast. It’s very ambitious. Let’s fix it all!” And so begins another Ladies Fixing the World conversation in which Cecilie Conrad, Sandra Dodd and I dive deep into unschooling, sharing our thoughts and experiences. In S2E4, we discuss Unschooling: Trusting the Process and Letting Go.   Want to know more…

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

Love or Fear? What Guides Our Lives?

There are so many things we could fear. We might be too afraid to send our kids to school if we listen to the loud voices telling us how bad traditional education is. We might choose homeschooling because of that fear. If we decide to homeschool, we’re still not safe. Fears could follow us. We might be too afraid to…

Igniting a Child’s Love of Learning

Do you wake up each morning with a delicious feeling of anticipation? Do you swing your legs out of bed quickly, anxious to get dressed and move onto the business of the day? Another day of learning with your children stretches ahead… Do you feel excited? Once upon a time, I used to drag myself out of bed and…
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