Describe how your school has changed over the past year? It has become a lot harder, and more time consuming, mainly because of the photography diploma I am doing. This leads to a professional qualification and it is a lot harder than we thought it would be. However, I am really thankful to be given…
Category: Unschooling
What Kind of Homeschooler Am I, Anyway? Part 6
"Whatever an education is, it should make you a unique individual, not a conformist; it should furnish you with an original spirit with which to tackle the big challenges; it should allow you to find values which will be your road map through life; it should make you spiritually rich, a person who loves whatever…
A Time for Everything Under the Sun
Over these Easter holidays I have been reflecting on the past twelve weeks or so of us doing a week of schooling alongside a week of unschooling. It is clear it wasn't a good fit for us, in the same way it is clear it was something we really did need to try out in…
More Unschooling Thoughts
Back when I first started home schooling I latched onto what seemed to be a very successful way to home school (according to friends who home schooled and to a blog I regularly read at the time). It was workbook home schooling using a very tight and regular half hour schedule. For a good couple of years…
Precious Moments – Unschooling
This week has been peppered with bad days and illness and very little has been achieved. I was going to write yesterday about new thoughts I had concerning our unschooling weeks but to be honest I really didn't think it would be a fair reflection. However, I will say this - leaving the children completely to…
The Children’s Thoughts on our Unschooling Week
I am always surprised when my children's opinions and my own agree. I shouldn't be really, given I have spent 24 hours a day with them since they were born. But Gary and I have for the last three or so years (since they turned ten) encouraged them to think for themselves and then deal…
Thoughts on our Unschooling Week
If you regularly read my blog you will already know that we are carrying out an experiment this year by alternating schooling weeks with unschooling weeks. All this week I have been jotting down my thoughts on everyone's learning during this our first unschooling week. I haven't attached any judgement to these observations. I will,…
Incorporating Unschooling into a Project Based School
So, with the help of the children, I have chosen all our curriculum and am continuing to pursue project based learning whenever I can. Yet everything which pulls me towards unschooling is still pulling, whilst everything in me which rejects unschooling is still rejecting it. What's a girl to do? A while ago I read…
Precious Memories
So, last Saturday we went aboard the ferry home, crossing from Belfast to Liverpool overnight. Gary slept with the older ones in a cabin, I slept with the littles in another cabin. It was a stormy night, which the little ones slept dead to the world the whole way through. Unlike their mother and…
Plans for the Next Two Weeks
This Monday we will start what will essentially be a two week fest of doing whatever our heart desires. Well, pretty much. The girls will be learning some unusual tales to learn the tricky tables which don't seem to stick in their head. I'm fairly certain that is not top of their list of 'things they…
What Type of Homeschoolers Are We, Anyway? Part 4
Unschooling has evolved from simply not being in school (John Holt), to life learning in the 1980's, to child led learning in the 1990's. These days there is a plethora of radical unschoolers, who to be honest make me feel a little uncomfortable. I am glad I have been looking into unschooling from a place of homeschooling confidence…
What Type of Home Schoolers Are We, Anyway? Part 3
There is another reason, other than the older ones maturing, for me looking for an alternative method of learning for my guys. My first four children have been incredibly lovely, easy-going, easy to train and well-behaved children. I have never really needed to question too much what I was doing. If they were unhappy they…
What Type of Homeschoolers Are We, Anyway? Part 2
Over the past month or so I've been trying to organise my messy thoughts. This is nothing unusual. Everything about me is usually in a state of disarray. But to me, this was more important than my usual scatty mumblings. When we first started home schooling, my children's eagerness to learn knew no bounds. We…
What Type of Home Schoolers Are We, Anyway?
I was asked this a couple of weeks ago, and I have been pondering it ever since. I've always maintained that I'm a nothing home schooler, not wanting to box myself in and hand other people expectations on a plate. People have enough expectations as it is. And really we do tend to do our…