Sometimes she’ll draw a lot, other times she’ll leave it alone for a while while she’s exploring other things.

But make no mistake…she’s an artist. Like I wrote in this blog post The Artist In All Of Us, she’s an artist because she creates art.

We recently spent the day checking at the weird and wacky stuff at the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Odditorium in Orlando. My husband & I had been to the one in Atlantic City, but my kids have never been there.

The building was created to look as if it were slipping into a sink hole.

There was lots of puzzles and optical illusions, which my daughters really enjoyed.

Billy standing near a piece of the Berlin wall

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As an unschooling mother of two girls ages, 11 and 17, I consider myself very fortunate. I have been able to be at home with my children for almost 18 years. I have witnessed every stage of development the girls have experienced. These different experiences have been lived out while traveling and living in so many different places. With my husband working in the hospitality business we have lived everywhere: Orlando, Chicago, Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Coral Springs, New Orleans, and Alabama. All of these adventures, as we like to call them, have been happy, sad, scary, crazy but more importantly, real life lessons. Our children have been living daily in a real world with people of all different ages, financial situations, religious practices, familial partnerships, and of different ethnic orientations. They can carry on conversations with elderly people, young people, surgeons, nurses, lawyers, car salesmen, librarians, policemen, taxi drivers and just about any individual out there because they have lived in the real world and not closed up in a classroom memorizing nonsense that they wont remember by the following week.

The economy today is a very difficult place for so many individuals to live. With the price of gas, the increase in food cost, and the loss of homes, jobs, and health insurance, our family has lived it and witnessed it unravel. Let’s face it, for the majority of homeschooling/unschooling families, a strict budget has been created. My husband and I for example decided 18 years ago to rid ourselves of our two new cars and downsized to one. (We now have two). We stopped eating out and buying things that were not necessities. We made a commitment to each other that the two of us would do whatever it took to have our children raised in a loving and nurturing home and that they would not be put into a daycare program. We both feel that the home should be a place where a child feels loved, wanted, and not feel that their parents can’t wait for them to go back to school. Because of our philosophies with unschooling, our children have been living in the real world and not behind a fence where they are controlled and told what they must learn. They should never be rushed to bed or feel stressed over homework. A child should be playing, reading, painting, volunteering, and feeling the world around them and not be pushed out each day into a world of walls, lines, bullies, test, and restrictions.

With unschooling, we have grown as a family in more ways then we have ever expected. My oldest daughter has such a beautiful outlook on the world that surrounds her. She feels sad when she sees a homeless person on the side of the road. She wonders what their story is, where they are going to sleep that evening, do they have children, and how are they going to take care of themselves if they get sick. She has learned this past year when my brother, Michael, became fatally ill and did not have health insurance, that worry had kept him from going to the ER because of cost. He almost died because of this fear. She witnessed the process in the hospital with the health care administration in regards to a treatment plan. His medical recovery was going to be very different from that of a patient that had a high priced private insurance plan. She learned through this exposure how to treat wounds, change an colostomy appliance, and she actually volunteered to sit through instructions with him so he too would understand how to take care of himself once he was sent home. She learned that surgeons could be very nice and would let you help them with minor procedures in the hospital room by simply asking. (handing tools, and up close observation). She was treated not as a young person that shouldn’t be exposed to such tragedies, but was treated respectfully because she explained that she was a life learner and wanted to see what was going on. My daughter Autumn could speak for herself and did not feel inferior to the highly skilled professionals that were surrounding all of us each day while we lived in the hospital for over a week. These doctors, surgeons and nurses were people, and she did not think that she was not allowed to ask questions. She felt equal because as an unschooling family we believe and instill in our children a confidence to seek all answers and to question everything if we are not certain of the situation, regardless of who the persons age. (The photo used in this article is my daughters in the hospital with my brother)

I truly feel that if we as parents can live with our children, conscientious of their wishes, doubts, choices, fears and challenges, that so many wonderful other self discoveries will take place. Like pealing the skin off of an orange, there is so much inside each child that is good, loving, and natural. With our travels we have encountered so many different cultures, lifestyles, and challenges. By not participating in the public school system, we have allowed our children to live in the real world. We have not spoon fed our children the stories about college degrees and jobs. Our times have changed in regards to our educational choices and availabilities. It’s time to take back our children from the old methods of ‘schooling’. It’s time to be honest with our children and let them know that they do have other choices then the cookie cutter factory called school. That as a free thinking person they can decide on their own what they want to become when they grow up and not be dished out some recipe that a test dictates to be their special trait.

I would like to leave you with a couple of quotes from one of my favorite writers, John Taylor Gatto:

“I urge you to examine in your own mind the assumptions which must lay behind using the police power to insist that once-sovereign spirits have no choice but to submit to being schooled by strangers.”

“Boredom is the common condition of schoolteachers, and anyone who has spent time in a teachers’ lounge can vouch for the low energy, the whining, the dispirited attitudes, to be found there. When asked why they feel bored, the teachers tend to blame the kids, as you might expect.”

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Need:
Borax (can bought in the laundry detergent aisle.)
White glue (like Elmers)
Food coloring
Ziploc bags
measuring cups and spoons (We have some set aside for projects like this)

1. In a bowl mix ½ teaspoon Borax with ½ cup of water. Stir until dissolved.
2. In another bowl, mix ½ cup of white glue with 1 cup of water.

3. Pour the glue mixture into the zipper bag. Then, slowly pour in the borax mixture. Add a few drops of food coloring
4. Seal bag, knead the mixture until you have slime.

Keep your slime in the sealed bag in the refrigerator when not playing with it to keep it longer. Unfortunately it may eventually dry out or grow mold. Just throw it out and start again!

How It Works:
The borax is acting as the crosslinking agent or “connector” for the glue (polyvinyl acetate) molecules. Once the glue molecules join together to form even larger molecules called polymers, you get a thickened gel very similar to slime.

*originally published 2009*

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She combed, leveled, measured, and designed the whole outcome in her head. She invisioned her ending with such enthusiasm that at one point we both giggled like teenagers together and practically drizzled our pants with gut wrenching laughter. We were bonding, we were living the rebelious world of unschooling to some, but experiencing a moment to remember. We were unschooling!  And it was magical.

Why is this situation, to some just down right absurd? How could someone allow their 17 year old daughter to cut and chop away at their hair? Because of trust, respect and love you say? Well, maybe. But in our reality, it is because my daughter wanted to try. She wanted to see if she could sculpture her creativity onto me. She is very talented, artistic, and always has been, so why the heck not? Unschooling…..That word again. The freedom to enjoy life together, to live the moment, not the future, but that precious existence together, in that second, while learning.

I’m not sure if my daughter Autumn will become a world famous hair artist. She draws well, paints enthusiastically with overwhelming results, that even she did not realize existed within her, until this past year. She is learning. Her 3D Animation classes still ongoing, her love for reading, writing, and believing in herself still growing and expanding. Her surmontous memories of her youthful teen years slowly passing, but through it all, she is remembering, she is smiling, and yes, she is unschooling.

My hair did not turn out too badly. She even colored it a beautiful shade of red. She herself wears her hair in a short pixie cut, so why couldn’t mom? I must admit, my hair has never been this short since exiting my mother’s womb, but it is what it is. A haircut from hell, a memory for me, and memory for her, a time of sheer laughter together and a day not forgot. The haircut isn’t just a haircut, it is a experience, a learning time, an adventure, outrageous to some, but never a regret, an unschooling magical moment to share. It will grow.

Be well, enjoy the second, cherish in the moment, and never regret your life lessons. We are real, we are here, we are unschoolers even if some do not support our methods, our beliefs, we do, and that is all that matters.

Laugh!

Written with love, by Kimberly Sharpe Slage

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I went grocery shopping and bought some snacks for my family; chocolate cookies, sour cream & onion potato chips, rainbow sherbet, grapes and baby carrots. My 12 year old unschooler came into the kitchen and I showed her the snacks I bought. Her immediate response? “Ooooooo – grapes!!!!”.

Out of all those snacks, the grapes were the first to be finished.

What was last? The cookies.

Now I’m not saying this happens all the time…sometimes the cookies go first. And that’s okay! The point is, she chooses healthy foods on her own, without any bribery or coercion.

This was not meant to be a long post, just a little snippet of our day that i wanted to share. Here is another post I wrote about letting go of control.

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They’re all those things…and more.

In “What is an artist anyway?”, Tera Leigh has this to say;

“Being an artist is about more than just creating original work or mastering every skill! It pervades every facet and moment of our life. If you’ve ever rearranged your furniture, you used your artistic ability. If you’ve ever painted a white room a different color, you’ve change and created”.

Pay attention to the moments in your life when you are creating, and remember to acknowledge it. You are being an artist. Creating something makes you an artist. It really is that simple.

Tera again;

What if you just decided to call yourself an artist? Right this second, pick up a tablet of paper and write: I AM AN ARTIST on it. If it makes you laugh or feel nervous write it over and over and over until those feelings diminish. If you have struggled with defining yourself as an artist, those feelings will not go away overnight. When people in your life question you about it, you will feel those old doubts creeping back up. You will have to continue to work at it but like anything else in life, the more you do it, the easier it gets.

 

Here is a quote that I love from Nina Wise, from the book “A Big, New, Free, Happy Unusual Life”;

“You already know everything you need to know to live a big, free, happy, unusual, enthusiastic, and amusing life. Creativity is an inborn aspect of being alive. All you need to do is relax and let it out. And if you do, you will find yourself, without the slightest hint of effort, dancing in your living room, singing in the car, writing poetry on cocktail napkins, and noting the dinner plate is a perfect canvas for a painting made of food.”

Also, from the same book;

“I’ve been told the story of a six-year-old girl who asked her mother where she was going one afternoon. The mother replied that she was headed for the university to teach her students how to draw and paint. “You mean they’ve forgotten? her daughter asked, amazed.

I never felt like an artist. Not until recently anyway. Not until I started unschooling my children and deschooling myself. Not until I had a daughter (Jacqueline) who would accept nothing less than being an artist because she draws comic strips and being a writer because she writes stories.

My daughters and I have been creating Artist Trading Cards for several months now. ATC’s are miniature works of art that are the same size as a baseball card. How you create them are totally up to you. There is no right way or better way. It’s up to you. You can draw, paint, collage, melt wax, use metal, ribbon…the only limit is your imagination.

Creating these cards has given me a whole new perspective on what it means it create art and what it means to be an artist. Who would have known it could be so much fun when the pressure is not on you.

YOU are an artist. Don’t save the word artist for “other people”. It belongs to anyone who creates.

Originally posted by Joanne 12/31/2006

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We bought a really fun book that my eight year old found during one of our (many) visits to the library book store (my favorite place to buy and donate pre-loved books) called The Ultimate Book of Kids Concoctions.

The first thing she wanted to make was tattoo paint (page 23).
Here’s how to do it:

1 TBS Cold Cream
2 TBS Cornstarch
1 TBS Water
Food Coloring

Mix cold cream and cornstarch together in a small bowl. Stir in water and mix until smooth.
Divide into 3-4 small bowls.
Mix 3-4 drops of food coloring into each.
Apply with a small brush.
Remove with soap and water

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We’ve had so much going on recently that I thought it would be nice to show a week in my unschoolers lives, instead of just one day. Enjoy!

Making pillows they received for Christmas:

Playing basketball:

Going to Girl Scouts:

LOL….getting tickled:

Going to the Museum of Natural History, for the Amazon Voyage exhibit, with friends:

Helping dad make yummy sauce:

Making Gummi Bears (more in another post):

In between these pictures was a lot of playing Guitar Hero on PS2, reading the Twilight series, writing stories about fairies, playing Golden Compass on wii, phone calls from friends, internet surfing, day dreaming, playing Scattegories, going to the park with friends and much, much more.

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*~~ Today is my birthday and I’m 45 years old. ~~*
I’ve always enjoyed gaining another year under my belt. Even the supposed hard ones, like turning 30 or 40, were welcomed with open arms. I wore each year proudly, almost like a badge of honor.

This is the first year that it’s difficult, but not because of the number 45. Difficult because it’s my first time having a birthday without my mother here with me. (Actually, it’s my first birthday without either of my parents, my father passed away 20 years ago).

Throughout my life, my mother I always had a very strong and close connection. She was my mother and my friend and I miss her so much. I always shared my birthday with her because it was “our” day. I always bought flowers for her on my birthday, as a thank you for having me. This year I’ll buy them and place them near her urn. I think that will make me feel better than not buying them at all.

I’ve learned some valuable life lessons so far and I look forward to learning more in the next 45 years.

45 things I’ve learned in the first 45 years of my life.

1. Time may heal most wounds, but not all.
2. Love is not always the answer
3. Life is what you make it.
4. Real friends come through for you when you need them the most.
5. The public school system in this country sucks and is getting worse every day.
6. Unschooling rocks!
7. Hurt people hurt others.
8. We are all connected
9. Religion can sometimes do more to separate people than bring them together.
10. Hard rock is best served LOUD.
11. Biology doesn’t make a family.
12. Chocolate does make things better
13. My mother was right when she said “This too shall pass”
14. People may try to hang their baggage on you…don’t let them.
15. When people come together, in the wake of a tragedy, it’s a beautiful thing to be part of. (RIP to all the souls killed on September 11, 2001)
16. Change is growth
17. Dogs are great friends
18. Don’t listen to the attendant – lift those hands up when you’re on a roller coaster!
19. Al Sharpton truly is a jackass.
20. There are times in our life when we just have to move on.
21. Always, always listen to your gut instinct.
22. Take responsibility for what you say
23. Take responsibility for your actions.
24. Sometimes revenge feels good
25. It’s a good idea to take a deep breathe before saying something you might regret
26. Some people come in to your life for a short time but you remember them forever.
27. Never gossip about someone in a public restroom.
28. Doctors do not always know what their talking about.
29. DCF/CPS/DSS does not always have the best interest of the child at heart.
30. Learning is everywhere
31. Being the white parent of two brown skinned children, I’ve found racism in places I wouldn’t expect.
32. I am a REAL parent. If you ask me where my kids real parents are, I’m going to slap you.
33. My kids are my REAL kids. If you ask me why I don’t have kids “of my own”, I’m going to slap you again.
34. People who say #32 and #33 are misinformed about adoption and have no idea what they’re talking about.
35. I’ve never been mainstream or traditional
36. I have met some really cool people through the internet.
37. I will never be a follower.
38. New York City is the best place on earth
39. My husband will always be a 16 year old at heart
40. Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission (thanks Elenore Roosevelt)
41. Just because you’ve always done something a certain way, doesn’t mean it’s the right way
42. If I don’t write it down, I’ll forget it.
43. Animals deserve to be treated with respect
44. I feel at home in a book store
45. Life is short – make the most of it

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