catmlkmom

Hi, I'm Cat. I'm a 26yo mom of 4 girls. Melissa is my only
one "officially" doing anything this year, she's 5 1/2 and in K.
Lydia is 4 1/2 and in pre-k, but she does K level work by her own
demand (very competitive child, she loves to try and keep up with her
sister in many areas and found that academics is the *only* way she
can do so because her mind is hardwired to process information more
logically than Melissa's is, that one is hardwired creatively like
me) I also have Kimberly, 3yo in January, and Jordan, 14 months old
(we call her JoJo). Yes, that is a lot of girls LOL Anyway, we
started last school year for Missy's pre-k year, and I listened to
the hype that we had to use a program for things and she had to be
doing x, y, and z by the end of that year, and it was a complete and
utter disaster for us until I packed up all the school stuff for us
to move over the summer. So I still have 3 boxes of schoolbooks and
materials still mostly unpacked in my garage LOL And I learned that
maybe unschooling isn't such a bad thing after all........... I've
been intrigued by the concept of unschooling for a while, and now
here I am pretty much doing it. Well, once I get myself deschooled
so that I'm not longer thinking that we have to compartmentalize what
schooling is (may take a while, I went through preschool and a few
years of college on top of public and private schooling- yes I did
both as a kid lol- for K-12)

So all that to say, Hi from Ohio! lol

Meredith

Hi, Cat, I'm Meredith mom and stepmom to Mo and Ray, respectively.
I'd have to look up what "grade" Mo's in, she's been unschooled from
the beginning (she's 7) and I rarely think about any of that hoo-haa
unless its time to fill out paperwork. She's happy and energetic and
seems to be on the go all day long.

I happen to know Ray's "high school age" bc the filing requirements
in our state change at that point... and it costs more. We do some
reporting to his bio mom, too, so periodically I have to think about
what Ray really does and translate all of that into "areas of
concentration" and "learning objectives" blah blah blah. He's been
homeschooled and gone to public school in the past, and radical
unschooling has been the absolute best! He's such a pleasure to live
with!

> So I still have 3 boxes of schoolbooks and
> materials still mostly unpacked in my garage

I used to have all sorts of "educational materials" I'd picked up
over the years. I still have some of the books - some older science
textbooks with really gorgeous illustrations, yummm. I hang on to
things that interest me, or I think one of the kids might want
someday - doesn't hurt to have stuff around after all. Have you read
this?

http://sandradodd.com/museum

Last spring, though, I noticed I was throwing away "math
manipulatives" - something I thought for sure I'd never do! But they
don't combine with any of our other building toys, and we'd lost a
bunch, so there didn't seem to be any reason to keep the things. It
was interesting to realize I'd gone from "omg, we Have to have These!
they're So Useful" to tossing them in the trash with the shells of
used felt-tip pens.

---Meredith (Mo 7, Ray 15)