The Lesson by the Lake

When we moved here to Brooks, one thing I was excited about was the location of our rental. It overlooked the biggest of the town’s manmade lakes; very picturesque, and it has a well maintained paved path going all around. It’s about 2.5 km, with a nice play structure 1/3 of the way around. In the […]

Hypocrisy and All of It

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 […]

Things my kids did without school this week

I thought I’d do a little round up of some things that my kids did without coercion this week! Kid 1: Participated in international art competition, learned about spending vs. saving her money, and made a new friend My oldest child (12 years old) is a talented artist and has been working hard with her […]

My Day

The sun is bright, the weather warm, the snow melted, and every day life feels amazing. For one thing, it has been reaffirmed to me that my family and I aren’t a bunch of no good lumps of lazy. It’s just that winter got a bit…long. And we got a bit…bored. But now everything has changed! […]

Year End Visit [in April]

Today was my end of year home visit with my school board facilitator…or learning advisor or whatever technical educationese they’re calling them nowadays. Debbie. Debbie came for a visit. And I didn’t know she was coming. Not that I shouldn’t have known she was coming (double negative. Sorry, I know–confusing. Just read it a couple times I’m […]

The “Down” Months

I’ve felt a little AWOL lately, but with good reason: we bought a house. And we didn’t just buy a house, we bought a house that needed a few (what seemed like a few when I listed them in my mind before actually doing them) upgrades before we moved in. Our possession date was February […]

Strewing

Today I got the first Life of Fred math book, “Apples”, back from a friend who’d borrowed it, because five-year-old L had asked to start reading them together. I haven’t read them at all since November when I finally noticed I was killing the joy of math in E by pushing it. I think the […]

5 Year Old Scientist

“Every kid starts out as a natural boorn scientist, and then we beat it out of them. A few trickle through the system with their wonder and enthusiasm for science intact.” -Carl Sagan Last week my 5 year old came in the house with a brown, dry ball of dead hydrangea flowers from last summer. […]

How to be a sneaky unschool missionary in your local homeschool group

Guys, I’ve been writing/complaining lately about how my homeschool group has been shrinking and becoming lame. Well, I’ve been pumping myself full of vitamin D and I finally feel ready to come up with some solutions instead of just feeling sad about it. Today’s post has 2 problems and 2 solutions. Problem 1 The free […]

Everything is Going to be Alright

In all of my love for the unschooling philosophy and lifestyle, I will admit that I have harboured one main anxiety: math. If I’m being honest, it stems from the classic problem of parents wanting to share all their greatest passions with their children—the same root, I’m sure, as my need for my children to know […]