Two Canadian sisters, nine spectacular kids, no school.
This is unschooling this week: Recently I really got into the soundtrack of the Broadway musical Hamilton, and after lamenting that I wish I could just see the storyline so I’d understand better what was going on when I listened, my husband Brad found this this video, and we watched the whole thing. Since then,... Continue Reading →
I was talking to a friend the other day about changes that have been in the works in our local school system. I didn't know this, but apparently for a few years now the elementary schools have been working under a new grading system, where they don't rank the children by numbers or letters. Instead,... Continue Reading →
The weird thing about unschooling is that the name is kind of terribly misrepresentative--unschooling isn't about school at all. It's about believing that learning happens naturally, all the time, and that if natural learning is fostered, then it continues unrepressed forever. So "unschooling" isn't just a thing that children do in lieu of school. It's... Continue Reading →
It’s been a busy few weeks, participating in the week-long camp for the homeschool play, and starting performances of the community theatre show. E and G had fun stretching themselves and making friends during the homeschool production, but they have been most excited to perform in the real serious money making adult participation community show.... Continue Reading →
You probably didn't know this about me, but I live a half hour from a Unesco World Heritage Site. Yeah. Alberta's that cool. It is, of course, about dinosaurs. Yeah. Alberta's that much of a desert wasteland. Joking! Sort of. Our climate zone is definitely on the "arid" side of temperate, but Dinosaur Provincial Park... Continue Reading →
One of the local elementary schools is in my neighbourhood, so I pass by their sign board relatively often. Over the summer, this is the message they had up: And I thought it was cool how, in principle anyway, we seem to have shared values. The difference, I suppose, is in application. Their admonition to... Continue Reading →
This week is the ninth anniversary of the day I decided not to send my oldest child to Kindergarten. Where do the years go! This year she would be going into grade 7, and my youngest, who wasn't even born yet at that time, would be starting grade 1. At this time of year, when... Continue Reading →
Amy and I will have to give ourselves a collective slap on the wrist--not a single post in all of July! Summer does that to you, perhaps: a big jumbled mess of busy, languid; travel, lounging; visiting, reading--in a hammock. Always in a hammock! Today I biked to a provincial park in oppressive heat, then... Continue Reading →
Let's get schooly for a moment. Not that I think spending your life comparing yourself to others is a great plan, but when you're living alternatively, occasionally getting schooly has its benefits. It can help to validate one's own choices, and help others to understand said choices, by speaking their language. I come in peace.... Continue Reading →
Here's a thing about unschoolers: we are an incredibly amorphous group. You can't even fairly call us a group--we have no leader, no rule book; we're all over the map. All we have are ideas. Sure, those ideas started with one man, who put them into some great books, but there's still about a million ways to... Continue Reading →
The Unschool Sisters 