Polish Language Problems

This morning, I got up early so that I could have breakfast with my daughter Imogen before she went to work. We drove into town and had a ‘supermarket breakfast’ in the food court of the shopping centre. First, Imogen…

Acquiring Bucketfuls of Unschooling Trust

Everyone knows we need loads of trust to unschool. But how do we get it? Where does it come from? Trust isn’t something you can buy. It’s not something you can apply your will to: I want to trust therefore…

An Almost Empty Unschool House

Recently, two of our daughters moved out of home, leaving behind two empty bedrooms, which my husband and I are turning into a study and a studio. For the first time ever, I will have my very own space where…

Homeschooling in a Crisis

“So what have we got planned for today, Mum?” Sophie asks me.  “Well, nothing really,” I reply. “We can’t go anywhere because of the bushfire, but I guess I don’t have to keep such a close eye on the fire…

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What to Do When Strewing is Rejected

Recently I found all kinds of things to strew in front of Charlotte.  I came across a website and DVD series that has an episode about a man who settled on the uninhabited Cocos Islands, later making himself king over the workers of his coconut plantation. His family ruled for 150 years before Australia brought that rule to an end. Doesn’t that sound interesting?p  I discovered a TV program about Mao’s Last Dancer, Li Cunxin, and told Charlotte about it.…

Encouraging Kids to Become Independent Learners

Many years ago, at a homeschooling picnic, I met a family who had a baby a little less than a year old. I watched her as we sat on a picnic rug together, eating our sandwiches. The little girl reached for a knife. It was rather big and sharp. I looked at the mother and father, expecting them to take it off their child. But they didn’t make a move. I felt obliged to do something, so I smiled at…

A Real Maths Learning Moment

Sometimes real life maths turns up when I least expect it. Maths learning moments suddenly appear. And if I take advantage of these moments, some wonderful real maths learning can happen… Yesterday the girls and I were watching art history videos on the Kahn Academy website. Before we moved off the site, I did a bit of exploring and found something else that looked very interesting: computer science. There were tutorials for using JavaScript codes to produce drawings and animations.…

Giving a Child Unasked-For Help

The other day, I went to the library with my older girls. Sophie and Gemma-Rose weren’t with us. I decided to choose a few books for my younger daughters, and when I got home, I presented them with the small pile of books I’d found. “I don’t know if you’ll like them, but you can read the first chapter and see what you think.” Then I added, “Perhaps we could read the first chapter of one of the books together.”…

How Much Is Enough?

Once upon a time I used to worry about how much learning my children were doing each day. “Can we go now, Mum? Have we done enough school work for today?” How much is ‘enough’? I used to look at my records book. Did it have enough written in it? I used to look at the clock? Was there time to fit something else into the day? I rarely looked at my children. How much was enough? Would my children…

Some Bits and Pieces…

The other day I was looking at a letter Gemma-Rose had written to a friend. It was long and detailed and her spelling was almost perfect. “When did you learn to spell so well?” I asked. Gemma-Rose shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know. I do read a lot, you know. Maybe I remember what the words look like.” Well, she must have read many ‘ought’ and ‘aught’ words because I have never introduced her to those phonic sounds. Gemma-Rose once told…

Nurturing Independent Learners

To me, unschoolers are independent learners. At least mine are. What further can I say? Because one sentence isn’t much of an article, I decided to do a little research to see what other people have to say about this topic.  I did some Googling, but before I found what I was looking for, I got side-tracked by an article written by an author who believes it is irresponsible for parents to allow their children the freedom to learn in…

Suzie Andres Chats about Unschooling

Last week, Suzie Andres emailed: “Just wanted to let you know that tomorrow…  I’ll be on Judy Dudich’s blog/talk radio show to speak about unschooling…”  So I tuned in, eager to hear what Suzie had to say. I was also eager to hear Suzie’s voice. Although we are friends, we have never met. I soon realised I am pronouncing Suzie’s surname all wrong and, although we Aussies have two different ways of saying St Therese, my friends in the US…
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My Unschooling Books

Parents and Kids

The Ladies Fixing the World

How Unschoolers Can Deal with Questions and Sceptics

My mother-in-law visited us for the birth of our son, Thomas. After he died and we’d buried him in his tiny white casket, Andy’s mother asked me if we wanted more children. As I replied, “Oh, yes!”, my mother-in-law’s face dropped into a disapproving frown. “She thinks we already have enough kids,” I thought as my defence hackles rose. But…

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…

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

Unschooling, Homemaking, and a Mother’s Role

Erin wrote: What does the idea of homemaking mean to you? Is it a certain skill set or talent? Does it need to look or happen a certain way, or is it a flexible term? What role does homemaking play for you in home ed life? Do the two need to go together? Are there aspects of homemaking that you…

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…
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