Unplug Your Kids

For the unschoolers out there, here’s a great website which I found when I was looking for ways to make an inexpensive weaving loom with Jay. Lots of crafts and science projects.

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I Have A Son….

….who plays Scrabble with a group of senior citizens every Thursday night. Not to be kind, not as some sort of civic duty, not to rack up volunteer credits. Just because he loves playing Scrabble. How cool is that?

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The Story of a Boy

I started homeschooling when the oldest boy was eight, after three years of trying to fit him into a school system that wasn’t designed for the way he learns. He’s ferociously bright, in a way that was obvious from the time he was born. I’ve been dragged along by this child, forced to research everything [...]

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Practice Makes Perfect

None of my kids are particularly artistic. This is a picture that Tee crayoned when he was about six, or maybe even seven (on what I’m guessing must have been a gloomy day). Note the lack of detail, the wing-like hands extending directly from the trunk, and the missing facial features. That being said, I [...]

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The Reality of The Classroom

Teachers have impossible jobs. My daughter is in a multi-age grades 1-2-3 classroom, with 20 or so other children. One of them has Down’s syndrome, another has a severe learning disability, and the entire clump of kids in grade one are very not-school-ready little boys who clearly would be much happier running around than sitting [...]

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Her Own Agenda

Going to school hasn’t seemed to diminish Jay’s desire to learn the things she wants to learn. She just has less time in which to do it. From the moment she crashes through the door after school lets out until she’s tucked into her bed at night she’s on a relentless quest for data. Sometimes [...]

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My Poor Garden….

….completely abandoned this summer. I lost all interest in it what with my obsessive, desperate fight for you-know-what, and now that September is knee-deep in leaves, I’ve been looking out the window at the weedy, shambly, out-of-control mess, and feeling despair. In a fitting sort of symbolism, the tomato harvest was ruined by an infestation [...]

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A Woman’s Voice

The Journey One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, Though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice- though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. “Mend my life!” each voice cried. But you didn’t stop. You knew what you had [...]

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This Sucks

I’ve been neglecting the blog a little lately, and I’ve taken very few photos, which is very unlike me. I just can’t seem to pick up the camera to take snaps of the daily action these days, with what’s been going on. Tomorrow I have to appear in court to defend my right to homeschool [...]

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Schools Are a Recent Invention

Why do we send our kids to school? Because we went to school. And we were sent to school because our parents themselves had been to school. It’s what we’re familiar with, it’s what’s expected, it’s what kids do. Children have to go to school because if they don’t, they won’t learn what they need [...]

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Letting Kids Learn

I’ve learned a lot while homeschooling my children, particularly this last year, when youngest son’s distaste for workbooks and learning assignments became very clear. He’s a lot like his mother in that he hates being told what to do, and hates anyone trying to teach him anything. He hated his one year in public school [...]

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The Queen of Knitting

The seven-year old is the only one in this family who knows how to knit. I think it’s great. It’s not often that the youngest gets to have sole ownership of a skill, and even though none of the other kids could care less that she could (potentially, but that’s a bit of a stretch [...]

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Why Would I Let Her Go to School?

Being the ardent supporter of homeschooling that I now am, I’ve confused a few people lately with my support of L in her decision to try grade 7 at public school. People around me know that I think L would be better served by being able to manage her own time and her own learning [...]

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Freedom to Learn

Here’s a link to a new blog written for Psychology Today by a professor of evolutionary and developmental psychology which intends to “explore the roles of play and exploration as the foundation of learning”. He presents evidence for the importance of child-directed activities in the development of self, and explains how traditional schooling may not [...]

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Learning All the Time

Further proof that I should just leave that kid to his own devices. It’s summer holidays, guitar lessons are over, and the guitar is completely off my radar screen. I could care less whether it gets played or not. I know that Tee said he was keen to take lessons again in September, and I [...]

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Report Cards

It’s that time of year again. June reports. The only legal requirement for homeschoolers in this province is to submit a detailed report card on each child twice yearly. I actually don’t mind writing them because I’m always pleasantly surprised at how much the kids have learned, how many topics they’ve covered, and how many [...]

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Summer Reading Program

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What ARE These Things?

The insect I know. It’s the larval form of a ladybug. But what is the spotted hard-shelled immobile creature? What on earth is that miniature albino zucchini that’s attached to the body of the cute green caterpillar? Here’s another view of it. Ignore my ragged cuticles and dirty, uncut fingernails. We found lots of elm [...]

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Our Newest Temporary Pets

Meet Curly and Flicker

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Our World Needs Original Thinkers

It does not behoove us in this day and age to raise conformists. The hope of the future depends on original solutions and unrestrained intellect like it never has before, and there is no way to create true thinkers other than trusting children to be in charge of their own learning. ~ Amy Spang ( [...]

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