my podcasts - Page 15

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Chores and Our Typical Unschooling Day

The other morning, after we’d done the morning chores and said prayers together, I asked my girls what they wanted to do. “Can we go to the post office?” asked Gemma-Rose. “I want to post my letters.” My eleven-year-old daughter has been writing a lot of letters recently. They’ve all been written in cursive handwriting, Gemma-Rose’s latest interest. There was a time when I doubted she’d ever learn to do…
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A Bit of Murder in Our Typical Unschooling Day

“Miss Scarlett did it in the conservatory with the dagger,” Gemma-Rose announces to her older sisters. Miss Scarlett, the conservatory and the dagger: Those words belong to my childhood. Many years ago, I loved playing Cluedo with my own sisters. I hoped I’d be the first person to discover the identity of the murderer. Could I work out how the murder was committed and where? It’s a lot of fun trying…
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How I Made a ‘Huge’ Mistake and Was Forgiven

Some days are difficult. Unexpected things happen, and mistakes are made. Clouds blow in and blot out the usual sunshine of our days, and we feel miserable. We let those mistakes overwhelm us. We get bogged down in woe, unable to move on, not because others fail to forgive us, but because we can’t forgive ourselves. Last week I wrote (in my notebook) a list of my top ten tips…
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Is Unschooling Just Living Life?

Sometimes life gets busy. Too busy. I like empty weeks: five days waiting to be filled with whatever we like. I thought last week was going to be an empty week. But unexpected things happened. We ended up having lots of appointments to attend and errands to do. In the course of last week, I walked to and from our village a number of times as I posted and shopped…
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Encouraging Kids to Write (and the Youngest Child in the Family)

When my son Duncan was about six or seven years old, his head was bursting with stories he wanted to tell. Every morning he would sit in front of an old manual typewriter and hammer on the keys and his tale would appear on the paper. While he worked, his face was lit up with a huge smile. His whole body vibrated with sheer delight. “Would you like to see…
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Popularity, Learning to Read and Shakespeare

Is there such a thing as a typical unschooling day? What about a typical unschooling week? Do my children spend equal time on all the key learning areas? The answer is no! We tend to get immersed in a few things at a time. This isn’t so good for my record-keeping, but it’s a very enjoyable and effective way of learning. Recently I’ve had a lot of English and Creative…
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Learning from My Daughter and Other Unschool Stories

Once upon a time, I knew more than Sophie when it came to our shared passions. But I have to admit, these days, her knowledge far exceeds mine. Now I’m learning from my daughter. “How did you make that blog post graphic?” I ask. “I’ll show you,” offers Sophie. Then she adds, “I could make a screencast tutorial video about it for you. It might help if you forget what…
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Starting Unschooling

Initially, I liked the idea of unschooling so we set off down the unschooling pathway. But it didn’t take me long to discover a few things I didn’t like about this way of life. We ended up moving away, travelling down various side-tracks as I explored other homeschooling philosophies. For a few years, I searched for the perfect way to bring up and educate our children. Although I considered many…
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Kids and Computers

Each member of our family has a computer of her own which she is allowed to use without any restrictions. This doesn’t mean we spend all our time looking at screens. No, we like to do other things too like run and bushwalk, cook and read, sew and play music, talk to each other! But we do value our computers. We regard them as a very useful tool. They open…
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From Unschooling to University

My 17-year-old daughter, Charlotte, is now a university student. It’s hard to believe. When did she grow up? Charlotte is studying her first unit through Open Universities. It’s part of a Bachelor of Arts degree in Digital Design. She may go on to complete the whole degree. Or she may not. She’ll see. There’s no hurry. One unit at a time. “So how was your first week as a uni…
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Creativity: Why Classical Music Isn’t Enough

I had an idea: “Hey, Imogen, would you like to record a podcast with me? We could discuss all those wild unschooling thoughts that keep bubbling up inside of us.” My 20-year-old daughter nodded, and asked, “What shall we talk about for our first episode?” “How about creativity?” “Sure!” So I made a list of questions we could explore. We set up our microphone. I pressed the ‘record’ button, and…
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What I Think Unschooling is All About: the Podcast

I’ve been having trouble finding the right words to express the ideas swirling around inside my head. But instead of worrying about it, I’ve been heading out the door to run along the sandstone tracks that weave their way through our local bush. I’ve also been reading my library books, and knitting some of Gemma-Rose’s hooded cape. I’ve even watched a movie with my girls. Yes, I’ve been doing some…
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