Day Forty Eight

A mother who posts on some of the unschooling boards I visit lost her daughter to cancer the other night. The little girl was only 9 years old and was recently diagnosed. The following is what will become her obituary and it’s so powerful that I wanted to not only share it but keep it here so I can go back and read it. For those wanting to help, please click here. Hannah Lea Jenner left this life peacefully, in her...

Day Forty Seven

Jacqueline, my mother & I went to Barnes & Noble today, after dropping Cimion off at the Yu-Gi-Oh duelist league. I decided to join their members program for $25 a year, after thinking about it for a while. I already have their educators discount card, but the member card is good for anything in the store, including Starbucks. I actually got a good deal in there today. They had the Shrek Totally Tangled Tales...

Day Forty Six

Something really nice happened today. The kids, my mom and myself went shopping in the dollar store today. I had to pick up a few odds and ends and the kids wanted to buy some valentine candy for each other. They each took a few dollars from their money, picked out what they wanted and I took them, one at a time so the other two wouldn’t see, to the register. They usually do all the paying and checking out by...

Day Forty Four

The 3rd Unschooling Carnival is up and ready to read. Andrea & Ron did a great job. A carnival is a collection of blog posts on a particular topic. this one being unschooling. The unschooling carnival is held the 2nd Thursday of each month and submissions can be sent to submissions@atypicalhomeschool.net Share ...

Everyday Blessings

I borrowed Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting by Jon & Myla Kabat-Zinn from the library yesterday. Cimion & Shawna have a Storytelling Club there on Tuesday and Jacqueline & I use that time to take out books. In the back of the book, they list 12 exercises for mindful parenting. The first one is:Try to imagine the world from your child’s point of view, purposefully letting go of your...

Day Forty Two (I got tagged)

Ren Allen, whose blog Learning in Freedom is a great inspiration for unschoolers, tagged me. Before I get started with the questions, I want to post a link to a companion piece to a presentation she gave with Sandra Dodd on Mindful Parenting. It’s a great read. On with the “Four Things Meme”(To those I tagged, just copy and paste the questions into your blog and answer them.) 4 jobs you have had in your...

Day Forty One

Aaaahhhhhh. A nice peaceful day. These are the kind of days I wanted when I took my three children out of school.We took a relaxing walk around the neighborhood this morning. The weather was beautiful, clear skies-low 70′s.When we came home, we watched Cheaper by the dozen on dvd.After that we spent the rest of the day, outside in the yard, enjoying the fresh air and sunshine, under the open blue sky. Cimion tinkered...

Day Forty (Super Bowl Sunday)

We had our annual Super Bowl Party tonight. Actually, it’s just winding down now. We invited less people than last year because we weren’t even sure we were going to have it with my mom just getting out of the hospital. Billy made marinated chicken thighs, sausage, peppers & onions, rigatoni with marinara sauce with crumbled ground beef & tuna pasta salad. I made a tossed green salad. What can I...

Typical Unschooling Day

Here’s what homeschooling/unschooling looks like at our house, on a typical day at this time of year: Cimion (13 years old) gets up at 6:00 AM with my husband Billy. He makes his bed and they have breakfast together (2-3 bowls of cereal with 2% milk) and Cimion hangs out with him until he leaves for work at 7:00. After he leaves, Cimion stays in his room (playing with his legos or reading, lately it’s Goosebumps)...

More on RAD

Billy, Cimion and our friends that went, had a great time at Daytona on Saturday. Cimion was so excited to be seeing a Nascar race live! They got a few autographs and Billy bought Cimion 2 small die cast cars. He even bought one for Jacqueline because it was the Disney Princess car. Unfortunately, over the next two days, Cimion was very argumentative, short tempered and did a lot of crying. This behvaior is typical for...