Unschooling My Children

 Originally written in 2006 – updated in 2011    Ron & Andrea over at atypicalhomeschool.net are asking unschoolers to answer these questions for the next Carnival of Unschooling. (A carnival is a collection of related blog posts). Update 2011: The Carnival of Unschooling moved to this blog after a while and was called Unschooling Voices. The carnival has retired but you can read the archives on this...

Unschooling Is Not Hands Off

Unschooling is not hands off. It’s not enough to leave a child to fend for themselves when it comes to discovering new interests and the world around them. Unschooling parents should look for opportunities to expose their children to to a variety of people, new ideas, the community outside your immediate one and activities that don’t normally come up in your daily life. If your family life is rich and full, there...

Unschooling Conferences & Gatherings

Maybe you’ve read about unschooling, talked to some unschooling parents online, asked questions, or read stories. Maybe you don’t know any other unschoolers nearby, and you’d like to meet some unschoolers, or you have a partner who has more questions than you can answer; practical questions like “how do unschooled kids learn math?” or “how do unschooled kids learn to get along with...

Homemade Tattoo Paint

*originally posted 6/07* 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...

Deschooling For Parents

In order for homeschooling/unschooling to work for us, I had to go through my own deschooling process, which was more deep rooted and tangled up than my kids deschooling was for them. Because I went to school longer than they had, and knowing the public school system from both as a student and as a parent, it was harder for me to look at education and school a different way than I had before. For those who’ve never...