Cyndi

Hi!
My oldest daughter (12) is really having a hard time connecting with
other at home kids in our area. She has plenty of social
interaction afternoon hours when she's in her perf. arts programs,
hanging out with kids after school hours, but would like to connect
with some at home peers. We get involved with some homeschool
groups activities, but since we are unschoolers, it's hard for my dd
to connect with other kids that are often SO regimented...she feels
very guarded when she discusses things like music, movies. In many
ways, she's found that she can relate to her public school peers
better socially...does this make sense at all?

Mind you, we don't have a lot of unschoolers in our area. And over
the course of time, we've come to question whether
some "unschoolers" really were unschooling when you find out that
they use book lists, curriculum, etc. and seem to really "guide"
their childrens' interests and activities. And I'm sure that some
of them see our "liberal" lifestyle as a possible "bad influence".
It's kind of funny, because when my daughters walk in the room, a
bunch of the kids get really excited and light up (they're fun to be
around!)...but then you see them get really guarded again around the
parents. The girls notice it, too and have kind of pointed it out
to me (like why do the kids act different around their moms?).

We talk a lot about how you can't look to just one "group" of people
to meet your needs socially, that you'll have friends, etc. that
you'll connect with in all walks of life. And my daughter does, in
fact, have quite an interesting assortment, especially the perf.
arts crowd :)! But understandably she would still like to make some
connections with other kids at home, even just to communicate on-
line.

Does anyone know of any safe place that unschooling kids can chat?
Is there a Yahoo group, pen-pal system, etc.? My dd has a lot of
penpals, but is starting to get frustrated with one line responses,
would love to have a good "e-conversation" with someone else,
similar to what we all do here! In fact, she said to me tonight
that it wasn't fair that there were so many places I could go for
unschooling support and no place for her! She's got a point...

Sorry if I seemed to be all over the place here, trying to play SIMS
with the dd and type at the same time is quite challenging!

Thanks,
Cyndi

Marjorie Kirk

My son is interested in doing computer animation, like Home Star Runner. He
already makes mini animated movies using kidpix slide shows, but wants to
more complex work. Can anyone recommend software for this? We looked into
Flash, but it's $500!

Thanks,
Marjorie

Kelli Traaseth

Cyndi, does your daughter do IMing?


I know my daughter(10) does this with kids she met at the Live and Learn Conference. There are a lot of teens that get together in a chat room every once in a while too. My dd doesn't talk much at the chat room, but they invite her in. She has a couple of friends that she does IM with a lot. It really helps her to feel connected. Most of her friends online are 12 or older.

Does she know of the www.unschooling.info and www.unschooling.com websites? There are teen areas at both of those sites too.

I'm sure my daughter would introduce her to some of these other unschooled teens if she wants to IM. Let me know. And Abbi, my dd, would probably like to talk with another unschooled friend too. I can ask her later, as she's sleeping now, a late night with her Sims 2 game. :)

Kelli~




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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Fetteroll

on 11/3/04 8:46 AM, Marjorie Kirk at mkirk@... wrote:

> My son is interested in doing computer animation, like Home Star Runner. He
> already makes mini animated movies using kidpix slide shows, but wants to
> more complex work. Can anyone recommend software for this? We looked into
> Flash, but it's $500!

Look into the student/homeschoolers discount! I think it's only $50 (it
might be more but not much more). I ordered directly from Macromedia website
and got the whole suite that includes Dreamweaver (for creating websites),
Flash, Fireworks (graphics program) and Freehand for $199.

And a good book is Sam's How to Use Macromedia Flash MX: Visually in Full
Color. It has lots of pictures and goes step by step.

Joyce

Marjorie Kirk

Joyce,

Thanks so much for the suggestions!


Marjorie

-----Original Message-----
From: Fetteroll [mailto:fetteroll@...]
Sent: Wednesday, November 03, 2004 2:59 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [UnschoolingDiscussion] Software fo Aanimation


on 11/3/04 8:46 AM, Marjorie Kirk at mkirk@... wrote:

> My son is interested in doing computer animation, like Home Star
> Runner. He already makes mini animated movies using kidpix slide
> shows, but wants to more complex work. Can anyone recommend software
> for this? We looked into Flash, but it's $500!

Look into the student/homeschoolers discount! I think it's only $50 (it
might be more but not much more). I ordered directly from Macromedia website
and got the whole suite that includes Dreamweaver (for creating websites),
Flash, Fireworks (graphics program) and Freehand for $199.

And a good book is Sam's How to Use Macromedia Flash MX: Visually in Full
Color. It has lots of pictures and goes step by step.

Joyce



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--- In [email protected], Kelli Traaseth
<kellitraas@y...> wrote:
> Cyndi, does your daughter do IMing?
>
> I know my daughter(10) does this with kids she met at the Live and
Learn Conference. There are a lot of teens that get together in a
chat room every once in a while too. My dd doesn't talk much at the
chat room, but they invite her in. She has a couple of friends
that she does IM with a lot. It really helps her to feel
connected. Most of her friends online are 12 or older.
>
> Does she know of the www.unschooling.info and www.unschooling.com
websites? There are teen areas at both of those sites too.
>
> I'm sure my daughter would introduce her to some of these other
unschooled teens if she wants to IM. Let me know. And Abbi, my
dd, would probably like to talk with another unschooled friend too.
I can ask her later, as she's sleeping now, a late night with her
Sims 2 game. :)
>
> Kelli~