polarbear48471

Hi, everyone!

Just wanted to check in and introduce myself. I'm a married mom to a
9 1/2 year old boy who hated public school. Although he is very
bright, he has sensory integration dysfunction issues (although MUCH
improved thru Integrative Manual Therapy and homeopathy/
naturopathy). He scored above average in every area tested on the
Terra Nova in 2nd grade, even a 99% in science, but he absolutely
couldn't stand a single thing about school and he began to get angry,
defiant, depressed, sad, hopeless, enraged...

So, we started unschooling in October of 2001, very loosely, I might
add, as I feel that my son, Dylan, is still decompressing to a
degree, and here we are in Feb., 2002! He is, once again, happy-go-
lucky, loving and generous, and he feels very sorry for every child
who must attend public school.

I'm attempting to utilize exciting and interactive software covering
core subject information, and he's recently discovered Calvin &
Hobbes, so we're now able to incorporate reading which he was
adamantly opposed to before he "found" Calvin!

Math being one of his most hated subjects, I was thrilled to find a
website www.naturalmath.com which sparked quite an interest in me,
although I found it cumbersome and difficult to read and understand,
at times.

*** I AM INTERESTED IN ANY INFORMATION YOU MAY HAVE REGARDING
INTEREACTIVE SOFTWARE, BOOKS, WORKBOOKS, TUTOR/MENTOR GUIDES,
MANIPULATIVES, OR ANYTHING ELSE REGARDING NATURAL MATH. Any info
would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! Freedompanther

Fetteroll

Welcome Freedompanther! :-)

on 2/15/02 11:22 PM, polarbear48471 at freedompanther@... wrote:

> So, we started unschooling in October of 2001, very loosely, I might
> add

People often mistake the word unschooling for homeschooling. Unschooling is
actually a philosophy of homeschooling, which by it's very definition is
loose! You can't get much looser than unschooling ;-) It gets defined
(rather inadequately) as child-led learning, natural learning, interest
driven learning.

As a general rule unschoolers don't divide the world into subjects. There's
just life :-) Though sometimes we share resources it may not be as much as
you'd like. We tend more towards discussing learning from life.

> *** I AM INTERESTED IN ANY INFORMATION YOU MAY HAVE REGARDING
> INTEREACTIVE SOFTWARE, BOOKS, WORKBOOKS, TUTOR/MENTOR GUIDES,
> MANIPULATIVES, OR ANYTHING ELSE REGARDING NATURAL MATH. Any info
> would be greatly appreciated.

You will probably find a great deal of useful stuff in The Complete
Homelearning Source Book by Rebecca Rupp

You can read about it at:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0609801090/o/qid=986983363/sr=8-2/ref
=aps_sr_b_1_2/107-2415050-0048564

Here's a list of math websites that have collected in my favorites that
sounded good when they were recommended.

Gnarly Math http://www.gnarlymath.com/
Math Stories http://www.mathstories.com/
Math Links http://www.col-ed.org/smcnws/msres/mathlinks.html
Math Mania http://members.aol.com/rmathmania/
Mathematical Fiction
http://math.cofc.edu/faculty/kasman/MATHFICT/Default.html
Absurd Math http://www.hrmvideo.com/abmath/
Funbrain Math Baseball
http://funbrain.lycos.com/cgi-bin/shtml.cgi?A1=../math/index.html
Math in the Movies http://world.std.com/~reinhold/mathmovies.html
Mega Math Resources http://members.aol.com/MrHLakeRiviera/megamath.html
Math Forum: Pascal's Triangle
http://forum.swarthmore.edu/workshops/usi/pascal/pascal.links.html

There is also some free downloadable software divided by age and subject and
computer at:

Kids Domain http://kidsdomain.com/down

Joyce

[email protected]

You're story sounds like mine. My son (who's 10) started attending an
unschool school in september and is still decompressing from public school.
He still has a hatred of anything academic, but he very much wants to learn
Japanese and any and all computer programming languages. He hates math too,
so the most I can get him to do is play games, but he is also responsible for
budgeting his own lunch money for the month(His school is in a city
neighborhood so he goes out to eat or goes to a 7-11 almost every day)

However, the fact that he has changed from being an angry, uptight,
worried little boy to a happy, thoughtful, curious , repsonsible and
self-confident 10 year old is amazing. Right now I don't care if he does any
academics this year, I'm glad that he has become this wonderful person.

Andrea


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

Lynda

An "unschool" school??? Sounds like an oxymoron to me.

Lynda
----- Original Message -----
From: <mom2dnb@...>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, February 16, 2002 10:33 PM
Subject: Re: [Unschooling-dotcom] JUST JOINED! What do you know about
NATURAL MATH???


>
> You're story sounds like mine. My son (who's 10) started attending
an
> unschool school in september and is still decompressing from public
school.
> He still has a hatred of anything academic, but he very much wants to
learn
> Japanese and any and all computer programming languages. He hates math
too,
> so the most I can get him to do is play games, but he is also responsible
for
> budgeting his own lunch money for the month(His school is in a city
> neighborhood so he goes out to eat or goes to a 7-11 almost every day)
>
> However, the fact that he has changed from being an angry, uptight,
> worried little boy to a happy, thoughtful, curious , repsonsible and
> self-confident 10 year old is amazing. Right now I don't care if he does
any
> academics this year, I'm glad that he has become this wonderful person.
>
> Andrea
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
> Message boards, timely articles, a free newsletter and more!
> Check it all out at: http://www.unschooling.com
>
> To unsubscribe, set preferences, or read archives:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Unschooling-dotcom
>
> Another great list sponsored by Home Education Magazine!
> http://www.home-ed-magazine.com
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>

Cindy

Lynda wrote:
>
> An "unschool" school??? Sounds like an oxymoron to me.
>

I would consider Sudbury Valley schools to be an unschool school.
Maybe it should be an unschooling institution though instead of
school. (And if that particular program actually follows the
Sudbury Valley model.)

--

Cindy Ferguson
crma@...