The sun is now creeping down the side of the valley by 7.30 a.m. and by then I was scrambling up the mountain this morning in my vibrams. Such a joy to scramble up and cross the moss-covered stones, overhanging branches and little waterfalls and see the deep forest waking up. My feet are longer … Continue reading »
Filed under home education …
baking
Squeak often hovers around the kitchen whilst I am baking and needs to mix and play with whatever appears on the table after watching me for five minutes or so. It would be so easy to get ruffled by this, especially when a cake or pie needs to be made for the family, but I … Continue reading »
reunited family
I have realised something – and this is after three months of letting my children do what the hell they want – when one tries to implement an ‘unschooling’ environment in the home, one needs to make sure that certain other elements of family life are secure and even enforced on a daily basis. One … Continue reading »
Strewing
Following a comment left by Michele from Natural Attachment, I have been thinking about the idea of strewing. This word, first used by Sandra Dodd, is an idea one can employ in the unschooling home. Strewing is the act of placing objects in a seemingly random way around the house so that children may ‘come … Continue reading »
straws
Today we cut straws.
John Holt ‘v’ Maria Montessori
*warning: controversial issue being discussed* I was up last night late, following a thread from one blog to the next and ending up on a host of Montessori sites. The material seems endless and the teaching methods an enigma, but I got fired up about it. I have been looking for a while for ideas … Continue reading »
good ‘v’ fantastic
A GOOD DAY: We get up early before the children. We watch a little french t.v. and drink coffee. The girls get up and I sit at the computer whilst they watch french cartoons. DOH goes off to do some errands. Me and the girls eat breakfast and plan the day. Grocery shopping, walk by … Continue reading »
paint
Bubble’s painting activities are very interesting from an ‘education’ point of view. She has been very into it recently. She proclaimed the other day that she wanted to be an artist and sell her paintings. Fine by me. No, what is really interesting is her technique and how it has changed over the last few … Continue reading »
all ok with ‘school’
I am actually amazed how much we have been able to ‘do’ in the past week. I was able to buy loads and loads of materials in the UK, like paints and brushes, paper, modeling clay, science experiment books and I also borrowed a large encyclopedia for children and art reference books from my mother. … Continue reading »
Anarchy
In all this confusion and all these discipline problems we are actually getting to see some of our good friends here in England. I have been struggling as I try to explain to our friends why we are homeschooling. It is very hard to put across why we want to do it, so I usually … Continue reading »
children’s artwork
In the process of packing everything up I have been sorting out all the reams of paper we seem to have been hoarding. Most of it is Bubble and Squeak’s drawings and paintings. I have sheets and sheets of stuff; from Bubble’s first faint scribblings to their most recent self portraits, with everything in between. … Continue reading »
its all in their schemata
A schema (pl. schemata), in psychology and cognitive science, is a mental structure that represents some aspect of the world. This learning theory views organized knowledge as an elaborate network of abstract mental structures which represent one’s understanding of the world. I got to talking about how children learn to my psychotherapist friend the other … Continue reading »
how children learn
I am totally absorbed in John Holt at the moment. I have nearly finished reading “How Children Learn”. Holt writes that children need to be able to play with things in order for them to learn about the world. Although he uses specific examples such as math materials and building blocks, he also applies this … Continue reading »
crazy
How crazy can I get? I was up at 2.30 a.m. this morning reading “How Children Learn” by John Holt. It sparked off so many ideas, page after page and even when I tried to go to sleep, my thoughts were still tumbling all over the place. I had to get up again and write … Continue reading »
still down
I have had a crap morning. Really crap. I took the girls along with me to have breakfast at the local patisserie (because dOH was looking at an apartment for us to perhaps move into) and I was not met with a warm reception from the other mothers who had come for their weekly social … Continue reading »
down
I am down in the dumps today. The worst since the children finished school. DOH and I have been having discussions about the future of living in France and unschooling and the fact that the law here means we may have to compromise on the autonomous learning I was so excited about. I can’t sleep. … Continue reading »
money
I took the girls to the shops yesterday. Bubble wanted to buy some false nails. She was very upset when she couldn’t find what she was looking for. She found something else instead at three times the price, which she wanted to buy. Although I wanted her to have it, I actually said, “NO”. DOH … Continue reading »
How do I explain?
Spending six days with another family on a campsite is not easy when you are in the very early stages of giving your children autonomy in their lives. Especially if up until that time you have been pretty strict with your little ones. I had a great time last week. Our friends and their two … Continue reading »
determination
We spent many hours at the pool during our camping holiday last week. Bubble has not quite learnt to swim yet. She is nearly there. I was never one for having early swimming lessons with Bubble. I am not against it, many of my friends did it with their children, but I just didn’t like … Continue reading »
School of Rock
Back from camping. We had a great time, more about it tomorrow. Before we went away and last night back at home, Bubble requested to see a dvd which she had come across in our collection and of course, we said ‘yes’ to her. She is only five, but I thought if she wanted to … Continue reading »
A storm in the making
Oh, a huge bolt of lightning has just struck our power cable somewhere – the electricity circuits in the house have just shorted out. We have been sitting through this storm for hours now it seems. I am up under the eaves listening to the water drumming incessantly on the tin roof, watching torrential rain … Continue reading »
Autumn
I am here ‘showing up to write’ at 5.30 a.m., unable to sleep. I tried, but I have just been lying in bed, head swimming with thoughts and plans. I was woken by the sound of an airplane cruising high above the valley and it reminded me of the time I flew between Hong Kong … Continue reading »
A curriculum of sorts
I have discovered the most perfect unschooling curriculum. Yes, I know the words ‘unschooling’ and ‘curriculum’ should not go together in the same sentence but, lest I be struck down here where I stand, let me explain. I use the term loosely to represent a collection of ideas for activities for the girls. Call it … Continue reading »
Autonomy at the bedtime hour
I think my family is spiralling downwards into oblivion. And it is all because of me. We had a beautiful day yesterday, but it all went wrong at 10.30 p.m. We came back from an evening with friends at ten and the girls asked if they could watch ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’. At the moment … Continue reading »
In one month my kids will be…..
There is exactly one month to go until school starts again. We went to a BBQ last night and after having explained to the fourth person what we were doing next year I asked myself, what exactly am I going to do with my children come September 4th when all Bubble and Squeak’s friends are … Continue reading »
