Sunday, August 11, 2013

Summertime, 2013

Summers hold such happy memories for those of us who went to school. Freedom! Playtime! Hanging out!  And that's just the start of it... here are a few more gems that summers hold:

  • staying out late playing with neighborhood kids
  • spending time learning to make fun foods
  • late night family movies
  • day trips to local city attractions
  • camping trips
  • sleeping under the stars
  • exploring nearby nature centers
  • cross-country road trips
  • reading books of our own choosing
  • board games, cards, puzzles - all day long

What? That list seems familiar to you?  Yep! It's what unschooled kids' lives look like every day!  So the next time someone says, "What's unschooling really like?" Tell them, "Summertime!"

The Unschooling Blog Carnival is going to go on a hiatus after this carnival. I have accepted the managing editor position for the new national magazine, The Homeschooler. I'm really excited to get started with it and I don't think I can manage both the Carnival and the magazine at the same time - at least not for the first year.

I will continue to fill our Unschooling Blog Carnival's Pinterest boards though. That's a lot like filling bookshelves with beautiful fascinating books - without any expense!

Also, I've created a Facebook page for Unschooling/Homeschooling Bloggers. Feel free to share your favorite blog post there, or follow along as bloggers share their newest writings. It will be somewhat of an ongoing Carnival of Blogposts!

And, lastly, we're building teams over at The Homeschooler for content search, marketing, and we always need good writers!  You can follow The Homeschooler on twitter (@HomeschoolerMag ) or go to the new Facebook page to keep up on what's going on with it! I hope you'll subscribe - it's going to be full of writers you'll recognize and love!

Now, on to the Carnival...



Happy Unschooling!

    ~Sue


The Summertime Unschooling Blog Carnival! 

Rebecca Taberski blogs at Down a Rabbit Trail: Interest-Led Learning with a Charlotte Mason Flair.  As a grown unschooler who's unschooling her own children, you'll love her post: Unschooling: It's Personal! 
At the time, my parents weren't aware of any "label" for how we learned back then. We simply did what we did. My mom and dad always gave a very simple explanation of how we homeschooled...that they encouraged us girls to follow our interests.  And that we did. Passionately. :)
Marji Zintz blogs at The Peaceful Parenting Whisperer.  In her post, Blueberries and the Unhurried Child,  Marji points out the problem with letting age be the only factor in determining if children (or blueberries) are behind or advanced in their development.
However, like blueberries, children all “ripen” at different rates.  They acquire skills and skill sets differently from kid to kid... They simply deviate from the norm, which is an arbitrary set of expectations based on what is most convenient for institutionalization.
Ronnie Maier has started a new parenting blog, A Soft Place to Land. You'll want to bookmark it!
Ronnie has asked writers who parent in a gentler way to write guest posts there. So far she has Ren Allen, Sue Patterson, Frank Maier, Jeff Sabos, Shannon Louks, and Ronnie, herself. The most recent guest blogger, Laura Parrish, shares how a harried parent could maybe have A Different Trip to the Grocery Store.
Ultimate control turns out to be not what you wanted as a parent after all, and the price for obedience is too high. When your children are afraid of you, when they don't trust you, when they hide things from you, or lie, or cringe when you raise your hand, you may realize that. 
Linda Wyatt is back to blogging at Unschooling Me. She sheds a little light on what might be going on for many of us as summer winds down in THAT time of Year.
THIS is how conditioned people become.THIS is how difficult it can be to truly move away from school concepts. Even without having needed "back to school supplies" for 35 years… two thirds of my life… the urge is still there.
Hope Nilges blogs at Hopeful Insights: Random Musings about Anything and Everything. She's looking at freedom and thinking about how it applies to our unschooling lives in A Little More about Freedom.
I don’t always feel courageous and I certainly wasn’t always brave. But I was brave enough to get here. And I’m courageous enough to keep going.
Frank Maier  blogs at Singularity and this time shares some tips for being a good communicator with children in  Lieutenant Uhura.
I never use that tone of voice to/with any person, whatever their age. You know the one I mean – artificially chirpy and upbeat and speaking a little slowly, like you’d talk to a dog who’s entertaining you. 
Heather Booth took some fabulous shots of their Crazy Fun Day and posted them to her blog, Today Was Amazing!  THIS is what summer looks like!
 As we were both settling in he commented that it was unusual for him to want to go to bed so early.  Then added, "But I did have a long, crazy fun day today."  I agreed and within minutes, we were both sleeping peacefully.
Pam Sorooshian's blog Learning Happens is in the process of being redone. It looks great already. This summer, she blogged about kids' need for Physical Activity.
I’ve noticed that moms very often vastly underestimate the amount of physical activity their kids need and they think there is something wrong with their kids when what they really need is many more hours of physical activity.
Amy Chapin Moran blogs at Unwrapping Presence.   In her blogpost, Unschooling the Climb, Amy shares the adventures of her "kinesthetic ramblers"as they scale a climbing wall.
Follow your own path “up the wall” you’ll get what you need and not what someone else thinks you need.
Michelle Conaway blogs at Michelle Conaway: Living, Learning and Loving Life. She has written a few posts about Minecraft and now shares her observations in More Minecraft Love.
In my mind, Minecraft is not even a game. It’s a tool for engaging in subject matter that might not otherwise be available. It most definitely holds their attention and gives them the means to experiment with anything and everything they might be interested in. It also leads to fascinations of subject matter that they might not have otherwise been exposed to.
Laura Grace Weldon blogs at www.LauraGraceWeldon.com. Her post It Really Does Take a Village, shares a variety of village building resources everyone could use.
Today we don’t benefit from the educational richness of traditional village life where children can see and take part in the real work necessary to sustain life. Few of us live near extended family members. But we can foster the development of our own “villages” in at least three ways. [find a supportive network, create a chosen "extended" family, and develop rich connections in the community]
Shannon Loucks blogs at Breaking Daylight. She shares her path from "minimal TV and no video games" to a house full of computers, game platforms and more!  Shannon says,  Let's Talk about Tech, Baby!
Complex problem solving scenarios, beyond the scope of my understanding, were being presented to them and they were finding solution using the sort of out of the box thinking that my schooling never afforded me.  Text and comprehension requirements where being hurled at them from all directions. They were constantly in the moment developing decoding skills in order to understand and engage in the environments they were curious about. All of this being fueled by their own passion and enthusiasm. 
Sue Patterson blogs at Lifelong Learning. Her middle child, Katie, graduated from an acting conservatory - a completely different experience for this lifelong unschooler. Read about her day in Endings and Beginnings. Don't miss the part about Jamie Lee Curtis giving the Commencement address!
As I watch my daughter find her place in line with her classmates, I'm filled with joy for her. Still, I have to look away. I find myself wanting to stop the clock, in the same way I've wanted to stop time over and over throughout her life. I don't do that well with life transitions, it seems. And time marches on.

Unschoolers Around the World

Priya Desikan blogs at My Musings from India. Priya unschools her 8 year old son and shares and example of How Our Day Flows... Meditation, Meteors, Mars, Macaws and More.
I so love the way  the flow is so different each day - the different worlds we explore with our thoughts and imagination... always flowing, always shining....where we happily go with the flow of the moment, not thinking about where we are heading or why we are flowing......but just flowing....because it is so beautiful to just be, the way it is right NOW!
Francesca Rao blogs about traveling with children in Free Range Explorers. In Hesfes 2013 Fran's Photos, she she gives us all a great visual of what a Home Education Festival in the UK looks like.
I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, we went last year and this time the boys were a lot more engaged (not so much with the workshops...but very much with the other children) and I got to meet some Facebook friends in real life, it was wonderful, they are such amazing people! 
Lainie blogs at Raising Miro on the Road of Life . Through blogposts and podcasts, she shares the adventures she's having as she travels with her 14 year old son.  We're following along and found that she had Unschooling Teens in Peru - the Last Week and a Half.
It was quite an experience, riding through the night on top of a sand truck, looking at the stars and waving to people on the second floors of their house  who seemed astonished to see four gringos on the top of the truck.  After a short stop, to deliver 2 bags of sand, we made it to Lares.

Grown Unschoolers & What They're Up To!

Lindsey Muscato blogs at  No-School Kids. She discusses ambition, success, achievement, motivation and values in her post, For Learning's Sake.
Were we raised by the antithesis of a Tiger-Mother? I can't help but wonder how that affected our values and approach to living. And ultimately, how that affected our prioritization of "success" in traditional terms. 
Katie Patterson writes at her website Kaitlin Jean Patterson. She's trying to find work as an actress in Los Angeles, so if anyone knows anyone... ;)
"In life, you will realize there is a role for everyone you meet.
Some will test you, some will use you, some will love you, and some will teach you. But the ones who are truly important are the ones who bring out the best in you. They are the rare and amazing people who remind you why it's worth it." ~Unknown
Roya Dedeaux blogs at her website Counseling: Confidance, Creativity, and Connection. A few months ago she wrote about the benefits and overcoming the stigma of using a therapist in, Welcome to May: Mental Health Awareness Month!
I love therapy. I love having a good, solid therapeutic relationship with my therapist. I love how when I leave her office I feel lighter and refreshed. I love the things I think about after. I love having someone with an "outside" perspective to talk to, in good times and in bad.
Brenna McBroom blogs and sells her pottery at Pottery and Pastry. She hired a photographer and shares New Photos with us.
I just got the images back and I’m really happy with them. My plan is to use them in my applications for two North Carolina craft guilds. 
Michael Patterson, a Peace Corps Volunteer in Nicaragua, blogs at In the Nica Time.  He shares about Nica Archaeology: The History of Lakes and Volcanos.
I had told him that I had a passion for archaeology. We hiked down to the river, about a 30 minute hike down some treacherous slopes and jungle. When we got to the river we walked along until we saw the two dozen or so faces carved into the rocks. No one knows who put them there or why.
Roxana Sorooshian blogs at Upstaged. She reviews musicals, actors, memes and news items. Don't miss her fascinating discussion in She and Me: Matilda, Mermaids and Masculinity.
Today we talked about the Broadway adaptations of Matilda and The Little Mermaid and what it means that the character of Miss Trunchbull is portrayed by a male actor in drag (Bertie Carvel, nominated for a Tony for his performance) while Ursula, whose animated origins were inspired by a drag queen, is given to a female performer.

And since school is in the air already, 

here are a couple of reminders you might like:






Thursday, June 13, 2013

June 2013 - Unschooling Pinterest Carnival

Hello Unschooling Online Community!!


     For June, we have 10 more Pinterest Boards that might be fun for your family!


Next month, we'll be back with our Unschooling Blog Carnival
Please send me your favorite blogposts - what inspired you lately?
Do it right now - while you're thinking about it!  ;)

So, here are the newest Pinterest Boards for our Unschooling Pinterest Carnival.



Happy Unschooling!

    ~Sue
























In case you missed these:

May's Pinterest Board Carnival
Using Pinterest in Your Unschooling World

Monday, May 13, 2013

May's Unschooling Pinterest Carnival!

Earlier this month, we shared the Spring 2013 Unschooling Blog Carnival. Wasn't it FANTASTIC?  So many fabulous blogposts from unschoolers around the world. If you haven't gotten a chance to get to them all - don't worry! You can still go there to read about unschoolers' lives and be inspired!

As promised, we're ready to add 3 more Unschooling Fun Boards to our Unschooling Pinterest Carnival Collection!

Unschooling Pinterest Carnival 

  • Trains
  • Doodling
  • Birds
  • Greek Mythology
  • Whales
  • Hair & Make-up
  • Just for Fun
  • Science Experiments
  • Solar System




 




I'm just loving the Unschooling/Pinterest Connection
I hope it helps make your unschooling lives fuller and richer!

Follow Unschooling Carnivals on Pinterest

Please continue to share the carnival on email lists, FB, Twitter, G+ing and re-blogging. Nothing helps dispel mischaracterizations of unschooling like seeing (in this case, reading) about unschoolers and all the learning that's going on in their lives!

See you next week with new Unschooling Pinterest Boards. Please follow the UBC here or over on Pinterest, because then I can add YOUR pins to our boards too! I'm learning how to "collaborate"on Pinterest. So if you are interested in adding more to a particular board, I'd love to have you collaborate with me!!

Have a Wonderful Week!! 
Happy Pinning!

~ Sue

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Spring 2013 - Carnival Time!



The Unschooling Blog Carnival is back with blog posts recommended by unschoolers everywhere. And WOW! We have a lot of great blogs for you to read - you're bound to be inspired!!  I'm happy to say our Grown Unschooler Blogs section was a hit and is growing! If you know of others, please put them in the comment section or email the links to me for next time. (unschoolingblogcarnival@gmail.com)

And our next big announcement....


*New 

Unschooling Pinterest Carnival!


If you go to the  Unschooling Blog Carnival's Pinterest page, you'll see that we've expanded a little bit.  I've always thought that Pinterest is a HUGE gift to unschoolers! My kids were grown before it ever made it onto the social networking scene. But to have a place where you could easily collect ideas and share them with your kids? Brilliant!! With that in mind, I'm going to start adding "Boards" to our area on a variety of topics. As questions or ideas come up on email lists and Facebook pages, don't be surprised if you see a Pinterest Board on the topic. I've just started this - in the middle of creating the carnival and putting on a wedding in real life - so it's in it's early stages. I wrote a little more about it here:  The Unschooling Pinterest Connection.  If you have ideas or suggestions, email me!





So...back to the first Unschooling Blog Carnival of 2013!  Hope you enjoy it!

Be sure to leave comments at the blog sites - or even just click "Like" at their site. That way they'll know you stopped by.


Happy Unschooling!

    ~Sue


Unschooling Moms & Dads share...

Catherine Forest blogs at Catherine et les Fees.  She shares some of the unique experiences that are filling her children's days in Central America in her post This Traveling Unschooling Life of Ours.
They probably will not know what it feels like to wait for the summer holidays, for Spring break or for the Christmas vacations, because their life feels like a never-ending holiday... and I wouldn't want it any other way.
Ronnie Maier writes at The Blog of the Zombie Princess. She has created a Facebook page called My Unschooler is Interested In... She explains more about the concept with a blogpost of the same name, My Unschooler is Interested In...
People create posts about something their kids (or they - we're not age-ist!) are interested in, and other members put in ideas for learning more... In a little over five months, we have gathered 1250 idea-makers together.
Heather Boothe blogs at Today Was Amazing.  She shares a short blogpost with a big message in Looks Matter.
As I sat there drinking my tasty, yet disgusting looking smoothie this morning I thought about what it must of been like for Austin when I would tell him he had to eat his vegetables.  
Sue Patterson, blogs at Lifelong Learning: For us, it's a Life Full of Saturdays. Readers can follow the process of how her son went from hating writing to getting a degree in Journalism, and how Sue deschooled along the way in her post, Boys & Writing: Our Journey.
It was at that moment, I felt the shackles of school fall away. We weren't going to turn in writing, hoping to squeak by with her approval and a passing grade. We weren't going to turn in any writing at all! Michael looked at me and grinned. I picked up the pencil and snapped it in two. Done!
Flo Gascon shares a fabulous post at her blog, Flo Gascon.  Don't let the busy-ness of life keep you from noticing that  It's Not Just a Moment, It's All there Is.
Time was so quiet and so still and I could have spent forever in that place, just holding her head in my lap, cradling her youth. Being her mama. Being her mama. Her continued rest with me affirmed that she was feeling it, too.
Michelle Conaway, blogs at Living,  Learning, and Loving Life. She started to look at why she was sayng "no" so often to her child. She shares how she turned this around in Choosing to be a YES Mom!
Our kids can be our greatest teachers in life. The things that bring joy to them are the things we get the opportunity to say Yes to. Our kids can show us our own road blocks if we are willing to examine our fears.
Alex Polikowsky blogs at Holy Cow is Polykow. In her post, My Sweet Children, and What Happens When You Are Sweet To Them, Alex shares the ripple effect of thoughtful parenting.
The more sweetness I  bring into my home by my tone of voice and the way I treat my kids and husband, the sweeter our lives are. 
Frank Maier blogs at singularity and this time, feels his post this time might be a bit harsh. I disagree. It's all about getting our priorities straight. You'll have to read the entire post to see if any of it applies to you or others you know in [Something] Radical Unschooler.
You are an LOA believer (or libertarian or vegan or videogame hater) who talks about unschooling and folds it into your LOA (or whatever) when it’s convenient and when it fits your weltanschauung; but radical unschooling is not a genuine part of your core weltanschauung. It’s an add-on.
Shannon Loucks blogs at Breaking Daylight. She reminds us that  Love Without Conditions can be the one sure thing we can offer our children in a world that can sometimes seem chaotic and frightening.
When my child knows my wide open and loving arms are always here to catch them, they are more willing to boldly take on life. To head out and take chances, make big messy mistakes and when necessary retreat in to the comfort of us, their family, to heal and strengthen in order to stretch out again. 
Linda Wyatt blogs at Unschooling Me. In her post, I Wish My Son Would Still Do That, she shares how unschooling has strengthened her family bonds.
Popular cultural assumptions about teens include that they don't want to be with their parents, especially not in public, and especially wouldn't want to be seen expressing any sort of affection.  I guess most teens don't sit on their Mom's lap where other people can see them?
Laura Grace Weldon shares a variety of ways parents can encourage or interfere with a child's internal motivation to learn in her blogpost Respecting a Child's Urge to Discover.
Conventional thinking tells us that children benefit from the newest educational toys and electronics, lessons, coached sports, and other adult-designed, adult-led endeavors. Well-intentioned parents work hard to provide their children with these advantages. They do this because they believe that learning flows from instruction. By that logic, the more avenues of adult-directed learning, the more their children will benefit. But learning has much more to do with curiosity, exploration, problem-solving, and innovation.
Sara Schmidt blogs at the Education Job Market. In her post, Unschooling Really Works, she describes how her child is pursuing her passions and learning independently.
The system, however, is designed to make us average. We need to change our entire culture. I think any child given the time to explore his or her own interests like this with so much passion and encouragement could be exceptional—and imagine where we could be if we allowed all of our children to be exceptional.
Nicole blogs at Verde Mama. She examines the roots of anger and how it affects the dynamics in her family in her post, Parenting, A Joyful Partnership.  
I wonder why anger towards children and control of them seems to be held in such a high esteem. While, friendliness, joyful partnering, kindness and respect, these parental traits are often ridiculed. The thinking is, children will become spoiled, parents will get walked all over, in short, nothing less than total chaos will ensue. This has been so far from my experience.
Sasha Zaring blogs at One Rich Mother. With two very different daughters, she shares one of their paths in A Tale of Two Educations: The Motivated Learner.
It was a hard lesson for me, but one well learned, that education is so much more than just how much knowledge you can acquire.  It is just as important, no, more important to have your child stop and smell the flowers than to teach them how to diagram one.
Kelly Auriemmo blogs at Teacher Goes AWOL. In her post, Multi-Age, Multi-Sensory, What the ?!?! she addresses what is sometimes seen as one of the biggest challenges to learning at home.
School focuses on visual and auditory learning and expects all kids to conform. By offering learning through multiple modalities, you can use each child's strength to help them overcome their weaknesses.
Mani Sheriar blogs at Sharing Along the Way. When asked about unschooling through the high school years, she writes about some of the questions and her responses in, What about Advanced Algebra or Chemistry? Self-Motivation is the Key. 
What about all the other things that a young person might miss while slaving away at higher math and science? All the things they won’t have time for – dance lessons, learning to fix a car, writing a novel, learning to code, traveling, painting, carpentry – whatever their passions are! Are these not valuable? These things that, by the very nature of the fact that the child WANTS to do them, are more likely to actually factor into their future endeavors? 
Teresa Honey Youngblood shares about her family at her blog, The Honey House Homeschool. Teresa shares her struggles about her son's first day one an organized sports team in, First Day of Baseball.
I have heard horror stories all year of Fayetteville baseball parents, and I may have heeded a bit too closely to the particularly nasty ones. I was playing out hypothetical scenarios where tucked-shirt, crew-cut, angry-faced dads yelled at my gleeful, silly, wooly-headed boy. 
Christeil Gota blogs at Play, Rest, Repeat. In her post, When you Are Homeschooling and Your Kids Are Better Than You at Something, she examines how unschooled children are able to be successful.
This is where my kids succeed, and I struggle.  Children naturally live in the moment.  They are less concerned with steps or completion and put themselves completely in the process.  This is true whether they are learning something new, repeating a favorite technique or messing one up.  
Susan May blogs at Together Walking. She writes about making An Attempt at Capturing the Magic that is Unschooling.
every time one of my children does something for the first time, completely of their own volition, my heart leaps and then pumps joy to every cell in my body. Each time this happens the truth: that children will learn all they need to, in their own time - becomes etched a little deeper in my bones. And this is where the magic lies - not so much in the "firstness" of each new skill or idea, but in the fact that they completely own these moments. 
David has just started blogging at rothklee: Design for Life. In his post, Food for Thought, he shares how he is recognizing learning happening in his children, but is still trying to get a firmer grasp on the idea of unschooling.
I’m still not sure how to describe what I do to ‘educate’ my children, other than to say that I help them learn and then watch what happens. 

 Unschoolers Around the World
Miranda Hughes blogs from her rural log cabin in BC, Canada, at Nurturing through Love. She shares how easy it is to learn and dwell In Between Subjects.
This fall has been a case in point for Fiona. She's been learning about... how does one describe it when it isn't a traditional subject area? ... learning about where math, art, and nature overlap.
Hema Bharadwaj, from India, blogs at The Bharadwaj Shine. She shares a peaceful post about an evening with her children in Questions.
So yeah... Questions.  They abound.  Sometimes the answers are easy, sometimes we google, sometimes we just have to trust that we do not know the answer but one exists somewhere.

 Grown Unschoolers 
(and one younger unschooler too!) 
I'm SO thrilled to share our expanding Grown Unschooler blogs!  Twice as many as last time and I'd love to see even more.  Do you know grown unschoolers who are blogging and sharing some of their thoughts? Send me the links!

Cameron Lovejoy blogs at One Wandering Poet.  I'm so excited to share with you all that his book, Mud Foot: Highway Prose and Poetry, is complete and has been published! Find out more about it from his blogpost The Release of "Mud Foot".
After months of traveling, writing, rewriting, editing, reading, rereading, and editing even more, I've finally completed my first polished collection of work.
Lindsey Muscato started a new blog, The No-School Kids: A Homeschool Retrospective, examining notes from her mother, Cathy Earle's, early days of homeschooling. She compares those thoughts to her own, as she reaches parenting age  and opens with The First Pages.
My sisters and I are our mother's life's work - this is a thought that hit me with some impact when I first articulated it. She is a fiercely capable, opinionated and intelligent woman - who grew up in the height of the women's liberation movement of the 60's and 70's - but she made the decision to quit her job, be a stay at home mom, and homeschool thee kids for 20 years... When she decided to journey into homeschooling in the 1980's, it was anything but mainstream. It was map-less.
Roya Dedeaux has a blog at her Counseling: Confidence, Creativity, and Connection website. She has shared a fabulous Natural Learning Handout that she and her mom, Pam Sorooshian, used at a local event.
The idea is that - you have thngs you will want to your children to learn, but you do not need school to be involved. Think creatively about other ways they may learn these things - and be open-minded about the timeline of WHEN they might learn them.
Michael Patterson is still blogging from his Peace Corps assignment in Nicaragua, at In the Nica Time. You can read about volcanos, and monkeys, and living in a rainforest there. But here's a look at him participating in a local festival in Ride On, Gringo!
The Hipicas are a real phenomenon. All classes of society come together for the event as complete equals. You'll see fancy dressed aristocrats riding horses worth more money thn I've made, right alongside poor farmers on their mules. But no matter. They toast their Toñas with each other and raise their cans to the patroness of La Paz all the same.
Quinn Trainor primarily writes poetry at her blog, sunlight and silence. But here, in A Series of Journal Entries, we feel the twists and turns of a poet's mind.
My life is a project half finished. One that you always come back to but do not know what the next step should be. My ambivalence consumes me on a day to day basis. How does one so sure of herself manage to get so lost? My compassion, sanity and doubts, all rolled up into one and tied so delicately...
Roxana Sorooshian has just started blogging at Upstaged. If you have a child interested in theatre, you'll love her witty yet helpful post, 5 Songs to Avoid in Auditions: the Teen Girl Belting Edition.
Look. I get it. Those dramatic mezzoland ballads make you feel powerful and significant. The lyrics are so generic, you can imagine any story you feel like acting onto them. The key changes generate a false sense of excitement. I GET IT.
Brenna McBroom shares pictures of her fabulous pottery and writes at her blog, Pottery and Pastry: The Blog of Brenna McBroom. She shares details about what life has been like and what she's learned in 10 Things I Learned During My First Year of Self-Employment.
I’ve been self-employed making and selling pottery for a full year. That was my goal when I moved to Asheville- to make a living by being a potter. But I honestly didn’t think it would happen so quickly. 
There is no typical day for an unschooler, because everyday is based on what we want to do that day. My family is extremely spontaneous, aside from all of the regular groups, band practices, activities and events in the community that I have chosen to put into my schedule. Every day is  different. 
Ethan Wolfe, an eleven year old unschooling blogger, shares a little bit about volunteering at the Experimental Aircraft Association's event in his post, Volunteering at the EAA. Follow him at his blog, Ethan Wolfe's World.
This summer I will have the chance to fly in an airplane for the first time through the EAA's Young Eagles Program. The program lets kids like me and you have the chance to go flying in an airplane for free. How cool is that?

Lastly... Just a Reminder 


Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Spring Carnival Time!!


Spring 2013

Unschooling Blog Carnival!



Our December Unschooling Blog Carnival was so awesome! We had fabulous blogposts from new unschoolers and veterans, from grown unschoolers as well as unschoolers from all over the world.

Let's do it again!

 Submit unschooling blog posts that YOU find most inspiring! Sharing these posts may be just what some struggling unschooler needs to read. 


These Unschooling Favorites should be fairly recent - but if you stumble across something wonderful, that the blogger wrote within the last 6 months, that will work too!


 Unschooling Bloggers can still submit their own blogposts - just pick a post that you think is your best writing/most thought-provoking or encouraging.




Inspired by an Unschooling Blogger? 

Share with us!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

NEXT DEADLINE: April 20, 2013

Planning to Publish: May 1, 2013

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Spread the word!



Tuesday, December 4, 2012

December's Blog Favorites




Welcome back to the.... 

Unschooling Blog Carnival!

This year came and went pretty quickly, wouldn't you say? Sure, most of us packed in a lot of excitement for the year - still, it's hard to believe it's December already! Luckily, the Mayan predictions of the apocalypse are expected to be fiction and we can all happily fill this last month of 2012 with no concerns that The End is near! ;-)

December! So many holidays all in one month! Maybe you have wonderful traditions - I hope you're blogging about it! Or maybe you are soaking up as many new ideas as you can possibly handle. Perhaps you're in a part of the country where cocooning at home is the best approach.  And luckily, as unschoolers, the choices are all up to us! No schedules or "have to's!" Our time is our own!  Unschoolers around the world are simply making the best choices with our families, looking at what's needed and acting accordingly.

Thanks so much to everyone who recommended blogposts for the Unschooling Blog Carnival! We have such a great assortment this time. If you're a new unschooler or even if you're not new, you'll be able to relate to unschooling moms in the trenches, inspired by the veteran unschooling moms whose kids are grown or nearly grown, and reassured by the grown unschoolers who share their perspectives and lives with us.

So with this, the last Unschooling Blog Carnival of 2012, we'll start and end with a couple of videos. Take a few minutes to watch them both! And be sure to leave comments at the blog sites - it helps bloggers know you're out there!



Happy Unschooling!

    ~Sue


TED Talk: Bring On the Learning Revolution:



"Human flourishing is not a mechanical process; it's an organic process."
All you can do is create conditions under which they are going to flourish."
"Everyday, everywhere our children spread their dreams under our feet. And we should tread softly."

Unschooling Moms & Dads share...

Lisa Nalbone, who blogs at Lisa Nalbone: Fruitful Solutions for Parents and other Lifelong Learners was published at CNBC.com. Her piece, A Mother's Tips on How to Raise a Thiel Fellow shares her ideas that can easily be translated into great pieces of advice about parenting and unschooling.

Lyla Wolfenstein blogs at The Adventure Continues: Musings and Resources for Exploring the Primacy of Trust and Relationship in Parenting. Lyla shares her scripts from her Life is Good Conference talk in The Only Parenting Mistake I Ever Made... and Over and Over Again (or - The Illusion of Control) 

Sue Patterson, blogging at (my new Wordpress blog!) Lifelong Learning: For us, it's a Life Full of Saturdays shares how One Little Word can make all the difference: WITH.

Mary Gold blogs at ZenMommas Garden. Mary's blogpost,  Reality Check, shares her thoughts about reality television, including her concerns about having unschoolers participate.

Linda Wyatt blogs at Unschooling Me. She shares how the concept of giving kids Whatever They Want really does work.

Flo Gascon's blog January's Girl reminds us that life can change in an instant in How Are You Spending It?

And from both sides of the TV or No TV, Video Games or No Video Games Controversy:
Laurie A. Couture shared her perspective in Unschooling Without TV and Video Games: A Freeing Experience.
Sandra Dodd has a collection of articles from a variety of unschoolers called The Values and Uses of TV and Video Games for Unschoolers.

Alex Polikowsky shares what makes up My 12 Days of Christmas at her blog Holy Cow is Polykow.

Leo Babauta shares The Beginner's Guide to Unschooling from his blog, ZenHabits.

The Wonderful Happens blog gives us a glimpse into their busy lives and the fun of photographic traditions.

Brie Jontry writes at Noor's Blog. Noor is working on a Cats for Kids Fundraiser. Check it out, and maybe make a donation for a worthy cause and a philanthropic unschooler.

Colleen blogs about their unschooling adventures in her blog, Milking Ducks.  This post, A New Interest in Dead Presidents and Cemeteries is Born, shows how one thing leads to another when a child is curious.

The Elemental Mom blogs at The Excellent Adventure and writes about Learn Nothing Day.

Laura Grace Weldon wants to share How Kids Benefit from Chores at her blog.

Shannon blogs at Breaking Daylight. Her post, Bleary Eyed Parenting, shares the parenting challenges that accompany sleep deprivation when you have a sick child.

Nicole blogs at Verde Mama.  Sharing her blogpost, radical, Nicole shares what the word means to her and  how it translates into their lives.

Gwyn blogs at Gwyn Raimondi.  Her post, Loving Home, helps us see how readjusting our attitude about our homes might be just what needs to happen!


Unschoolers Around the World...

Kjerstin Stanavige blogs at Homeschool 101.net . Kjerstin shares 5 Things You Should Know About Unschooling.

Rippy Dusseldorp blogs at Seeking Nectar.  Rippy describes why they chose to live in the Netherlands in the blogpost, Effervescence.

Hema Bharadwaj blogs at The Bhardwaj Shine. Hema shares about connections and how her children learn at a deeper level than facts and figures in the post, On Capone, Elvis, and Learning .

Katie Pybus in West Sussex, blogs at Outside the Box. In her post, she shares Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Why We Home Educate But Were Afraid to Ask.

 Grown Unschoolers Share too...

Brenna McBroom blogs at Brenna at the Writing Retreat. In her post, Unschooling and Class, she shares her thoughts and questions about how people in poverty in India, as well as lower income Americans, can successfully unschool. 

Michael Patterson blogs at In the Nica Time from his Peace Corps assignment in Nicaragua. He describes what he found when he was Infiltrating the Tents of Circo Zuary.

Cameron Lovejoy blogs at One Wandering Poet.  This is a glimpse of one leg of his cross-country adventures in The Makings of a Book.

Idzie Desmarais blogs at  I'm Unschooled.  Yes, I Can Write. Read about her thoughts on her unschooling journey that she shared in her Occupy Education Conference Talk.

Lastly... RSA Animate 

The surprising truth about what MOTIVATES us

Let's talk about Motivation! While this video pertains to the workplace, Daniel Pink is talking about human nature. As unschoolers, we'll see that. And if you need a little reassurance, watch this:



"You probably WANT to do something interesting...let me just get out of your way!"
"The science shows we want to be self-directed."


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