from Tyra

Hi everyone. We are new to the list. We have two boys in early elementary
age. I'd really like to make this unschooling/delight directed
philosophie(s) work, but I'm really struggling with the ...concept I guess
or the guilt maybe of not doing "anything". Can you tell me what you did
today?

Can you tell me your definition of unschooling? Do you use any workbook at
all or is that what unschooling is all about?

Right now my oldest just wants to read his Garfield comic books or watch TV
or listen to the radio or play on the computer or go sledding. ANYTHING,
but "school". So I thought, well maybe he's stressed by the workbooks, so we
cut some out of our day. No change in him. Sometimes I think he's just
taking this being home thing for granted and needs a dose of what it could
be like!

Anyone have any tips?

(`'·.¸(`'·.¸ ¸.·'´)¸.·'´)
«´¨`·..* Tyra *..·´¨`»
(¸.·'(¸.·'´ `'·.¸)`'·.¸)

[email protected]

In a message dated 2/6/03 1:42:01 PM, mtwalte@... writes:

<< I'd really like to make this unschooling/delight directed

philosophie(s) work, but I'm really struggling with the ...concept I guess>>

If somewhere in your life your sons are supposed to "do school" (instead of
sledding, read his Garfield comic books or watch TV

or listen to the radio or play on the computer) then you're not unschooling.

Workbooks aren't unschooling materials.

That said, my daughter finished a workbook last week. But she started it
about five years ago, or maybe one of her brothers did. It was in box of
puzzle books, coloring books, and such. It was an Animaniacs 2nd grade math
book. She finished it, some pages in a more difficult way than the authors
intended, and all for fun, and just for her own amusement.

<<...or the guilt maybe of not doing "anything". >>

Until you think of "schoolwork" as the small nothing and the rest of life as
the big something, unschooling won't work.

You should be doing EVERYTHING with your children.
Not nothing.

<< Sometimes I think he's just

taking this being home thing for granted and needs a dose of what it could

be like!>>

Of what being home could be like you mean?
You should spend a few weeks finding out what being home can really be like!!
Find out how sweet and peaceful and funny and wonderful it can be at home
with your children and NO school thoughts whatsoever, just happy life and
lots of togetherness. When you get to that happy place, learning will just
fill up all the empty spaces entirely.

If they ARE being home, why wouldn't they "take that for granted"?
Do they take it for granted that they are your sons? Do they take for
granted that the sun will come up tomorrow? No problem! If it doesn't, we
can worry about that when it doesn't happen! <g>

<<Anyone have any tips?>>

Read here, and at www.unschooling.com, where people write about their days
every day.

Sandra

Betsy

**Can you tell me your definition of unschooling? Do you use any
workbook at all or is that what unschooling is all about?

Right now my oldest just wants to read his Garfield comic books or watch TV
or listen to the radio or play on the computer or go sledding. **


Hi, Tyra --

My son is 8 and a half. Reading comic books (incl. Garfield), riding
his scooter, watching TV and playing on the computer are the most common
things he does with his time. We also play with friends and have
interesting conversations about what we see or read. He doesn't do any
workbooks, and I don't ask him to. He has gained a lot of math practice
playing games, especially Monopoly.

It was fun to go to www.googlism.com and put "unschooling" in the search
field. I got a lot of partial definitions of unschooling, kind of like
one would find in a fortune cookie.

(I'm terrible at writing my own definitions.)

Betsy

Jodi

Tyra wrote:

> Hi everyone. We are new to the list. We have two boys in early elementary
> age. I'd really like to make this unschooling/delight directed
> philosophie(s) work, but I'm really struggling with the ...concept I guess
> or the guilt maybe of not doing "anything". Can you tell me what you did
> today?
>

We are new too and I still have days where I worry, they are getting less
now. Here is our day today.
I woke later than usual a little after 8:30. All four kids were playing
happily upstairs so I got on the computer to read emails while I ate my
bagel for breakfast. I had offered to do bagels for the kids but they had
already gotten their own breakfast of crackers, vegetarian cheese slices and
vegetarian baloney slices. Eventually all 4 kids made their way downstairs
and started batteries for their remote control cars charging.
Once downstairs the kids remembered there were still lots of balloons left
from Colin's 5th birthday on Tuesday. So then they blew some up and drew
faces on them or wrote words on them. Then they decided to make water
balloons. The oldest, Trevor age 8 1/2 was trying to figure out how much
water you could put in before it would pop, or why the air always went to
the top and the water to the bottom. Hayley-7 made a special balloon for
each of her brothers with drawings on them. Tristan-3 1/2 and Colin-newly 5
then went to watch TV while the older two continued the balloon game. Then
they were tossing the water balloons to each other and I got a little
worried about a flooded kitchen! The little guys watched Cailou and
something else then the big two came in when they heard Scooby doo start.
All four watched that show while I cooked dinner. We have our big meal
around 1:00 since DH works nights. DH woke up somewhere around then and
showered. Then we all had dinner and the kids did some creative food trading
and tried to get the puppy to play with their brussel sprouts and see if she
would eat one (some of them like brussel sprouts I wasn't being a mean
mummy!!!) The puppy did not eat a brussel sprout for anyone wondering :-).
After dinner the pattern blocks set was taken out by Hayley and she and the
younger boys played with that for about an hour. Trevor put charged
batteries back into remote control cars. Then they all played with Colin's
new remote control fire truck. It squirts water, which I did not know when
we bought it! I let them play with it in the kitchen and they made targets
to shoot the water at. Eventually all 4 made their way upstairs again and I
found them playing with a variety of toys. About 5:00 pm as I was
considering supper Colin asked if he could learn to use the toaster now that
he's 5. So I showed him how it works and he made bagels for all his
siblings. Tristan wanted something different so I got that for him and he
also shared my popcorn. The other 3 worked out how best to split Tristans
bagel. Then Trevor wanted 2 sandwiches as well, which I made for him. That
boy never stops eating. Everyone got drinks and younger three headed
upstairs to watch a video of Nick Jr. shows. Trevor stayed downstairs to
watch cyberchase and now he has spongebob on while I am reading emails.
We have used a variety of curriculum over the past 3 years, this year was
Bob Jones homesat. We are definetly de-schooling at the moment. My oldest
has SID/Aspergers and hates workbooks. It makes me cring to think I made him
do some before we came to unschooling. He is really blosoming now, he told
me the other day he counted to 1000 when he couldn't sleep one night (when
he had chicken pox last week) and then he counted to 500 by 5's and 10's!

Jodi

nellebelle

I usually get out of bed after Pat (dh) takes his shower. He makes me a
latte every morning and we sit at the table sharing the newspaper before he
leaves for work. Jackie got up before he left.

My kids called me to come see Julie Andrews on TV earlier today. She was
doing some sort of reading promotion. When it was over I commented that it
seemed strange to see all this stuff trying to convince parents to read to
their kids. I told them that I read to them because I like to read to them
and they like it too. Lisa (10) asked if she could read to me this morning
and what did I want her to read. I mentioned a couple of books, (fiction
and non-fiction). She read to me from a book about hamsters that I got
yesterday at the library. We got a hamster last week.

I went with her this morning for her petsitting job. We walked Woody, and
when he pooped, as he always does, I picked it up for her because she thinks
it's really gross and I told her that she should give me part of her money
since I do the poop scooping, (even though I thinks it's gross too, but I
guess we moms get sort of used to poopy jobs), anyway, the poop was steaming
in the cold air and I commented on that, which led to a conversation about
things in and coming out of our bodies are warm like our bodies.

I watched a baby Looney tunes cartoon with the kids. The babies all overate
cereal because the granny said they couldn't have the toys in the cereal
until the cereal was gone. They were all "punished" with terrible stomach
aches (lots of cartoon burping there) and the next day grammy fed them
oatmeal instead. There was a Trix cereal commercial and I said that I loved
Trix when I was a kid, but I don't like it anymore. The rabbit said "Trix
is for kids".

Jackie (7) asked me to listen to her sing a song on her karaoke. I told
her that I noticed the movements she made to go along with the lyrics and
she demonstrated a couple of them again.

Both kids made a bead design, the kind that you put little beads on a frame,
then iron it. Lisa made a heart shaped one with an "L" in the middle.
Jackie spelled LOVE and she is giving it to Daddy for Valentine's Day. She
had to redo the V and E because she didn't like the way they looked the
first time. Later, Jackie started another one, and asked me if Daddy knows
how to iron. I suspect that she is making it for me :-)

We had some homeschooling friends visit today. Jackie and Josie made
cookies. They also went skating, biking, and scootering. All the kids
played on the swing set for a while. Lisa and Sarah played with play dough,
then Sarah and her mom went off to the first day of Sarah's six session art
class. Lisa saw the neighbor walking three dogs and pushing a stroller and
went out to join her for a little while.

I made soup and bread. Lisa helped me braid the dough.

The neighbor girl came over and now she and Jackie are working on a 550
piece puzzle. We have had a puzzle going on a table in the corner of the
living room for about a month now. When we finish one, we leave it a day or
two, then take it down and start a new one.

Tonight we are sitting for Jackie's friend Edward for a couple of hours
while his mom is at the PTO meeting and Dad is at Karate. Jackie is very
happy that he will be coming over.

Mary Ellen

----- Original Message -----
> http://www.comicspage.com/looseparts/index.html
> If you read this after Thursday, go back to the 2/6 cartoon.
> The caption is "Marty discovers the Reading is FUNdamentalists."

Heidi <[email protected]>

Hi Tyra

I like that cool decoration in your sig line.

This is the day we had (I am just on the edges of unschooling, and my
kids are really more "deschooling" right now)

I got up at 5:30 and got some laundry started, then spent an hour or
so reading some John Taylor Gatto online, and writing in my journal.
Also, wrote a letter to my best friend and sent it, with the second
chapter in HER story, that I gave her for her b-day and am sending
one chapter at a time, to keep the suspense up.

Kids were up by 9:00ish. They slept in, because last night was a late
night for them. We stuck Jupiter back on the ceiling. It's heavy, and
the tape doesn't hold it very well anymore. Robby wanted to know if
Pluto was really smaller than Mercury in our model, and I assured him
it was.

I had the kids all bring their dirty clothes from their rooms into
the laundry room, and folded the whites while Katie (8) and I
watched "Fly Away Home" together. It hit me strongly, this time
around. The passion and vision of that father and that girl; the
courage of following their dreams. Hmm. Funny how things come into
your life that dovetail so amazingly with other things.

While we watched the movie, Robby was playing computer, and Abbie
studying some for the correspondence school we have her enrolled in.
She also figured out a couple of tunes on her Irish Flute. She's
trying to perfect the sharps and flats on that instrument.

After lunch, my hubby took Abbie to her drama class and Robby went
with them. He wanted to see if the library had computer games to
check out. He's reading Hardy Boys mysteries right now, and wants to
make sure he always has two at hand, but for some reason, not more
than two. the one he's reading, plus one right available for when he
finishes. He and I also talked about what he'd like to do that
involved math (I know, I know, it isn't unschooling to separate the
subjects out of life like that....I'm getting there, but I ain't
there yet) No, he doesn't want to do problems on paper. He'd rather
play Clue Finders or Operation Neptune on the computer.

Katie went outside to sled, and I read some more Gatto and talked to
a friend on the phone. straightened up the front room and dining
room. Sketched out a picture I'm thinking about. Katie, meanwhile,
was in and out. We listened to Hank the Cow Dog in Monkey Business
and laughed our heads off.

The rest of the family got home, and Dad took Robby with him, on some
more errands. "Boys' Evening Out." Abbie posted some on an online
LOTR forum and talked on the phone with a friend. Katie has some
candles lit in the middle of the table, for what purpose I'm not
sure...she tells me "to light it up in here." She's having a snack
and enjoying the candlelight.

Really, this has been more of a hanging out day. Not even a speck
busy. Just being home and doing whatever. Tomorrow, we ski. ack.
First time for the kids; first time in 25 years, for me! ack.

As for "tips." Even if unschooling was completely wacked out and
utter nonsense, to be avoided at all costs, I would advise,
especially if they've been in school...let them decompress for the
first year. Don't "do school" with them at all, but build the
relationship by just being with them and enjoying each other. Don't
worry about academics one bit, but just be with them. Do stuff
together. Spend time with each other.

peace, Heidi


--- In [email protected], "from Tyra" <mtwalte@p...>
wrote:
> Hi everyone. We are new to the list. We have two boys in early
elementary
> age. I'd really like to make this unschooling/delight directed
> philosophie(s) work, but I'm really struggling with the ...concept
I guess
> or the guilt maybe of not doing "anything". Can you tell me what
you did
> today?
>
> Can you tell me your definition of unschooling? Do you use any
workbook at
> all or is that what unschooling is all about?
>
> Right now my oldest just wants to read his Garfield comic books or
watch TV
> or listen to the radio or play on the computer or go sledding.
ANYTHING,
> but "school". So I thought, well maybe he's stressed by the
workbooks, so we
> cut some out of our day. No change in him. Sometimes I think he's
just
> taking this being home thing for granted and needs a dose of what
it could
> be like!
>
> Anyone have any tips?
>
> (`'·.¸(`'·.¸ ¸.·'´)¸.·'´)
> «´¨`·..* Tyra *..·´¨`»
> (¸.·'(¸.·'´ `'·.¸)`'·.¸)

[email protected]

In a message dated 2/6/03 6:47:11 PM, bunsofaluminum60@... writes:

<< Robby wanted to know if

Pluto was really smaller than Mercury in our model, and I assured him

it was.

>>

How did you assure him?
Would letting him measure them have been out of the question?
Could he do it at a distance somehow?

<< Katie (8) and I

watched "Fly Away Home" together.>>

That's a very cool movie for unschooling families. For anyone, I bet. But
there really is a lot there.

Sandra

kayb85 <[email protected]>

Can you tell me what you did
> today?

Well, last night Luke (3) woke up at 11:30 and couldn't go back to
sleep. (The attic door is in his room and he's been scared of the
attic lately). After laying in his bed with him for awhile it became
obvious that he was wide awake and wouldn't be falling asleep any
time soon. So we went downstairs, read 3 Clifford books, made blue
popcorn, and put on the Brave Little Toaster. I ended up sleeping
with him downstairs on the sofa bed so that he could fall asleep
watching the video. He didn't go to sleep until 2:30 am (which of
course means I didn't go to sleep until 2:30 am). I don't usually
sleep the greatest on the sofa bed, so when Alisha (9) came down at
8:30 and woke us up, Luke and I went upstairs to sleep in my bed
for "just a half hour". I asked her to wake me at 9 and she did, but
I got up at 10. :) Luke didn't get up until noon.

When I got up, I started cleaning the kitchen and diningroom right
away and made lunch. Two of their friends were coming over at noon
and Alisha had chosen a menu--brocolli with velveeta cheese on top,
tomato soup, and toasted cheese sandwiches. I put on the Horse
Whisperer on audio tape to listen to while I worked--audio tapes from
the library make cleaning more fun. :) And what do you know--Alisha
cleaned up the livingroom without even being asked! I was just going
to let the livingroom go, but she straightened it up and then got her
dolls out and lined them up on the couch.

While they were eating lunch, I got the mail. I had won an ebay
auction for computer games and they came today--Pajama Sam Not afraid
of the dark, Little Bear Rainy Day activities and Castle Creator.
After they ate they played computer games for quite awhile.

Luke asked me to play Presto Chango with him and Alisha joined in but
didn't finish the game because her friend asked her to play Mario
Party with her. Luke lost interest too and asked to go outside. We
played with sidewalk chalk, cleaned the windows with glass cleaner,
and (his idea) tried to chip away at the piles of icy snow on the
sidewalk.

Then Alisha and her friend came out and tried to go sledding in the
yard, but there's no snow left, only ice, and it was too uneven and
hard to go down smoothly. They got some tools and tried to chip away
at the ice to make it ok for sleds but gave up on that pretty
quickly.

Then they asked me to take them to a store for candy. They were
going to have some kind of club house or something and needed candy
for it for something. I took Alisha, Luke, and one of the friends to
the store. Matt (5) and the other friend stayed home on the
computers. While we were out I asked them what they wanted for
supper, and they all said, "Bonanza! (steak house with a good salad
bar)" So I came back home, picked up the other friend and went to
Bonanza(Matt and dh decided to stay home--dh doesn't like Bonanza and
Matt generally doesn't choose to leave the house very often)

We got home and the kids were just starting to set up cushions in the
livingroom to do gymnastics on when the friends' mom came and picked
them up.

Dh and I watched the Michael Jackson special while the kids played.
I was supposed to be taking Alisha and 3 friends snow tubing tomorrow
but cancelled (and will reschedule) because we're supposed to get up
to 5 inches tomorrow ('d be driving 2 hours in snow). On top of
that, the temp is supposed to be a high of 28 but feel like 14, so it
would be COLD outside!) So because we'll be staying home tomorrow
and because Luke has been having trouble sleeping in his room, the
kids and I laid out comforters and sleeping bags on the livingroom
floor to have a special sleepover in the livingroom. Alisha and I
played two games of Sorry. One played the normal way and one where
we each had two colors at the same time. Then we popped in a movie
called No More Baths--It is a great movie so far about kids who were
inspired by Martin Luther King to protest about an elderly friend
being forced off of his home. They protested by getting all the kids
in town to refuse to take baths. We were probably 3/4 of the way
through the movie when Luke fell asleep and the other two asked me to
turn it off so they could go to sleep.

After I got everyone drinks and hugs and sang goodnight songs, I
snuck off to the computer. It's 2:40 am and I'm sure tomorrow
morning I'll be sorry I stayed up so late!

Bill and Diane

>
>
>Can you tell me what you did today?
>

Yesterday we played with trains until about noon, then got everyone
dressed and went to Chuck E. Cheese's. We went for a drive in the snow,
then came back home and played with blocks.

>Can you tell me your definition of unschooling? Do you use any workbook at
>all or is that what unschooling is all about?
>

My kids occasionally play with workbooks, but they're not limited to
using them the way the manufacturer had in mind. Occasionally they'll
follow the directions on the page, but more often they do something else
with each page. But they do enjoy them occasionally.

>Right now my oldest just wants to read his Garfield comic books or watch TV
>or listen to the radio or play on the computer or go sledding. ANYTHING,
>but "school".
>

THAT is what we do! Anything BUT school! We play, and live joyously
(except this week, when I've been sick and not so joyous). I got a new
parka and hood so I can take my kids sledding, but now that we have snow
again, I'm too sick to take them. :-( Bleah!

> So I thought, well maybe he's stressed by the workbooks, so we
>cut some out of our day. No change in him. Sometimes I think he's just
>taking this being home thing for granted and needs a dose of what it could
>be like!
>
>Anyone have any tips?
>

Yeah, take the rest of the year off and have fun. Watch movies. Read
your son's comics. Go sledding. Take turns playing on the computer. Do
fun stuff--ANYTHING but schooly stuff.

>
>
> (`'·.¸(`'·.¸ ¸.·'´)¸.·'´)
> «´¨`·..* Tyra *..·´¨`»
> (¸.·'(¸.·'´ `'·.¸)`'·.¸)
>


:-) Diane

Angela

Well, I just wrote what we have been up to lately to another list and I
thought I would share it here too.

My girls are 6 and 8. My 6 yo is a an incredible story teller. I just got
her a cassette deck so she can tape her stories and I can type them at my
leisure. Some days she will dictate for 3 hours straight and it is very
hard on my brain and my hands trying to keep up with her talking. :0) The
first day I got the tape deck, I had only 1 90 minute tape for her to use
and she filled it that evening with 3 stories. Some of her books are 10
chapters long and she hopes to publish them one day. :0) Some days she
will write her stories by hand and they are wonderful, but not as long and
complicated as the stories she dictates because she can go much faster.

Both girls enjoy playing hangman lately. We can always find paper and a pen
in my purse and play while we are waiting in waiting rooms or whatever. We
have been doing words in certain categories, like horse related words.
Speaking of which, both girls are now taking horse back riding lessons and
are enjoying it very much.

Our recent favorite read alouds are by Bruce Coville books, esp. the Unicorn
Chronicles and the Magic Shop books. We are also enjoying Lemony Snicket's
books in the series "A Series of Unfortunate Events" tremendously. They are
wonderful books and they leave you hanging at the end of every chapter.

My 8 yo has been enjoying playing a dice game where we take turns and roll a
twenty sided die and add up the the rolls for our score. The first one to
200 or 300 wins. We have also been playing it as a subtraction game starting
at 300 and subtracting. The first one to get to zero wins. We got the
polyhedral dice for Christmas and she loves it. (which really surprised me!)
She has learned how to borrow and carry when adding on paper and actually
likes it. :0) The is amazing from my kids who hate work books and stuff
like that.

We still love playing all sorts of games and lately the ones we play the
most are Presto Change-o, PayDay, and Life. We also got Blink and Quiddler
for Christmas and have been enjoying those periodically, as well as
Zoombinis for the computer. The kids are pretty sick of the computer games
we have. They loved computer games until they got too school-ish. Both
like
to play Need for Speed though. (whoops! it is Midtown Madness, not need for
speed)

Hmmm, we go to the pool regularly as the girls and I love to swim. We are
getting tired of the cold and snow, but have done some skiing and
snowshoeing as well as sliding this winter. We have also watched quite a
few movies...Just watched "Walking With Prehistoric Beasts" today. That was
pretty cool.



Angela in Maine-unschooling@...
<http://userpages.prexar.com/rickshaw/>
http://userpages.prexar.com/rickshaw/

"What you are shouts so loudly in my ears I cannot hear what you say."
Emerson


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

Heidi <[email protected]>

--- In [email protected], SandraDodd@a... wrote:
>
> In a message dated 2/6/03 6:47:11 PM, bunsofaluminum60@h... writes:
>
> << Robby wanted to know if
>
> Pluto was really smaller than Mercury in our model, and I assured
him
>
> it was.
>
> >>
>
> How did you assure him?
> Would letting him measure them have been out of the question?
> Could he do it at a distance somehow?

Well, he measured and cut out all of the smaller planets, except
Mercury. He wanted Mercury to be brown, and we didn't have any brown
construction paper, so he got all the other small planets measured
and put in an envelope, and then took off to do something else. When
I got to it, I colored a piece of white paper, with a brown marker,
and cut Mercury out of that. He didn't get to measure Mercury, you
see.

Anyways, "I assured him it was" means, we took a look at both
planets, and Robby could see with the naked eye LOL the difference in
size. Pluto actually is a hole punch circle from black paper. If he'd
needed to, we could have put a chair under the planets and measured
them with a ruler, but he was satisfied.


>
> << Katie (8) and I
>
> watched "Fly Away Home" together.>>
>
> That's a very cool movie for unschooling families. For anyone, I
bet. But
> there really is a lot there.
>
> Sandra


You know what? I'm discovering the lack of passion and vision in my
own life. MOst certainly, I am laid back and not driven, so I'm not
going to go for it as intensely as a more choleric type...but "I
don't know what I want to be when I grow up", you know? Starting at
age 15, I haven't known what I wanted to do with my life, and I've
sort of drifted, like a piece of bleached wood in the surf. My life
is good, don't get me wrong, but I feel really unproductive, more a
consumer than a producer, and I don't like it. And I don't want my
kids' innate desire to live quelched by unnatural, inhuman methods. I
don't want them to think they have to play the game or jump through
the hoops in order to have a terrific life.

Gatto has helped me so much, to see that the very methodology in use
for "schooling" today, is inappropriate. I'm finding connections
between him and my favorite (conservative) Christian educator/authors
that just bring tears to my eyes. It's like, finding the connecting
ideas between authors of The Great Books: "Yeah! I've read this
somewhere else! He is clarifying this point, made in that book by
that author, by coming at the same idea from a different angle. But
it's the SAME IDEA!" That is very exciting. We are starting to pick
up on "how the Cranes are going to do it". I'm not wringing my hands,
wondering if we're doing it right; I'm searching and finding OUR way
of doing it.



peace, heidi