Sue Patterson, an unschooling parent with 25yrs of experience, shares her expertise through coaching, courses, guides - and this website.
This week, in episode 109 of my unschooling podcast, I'm discussing radical unschooling. Do you unschool but don't like the sound of radically unschooling? Maybe you're convinced you'll never do it? If so, I hope to change your mind! I'm pondering lots of questions including: How did we end up becoming radical unschoolers (when I said we'd never do this)?
What is unschooling? To put it simply, unschooling is a form of homeschooling but with a little more freedom. The beauty of unschooling is that it can be
Last week I spent some time discussing the pros and cons of school-at-home and unit studies. Today I will be tackling a method that truly is the backbone of my beliefs about how children learn best…
Last week, in episode 109 of my unschooling podcast, I was chatting about radical unschooling. This week, I'm interviewing Sophie (16) who is a radical unschooler. If you're unsure about this way of life, perhaps our conversation will reassure you that radical unschoolers aren't wild and irresponsible! This is a very lively interview. I hope you
Timeless quotes from wise people, and even some fictional characters.
We did the opposite of most families. We stopped homeschooling because of lockdown and Covid-19. 2020 was the year we sent our kids to school. Read why.
In case you haven’t noticed, our experience with unschooling has had quite an impact on our homeschooling philosophy. This homeschooling method often gets a bad rap because of so many negativ…
Teaching the phases of the moon, moon phases, free printables, hands on learning, Montessori, Science www.naturalbeachliving.com
Determine the Left and Right directional position in this printable worksheet.
Brush up your kids’ English language skill with this free and printable collection of English worksheets. There is a variety of English exercises that you can select and download.
I grew up attending school in France and never liked it. I have always been successful, ranking top of my classes, graduated high school at age 16… but I always hated school. I felt like I did not belong. I was not interested in the way we were taught – […]
We're sharing how our family incorporates social-studies subjects into our lives with a look at unschooling history, geography and world cultures.
We had fun with this experiment. It was very cool to watch the colours change! I used food coloring and cabbage leaves to show the kids how plants …
Somehow summer is over and I have no idea how that happened. Maybe its the weather - it's been hot, hot, hot and sticky for the last couple of weeks around here - but whatever it is, I am NOT ready! Regardless of my desire to stop time, my middle kiddo goes back to school tomorrow and my oldest has been in school for almost three weeks. (Which is still hard for me to wrap my mind around since we are so used to starting school after Labor Day.) This year we compiled a "Summer Fun List" of around 30 things we wanted to do during the summer. (We still have several items on our Summer Fun List that we haven't completed, but I'm going to claim an extension until the autumnal equinox on September 22nd for those. Is that cheating?) This activity was inspired by one of the list items - "Go Stargazing". I found a site called Lie Back Look Up that has a lot of great activities, including a printable star map for kids which I printed out and brought with us to the beach in early August. The girls were able to find a couple of the easier constellations (i.e. The Big Dipper) but were struggling with identifying the others. (I think its a bit like using a microscope with children. You may know what you are seeing, but the kids can't distinguish between an air bubble and an amoeba due to their limited experience.) When we got home, I started thinking about ways to explore the constellations with them. I found an awesome book by HA Rey (the creator of Curious George) called Find the Constellations. I also saw quite a few constellation cards on Pinterest - check out my Science with Kids board to see some of them. My favorite are these from Lie Back, Look Up that includes information about each of the constellations on the back. We printed those, laminated them and stuck them on a key ring for future reference. Then I had a flashback to my own elementary school days and remembered making constellation tubes out of those black plastic film canisters. Since those are pretty few and far between these days (who uses film?!?) I thought we could make them using toilet paper tubes (one of my favorite things to repurpose). I found a few examples on the web, but no super clear instructions and since I did them completely wrong the first time, I figured it might be a good DIY project to write up in case other people have the same problems that I had. So, here it is. Let me know if you make them and have any feedback!! Step 1: Print out the constellation patterns from the About.com Space site. I think these may have originally been intended for use with the smaller film canisters because I found that I needed to print them at 120% size to match the approximate diameter of the toilet paper tube. The other key thing here is to make sure to select "flip horizontally" found under the 'layout' option in the print screen. I ended up with inverted constellations the first time because I didn't do this step. Because the words also end up flipped, I would print out an extra sheet not flipped so that you can use it as a reference. (I developed the ability to read upside down pretty well when I was teaching in the classroom but trying to read stuff flipped gives me a headache!) Step 2: Gather the rest of your materials. We used the following: empty toilet paper tubes glue stick tape scissors black construction paper squares (4.5" x 4.5") black sharpie marker giant push pin cork board Step 3: Cut around the outside, dotted line around the constellation pattern. Glue to the center of the construction paper. Step 4: Place the construction paper on the piece of cork board (I doubled it because my cork was fairly thin) and use the giant push pin to punch holes where the stars are located in the pattern. Step 5: Trim around the square into a rough circle shape (it does not need to be perfect!!). Then make cuts from the outer edge of the construction paper into the center, but do not cut into the constellation pattern. This allows for easy attaching of the construction paper to the cardboard tube. I made cuts to divide the piece into 8 wedges - you could probably do more to make the fit even smoother, but I wouldn't do less. Prefold the wedges by holding the circle with your thumb on the edge of the white constellation paper and folding the wedge upwards. Step 6: Center the constellation in the top of the cardboard tube and tape each wedge down. Start with the wedges opposite each other (i.e. 12 o'clock and 6 o'clock) then move on to the ones perpendicular to those (i.e. 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock). Finally tape the remaining 4 wedges down then go all the way around with another long piece of tape to add extra security. (You could also use duct tape here.) Step 7: Using the sharpie marker, write the name of the constellation on the side of the tube. Step 8: Close one eye and use the other eye to look through the tube at the constellation pattern. Start by sharing the name of the constellation with your child and have them look through the tube at the pattern. As they get more comfortable with the patterns, do it the opposite way and see if they can tell you the name of the constellation after viewing the pattern. Step 9: Because the tubes are fairly delicate, store them in a secure box. We chose to use a fairly thick shoe box. Also, because we only had enough rolls to make 4 constellation tubes to start, I put the extra patterns in the box as well so we could make more as we collected more empty toilet paper rolls.
It's not such a bad thing if all your kids want to do is play video games. Here's a look at how we use them in our family to promote math skills and mathematical thinking.
I made a new podcast episode! Yes, after an absence of a few weeks, I'm back. So where did I go? Nowhere in particular. I was just at home enjoying lots of slow summer days. Maybe I was feeling lazy. But yesterday, that changed. I suddenly felt like getting back to work. And so I
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Homeschooling for working moms IS possible. Here's the ultimate guide to how we've made our house, our homeschool, our work and our personal lives work.
As homeschoolers, it's helpful to look at successful educational models to see what we can emulate. Finnish schools have earned a reputation for excellence
Aquí encontrarás información, juegos y actividades para enseñar a los peques a dar y recibir indicaciones en inglés de una manera divertida. ¡Comencemos!
Students are expected to come to every art class with a PENCIL & ERASER. EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT OUR ART PROGRAM Even though we do not have an art studio this claymation…
Happy New Year’s to you all! Many best and bright wishes to my readers in this lovely New Year! Many of you know that given my background as a physical therapist and homeschooling parent, work rev…
Finland's education system: It is warm, collaborative, and highly professionalized and uses teacher-led encouragement and assessment. Here's how it works.
Cultivate lifelong reading skills.
Native American Home Etiquette by Jamie K. Oxendine, Lumbee/Creek PRELUDE Native Americans from the Atlantic to the Pacific and the Arctic to the Tropics
This worksheet contains 18 conversation cards and two vocabulary exercises (matching exercise and favourites) plus clip art. The cards can be cut out if desired and be used as conversation questions. Can be used with both young learners and adults (elementary to advanced). - ESL worksheets
In a new book, an American teacher in Finland collects the best teaching practices of the world's most lauded school system.
So what does a "normal day" look like for radical unschoolers? While there isn't much of a normal, here's a look at some of the things we do frequently.
How to help your child find the right learning styles to enhance their potential in school and to prep the brain for higher learning. Learning is unique and different for each child.
