Two Canadian sisters, nine spectacular kids, no school.
Sometimes unschoolers will describe what they do as "interest-based learning". It's a quick, easy to understand phrase that satisfies the casually curious without triggering shock and confusion. It's not the totality of what makes unschooling...well, unschooling, but it's accurate that interest-based learning is a key component to the philosophy. I have learned, though, that while... Continue Reading →
If you choose not to send your kids to school, one aspect of your success as an unschooling family will be to find a community. In big cities this isn't a problem. There are tons of homeschooling and unschooling families. But I live in a small town, and while there are a number of homeschooling... Continue Reading →
So the thing, for me, about unschooling, is that it doesn't mean applying the same applicator brush to every child. I thought for a while that it did, and maybe I'll change my mind again on that down the line. But in my current experience, unschooling offers the opportunity to really distill priorities into what... Continue Reading →
On Monday E had a really "unschooling win" kind of day. And by that I mean, as much as we unschool parents may appear to be all chill and confident and laid back about our life choices, like any parent worth their salt we, too, spend the occasional moment panicking that we are ruining our... Continue Reading →
I think a lot of people have a hard time imagining how a day works when you're an unschooling family. I thought I'd tell you about my day today. This is how a Tuesday works: 6:00 am: Seven year old son comes into our room and wakes us up. Husband goes downstairs to spend some... Continue Reading →
On top of the drama camp, one more thing of note occurred last week. This one's pretty Alberta-specific, full disclosure. Last week I had my initial home visit with my facilitator (the lovely lady who was busily engaged in running a drama camp for a motley crew of whippersnappers by day). So if you're considering unschooling in... Continue Reading →
Dear stay-at-home parents who send their kids to school, You're doing it backwards! If you think about it, by the time your kid is ready for school, you've done a lot of the hardest, most tiring work of parenting. Your four or five year old is walking, talking, and has pretty good hand-eye coordination. They're... Continue Reading →
As mentioned in my previous post, last week was abnormally busy because of this homeschool drama camp E and G participated in. It was a great experience in so many ways! G, who has always been my shy kid; who used to refuse to even stand in front of people; who one time was asked to... Continue Reading →
If you don't teach your kids to read, will they be illiterate for life? There has been a lot written by other unschoolers addressing this topic. Sandra Dodd has a good little collection of anecdotes here. And Dr. Peter Gray wrote this article on the subject. Here's how it worked for us: My oldest is... Continue Reading →
This past week has been a wild experience. E and G were in a play, put together by their homeschool facilitator. She lives a couple hours away, so scripts and music were distributed with Dropbox in September, and after 1.5 months of practicing at home everyone came together for a whirlwind week to rehearse and... Continue Reading →
The Unschool Sisters 