Michelle/Melbrigða

Hey everyone! I need a little feedback from those of you that have
been to unschooling conferences and workshops and those that are just
so darn creative. We have a small "funschool" here in Pensacola that
we did started last year. We ended up with two classes that made it
for the whole year and that was dulcimer and drama. We had a
"gathering of minds" to come up with ideas for next year and was
disheartened with a lot of the ideas that were being brought up. They
were very, well, schooly. When I talked to the kids about what was
suggested they all rolled their eyes and expressed disinterest. This
was FUN last year and it looks very schoolish this year.
Unfortunately, we have lost quite a few of our unschooling families
because they dared to MOVE AWAY or the just DON'T COME anymore (you
know who you are! LOL!) Anyway, three of the parents that came to the
funschool planning meeting are more traditional homeschoolers. One
even has a child in a church run "co-op" which is nothing more than a
low cost private school. So the ideas being bantered around were very
schoolish-looking. So I talked with Rose (hi Rose) and I told her I
would post here for some ideas about FUNSHOPS. So, what funshops have
you or your kids done at conferences and other unschool get togethers
that we might be able to copy, borrow or steal?

Thanks in advance!

--
Michelle
aka Melbrigða
http://eventualknitting.blogspot.com
[email protected] - Homeschooling for the Medieval Recreationist

Deb

Playdough - the recipe with the cream of tartar and unsweetened kool
aid was really great; nice texture, smells good, cool colors,
didn't "bleed" color the way food coloring tends to

Found materials - for example, marshmallows and toothpicks,
cardboard tubes and yarn and glue; just have folks save up misc bits
(cardboard tubes; bits of foil - you know how that last bit of foil
in the package is *always* too small for whatever you want to wrap
LOL; oddments of yarn; craft sticks; markers, crayons, glue,
glitter, tuna cans (melt crayons and pour into tuna cans to make
really wild multi color fat crayons), fabric scraps, etc.) - can do
building, can do puppetry (maybe even produce a puppet show if drama
was popular), can make all sorts of crafts. Not totally a found
thing but if someone can pick up photosensitive paper (at a craft
store), you can go out and find leaves and rocks and flowers and
such and make "sun prints"

If you've got a kitchenette available, food is always good: soft
pretzels are fun and easy, for example. DS was in a "co-op" activity
a year or so ago that was "cooking science" where they explored how
yeast works and sugar crystals and whipped cream (which of course
once they made whipped cream they HAD TO have ice cream sundaes
lol), could also make butter to go with some fresh bread (depending
on the time you've got available). And so on. It was pretty cool
stuff and Tasty!

DH coordinated a chess club during that co-op time. No one was
required to play or anything (as if he would do that lol) but he
explained stuff for beginners, had chess puzzles (like from the
newspaper) available for more advanced kids, and for the last
meeting day he challenged the whole bunch - they could team up even
(2 or 3 kids per board) if they wanted to and he played several
simultaneous games at once - the kids thought that was fun and it
gave each group of kids a little time to consider moves as he moved
from board to board. So, maybe an open board game time would be fun -
I'm sure there are kids there who are tired of playing the same
games with their younger siblings over and over and would relish a
bit more of a challenge (or vice versa the little ones might like
playing with someone on their own skill level).

--Deb