Ripley’s Believe It Or Not (Orlando)

Originally posted June 2009 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...

Why Whole Life Unschooling?

Note: I’m so happy to have Sylvia Toyama as a featured writer here at An Unschooling Life. In this, her first article, she talks about her family and why they chose whole life unschooling, and what that means. Anyone who has spent any time at all exploring unschooling, likely knows there’s a variety of ways people define unschooling. The labels vary, depending on how far from mainstream methods a family has moved....

Unschooling Math

**originally written in 2008** When my daughter Jacqueline was seven years old, she asked if I could buy some stories that explained math. She was becoming more and more interested in how math fit into her world and had started to take notice of it in movies, TV shows and by watching my husband & I. She had a basic understanding of addition and telling time but she was more interested in math as a whole, not broken down...

Learning Math Concepts Without School

**originally posted in 2007** My nine year old daughter wants to be an astronaut and she’s passionate about astronomy and space. I’ve learned more about the solar system from her than I ever did in in all my years in school. A few months ago, she and my husband (I call them the two space cadets  -lol) were watching Apollo 13 with Tom Hanks and there’s a scene where they were using math concepts to figure...

John Holt Interview

John Holt was a teacher when he wrote How Children Fail and How Children Learn. He eventually quit teaching and became a speaker and supporter of education reform and went on to write several more books. Deciding that schools could not be reformed, he focused his energies on alternatives to conventional schooling. He founded Growing Without Schooling, America’s first homeschooling magazine and continued writing until...

Courier Journal Unschooling Article

‘Unschooling’ popularity grows: Children pursue what interests them As other children are waking up and heading toward the school bus on a Tuesday morning, Adele Schiessle asks her children if they want to spend the day playing on a 6,000-square-foot indoor inflatable play area. Collin, 6, and Amber, 7, agree that would be a pleasant way to start the morning. After they play on the bouncy furniture, they head back...

Opportunites For Learning

**This was originally posted on 4/8/06** I re-read a bit more of Guerrilla Learning by Grace Llewellyn this morning. (You can pick up a copy in our amazon store). She writes about what she considers to be the five “keys” of Guerilla Learning. The first one is opportunity and this is what she has to say. “Read. Write. Talk. Play music. See dance and theater and paintings. Read poetry, write poetry, get poetry...

Five Steps To Unschooling

This article by Joyce Fetteroll was a big help to me when I originally removed my children from school (in 2004, when they were in the 1st, 4th and repeating the 5th grade) and began unschooling. The link to Joyce’s wonderful website and the original article are at the end. Some people understand unschooling as soon as they hear about it. Others wander about in a fog of confusion, wondering how unschoolers can be so...

Unschooling Math

Math. It’s a word that can sometimes strike fear in the hearts of new unschooling parents. Here are some more collected thoughts on unschooling math that I’ve had saved for a while. Most are from the old forums at unschooling.com A reply from Joyce Fetteroll answering this post: **what I’m curious about is whether or not there’s actually a curriculum out there that gives the abstract math concept then...

Unschooling Math

A Few Words (and symbols) About Unschooling Math:By Luz Shosie FREEDOM TO CHOOSE: Fingers & toes A pattern blocks, two by two, 4X4, narrow gauge, ruler, tape measure #scale, model, profit (loss), earn, spend $ save, interest, checkbook, recipe, batting average, Captain May I? soccer, baseball, basketball, love § fault, birdie, strike, spare, first and ten, penalty box w map, compass, Pokémon, Candyland, Monopoly, Go,...