momhomenurse

Hi

My name is Cathi and I have a 12ds(13 in August any suggestions on
Rite of Passage I saw you all talking about) and a 7dd. We have been
HSing in MD now for 6 years officially. We have decided to try more
unschooling but I'm not 100% sure how this works or if we can do it.
My concerns are that I am single, work 3 - 12hr shifs/wk and for the
last month and a half my children have done nothing and I mean
nothing even if I lock the T.V. all they do is sleep or fight. Now
my dd will draw and she gets P.E. with neighbors kids after school
hours but my ds is not motivated to do anything he might pu a book
but doesn't finish it part of this I know is his depression over his
father(visits maybe 1/mo). I'm hoping to join this oversight group in
my area to help prepare my s for high school.

Are there any good resouces of ideas for these age groups?
How do I motivate them?
How do I keep on track of their education?
How do I get them to finish what they start?
How do I get them started?
Any suggestions in discipline?

O.K. That's all I can think of right now
Thanks,
Cathi

[email protected]

In a message dated 5/25/03 11:51:45 AM, momhomenurse@... writes:

<< for the

last month and a half my children have done nothing and I mean

nothing even if I lock the T.V. >>

See if locking up the books and painting over the windows will help inspire
them to do something.

(Seriously, don't lock the TV. It's counter-productive.)

<<Now

my dd will draw and she gets P.E. with neighbors kids after school

hours...>>

She "gets P.E."? Understands it, or gets credit for it?

SOON you need to step away from the school in your head.
Maybe now.

<<I'm hoping to join this oversight group in

my area to help prepare my s for high school.>>

Is he going to go to public high school? The best preparation for that is
public mid-school or Junior High. Is that really your goal for your son To be
prepared for high school?

<<re there any good resouces of ideas for these age groups?

How do I motivate them?

How do I keep on track of their education?

How do I get them to finish what they start?

How do I get them started?

Any suggestions in discipline?>>

You need to read lots, but luckily there's lots already written and put where
you can get to it!

Here are some good starting places:

www.unschooling.com

sandradodd.com/deschooling

http://www.home-ed-magazine.com/HEM/194/jaunschooling.html

For some people the links below might work:

<A HREF="http://www.unschooling.com/">Unschooling.com</A>

<A HREF="http://sandradodd.com/deschooling">Deschooling for Parents, by
Sandra Dodd</A>

<A HREF="http://www.home-ed-magazine.com/HEM/194/jaunschooling.html">HEM -
July-August 2002</A>

momhomenurse

Sandra,

<<See if locking up the books and painting over the windows will help
inspire them to do something.
(Seriously, don't lock the TV. It's counter-productive.)>>

What I'm saying is that I know some unschoolers, some have been
for years some just started but either way these children for the
most part don't even touch the TV except if they are watching
something about what they are learning about. They have these
wonderful projects that I hear about, see and/or they present to our
group. I have asked the mothers and they say it's the child, not
them, asking to learn about whatever. Reverse Psychology haven't
tried that approach yet maybe it will work, my luck it'll backfire.


<<She "gets P.E."? Understands it, or gets credit for it?
SOON you need to step away from the school in your head. Maybe now.>>

"gets P.E."? in other words she moves her body, my son on the
other hand unless ordered will not move from the TV. When he does
it's usually for no more than 1/2 hour and he's back again "Nobody's
home, They had to leave, Can I/We play PS here/his house, Nobody
wants to play w/me..."

<<Is he going to go to public high school? The best preparation for
that is public mid-school or Junior High. Is that really your goal
for your son To be prepared for high school?>>

No public school is not our goal in fact my family has been on
me the last few months about a diploma, SAT's, College... I have been
trying to gather information to satisfy them but they don't
understand HSing. My son was in K and that was enough for him. 2 of
his HSing friends are going to Middle and HS this fall he's upset but
informs me that NO I DON'T WANT TO GO BACK!.(dd wants to)
The oversight I refer to helps the parents and child to put what has
been done in a "portfolio" to
present to a high school if that is what you want or a college. At
the end of the year that have a graduation ceremony with diploma...if
that is what the family wants to do.


Thank-you for the resouces I'm going to get on them right away.

Cathi
momhomenurse@...

[email protected]

In a message dated 5/27/03 5:46:37 AM, momhomenurse@... writes:

<< I know some unschoolers, some have been

for years some just started but either way these children for the

most part don't even touch the TV except if they are watching

something about what they are learning about. >>

How will they know "what they are learning about" until it presents itself?
I think you mean they only turned the TV on if a program had been listed that
was a resource for an academic subject they had on their list to study.

That's not unschooling at its wild and vibrant best.

Just accidently, Marty came upon a PBS show on Viking ships and how they're
dated. It was wonderful! Sunday morning when I was the only one here, I had
something on the DVD player for noise, and I was in the next room. My show
ended, the TV kicked in and there was that Viking ship show again, so I got to
hear the good parts as review. Marty learned a ton. I've cared about those
ships for years, and still learned some things I didn't know at all, because they
were new things, new archeological finds.

<<They have these

wonderful projects that I hear about, see and/or they present to our

group. I have asked the mothers and they say it's the child, not

them, asking to learn about whatever. >>

My kids don't ask to learn. They just learn. They will ask questions when
they need help, but they come across things and the second they're discovering
what it is they have heard, opened, read, seen, they learn about that thing.
They either move toward it (stay, explore) or they move away (smaller
interest, busy), but they know then more than they knew AND they know where to find
more.

<< Reverse Psychology haven't

tried that approach yet maybe it will work, my luck it'll backfire. >>

Don't try tricks. Just make them a rich nest of input and love them and BE
with them, talk to them, sing with them, make sure they have new things to
touch/see/hear/taste/smell and they will learn.

<<

"gets P.E."? in other words she moves her body, my son on the

other hand unless ordered will not move from the TV. >>

You mean she plays? Runs? Dances? Swings? Slides? Rides bikes?

Think of those things as what they are. They have their own real names,
because they're real things. They're not "P.E." (For the foreigners on the list,
that's the school abbreviation for "physical education.")

<<my son on the

other hand unless ordered will not move from the TV. When he does

it's usually for no more than 1/2 hour and he's back again "Nobody's

home, They had to leave, Can I/We play PS here/his house, Nobody

wants to play w/me..." >>

Maybe you could take your son for a long walk, a hike in the hills, a bike
ride, or get a new dog toy and take your dog to play. Maybe he'd like to take
an intro ice skating class to see if he likes that, or tennis. Why should it
be HIS job or the neighbor's job to find something interesting that's physical?
If you're going to take responsibility for your children's learning in a way
that will satisfy compulsory education laws, that is YOUR job. And if you
do your job in a way that makes him want to be with you and makes him feel he's
having fun, not "doing P.E." by the clock, things will go better ten ways,
right then.

I don't know whether I listed these before, but maybe for the benefit of
anyone who joined the list over the weekend, here are some things you might want
to read:

http://sandradodd.com/deschooling

Read the (short, easy, painless) article there, and follow some of the links,
too.

Sandra

[email protected]

This might be a better illustration for what I was trying to say about
learning from whatever people touch or see. Though it's promoting books (because
of the topic), similar information can be found in stores, video rental shops,
museums, other people's yards... anything they see or ask about or overhear
builds more mental connections!


Home Education Magazine - November-December 1998 - Columns


------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unschooling - Triviality: Textbooks For Unschoolers

Sandra Dodd


"So you don't use books?"

Like fingernails on a chalkboard (something my children might never
experience) that question breaks into a calm day from time to time. By books many
people mean school-style text books designed for one subject area, one school
year, one level. They mean school books.

Even when I know they mean school books I say, "Yes, we use lots of books."
By then, my nervous system has relaxed from the unexpected screech of the
realization that some people think that unchoolers somehow have houses devoid of
books.

School-trained adults (like me) have developed an internal school year, and
in the fall we might pine for school supplies and new books. I have a
suggestion for new unschoolers who feel the book-buying imperative coming upon them,
or for experienced unschoolers who have been given money for "supplies" or
whose relatives want ideas about what to buy. The good news is there are hundreds
of these books. The better news is you can find them used almost anywhere.

I'm talking about collections of trivia. These are gold and diamond mines
for unschooling. I'll name some books we've played with to good advantage, but
there are many out there at used book stores and garage sales, or on the
shelves of your friends and relatives, and probably some right under your nose.

I have a few personal favorites the kids haven't yet discovered: The Voice
of the Middle Ages in Letters, Royal Anecdotes and Eyewitness to History. Some
people might be "tsking" at this moment that those are not trivia books, but
they are! They are snippets of the best parts of some obscure situations about
which a whole book or chapter might never be written. They're books about real
things and people and places, but they don't have to be read from beginning
to end. In fact, there's no reason to read the whole book. It makes more sense
to flip through, open randomly, play with the index. Mine are all filled with
sticky notes, marginal marks, and folded corners.

Then there are things to read to children at odd moments, when they're
eating, when we're sitting in waiting rooms, driving in the van, or reading someone
to sleep. How to Do Just About Anything, published by Reader's Digest, has
been a guessing game on van trips. I start reading the instructions for making
or doing, and the kids and my husband shout out guesses, getting progressively
closer until they know, and I start another one. Sometimes they want me to
finish what I was reading even though they've guessed. Shish kebabs, short
circuits and shower curtains are all on one page! Now that's educational.

Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable has snippets from songs, stories,
riddles, mythology, and literary references which came into public use with a
vengeance. Their entry for Nine Man's Morris has the game board illustrated, with
instructions for play. The "Whitsun Morris Dance" mentioned in Henry V can be
illuminated for your whole family with this book, as can a few thousand other
common linguistic details of everyday life.

So what is trivia, then? For school kids, trivia is (by definition) a waste
of time. It's something that will not be on the test. It's "extra" stuff. For
unschoolers, though, in the wide new world in which everything counts, there
can be no trivia in that sense. If news of the existence of sachets ties in
with what one learned of medieval plagues in Extraordinary Endings of Practically
Everything and Everybody, there are two pointers which tie microbiology to
European cities in the Middle Ages, and lead to paradise-guaranteed pilgrimages
to Rome. Nowadays sanitation and antibiotics keep the plague from "spreading
like the plague." [Note: Extraordinary Endings... and Extraordinary
Beginnings... might not be suitable for young children who read well. Read-aloud can
avoid some topics that might not be ideal for pre- teens.]

Looking around my office for another book to name, I see Fowler's Modern
English Usage. Trivia!? Well if there isn't going to be a test, the history of
the word "paraphernalia" is as interesting as the death of Billy the Kid. There
are minotaurs and griffins in there , just for flipping through!

The edition of The New York Public Library Desk Reference we have might be a
little outdated, but the rules of ice hockey haven't changed, nor the way in
which one addresses a letter to the Pope, nor the date of the discovery of
Krypton. (Some of you thought it was just a Superman thing, didn't you?
Nope--1898, the year before aspirin.)

We have a quiz book on New Mexico. You can find one for your state too. We
challenge our adults friends in front of the kids and the kids can't wait to
know enough to play. I won dessert at a restaurant once knowing how many
counties there were and the kids were in awe.

Stephen Biesty's cross-sections books, David MacCaulay's The Way Things
Work, any "What to Do With the Kids..." kinds of books, question/answer books like
The Star Wars Question and Answer Book about Space, all will fill your kids
with more questions than they had before they opened the books. This is good.
This is not school-good, but it's unschooling-good. Parents don't have to know
the answers, they just need to be on the lookout for a source to come along.

Doing the Days might be a good intro book for those afraid to embark upon
the sea of trivia. (Look up the history of the word "embark." Any word history
book will enthrall your whole family.) It's a set of activities divided by days
of the year, designed to encourage thinking and doing in children. I never
pay attention to the dates, much, just mine it for trivia!

2201 Fascinating Facts is well worth the dollar I paid for it, and The Book
of Fascinating Facts by Encyclopaedia Britannica is worth the whole $13 I paid
for it on sale at Toys 'R Us because it has over 350 pages of colored
pictures. Life-size photo of a human stomach, a 1930's typewriter with the paper half
typed and legible in it, and singing cowboys. Every one of those leads us to
pull out another book, or a record, or to go dig in the garage.

Visual dictionaries, books of birds, mammals, local flora, the dictionary,
encyclopedia, atlas, almanac--these books can be used by the hour or by the
half minute. There is no time wasted when children are thinking, asking
questions, fitting new information with what they already have, and all the while
smiling and laughing. Have fun!

© 1998, Sandra Dodd

[email protected]

In a message dated 5/27/2003 10:40:02 AM Central Daylight Time,
SandraDodd@... writes:

> Unschooling - Triviality: Textbooks For Unschoolers
>

Saving this article to ponder over later. Thanks for posting it!
Amy Kagey
Email me for a list
of used homeschooling books!


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

[email protected]

In a message dated 5/27/2003 10:23:11 AM Central Standard Time,
SandraDodd@... writes:


> Just accidently, Marty came upon a PBS show on Viking ships and how they're
>
> dated.

That show caused a whole Knight and castle thing in this house and my two are
3 and 4! It was knights, then vikings and tonight's show is about
gladiators! How exciting.

Evil mom, letting her kids snuggle in her bed past 9 p.m. watching PBS...

Elizabeth


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

Julie Solich

Sandra, this is great. Could I please put it in my next newsletter?

Julie
Home Education Magazine - November-December 1998 - Columns


------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unschooling - Triviality: Textbooks For Unschoolers

Sandra Dodd


"So you don't use books?"

Like fingernails on a chalkboard (something my children might never
experience) that question breaks into a calm day from time to time. By books many
people mean school-style text books designed for one subject area, one school
year, one level. They mean school books.

Even when I know they mean school books I say, "Yes, we use lots of books."
By then, my nervous system has relaxed from the unexpected screech of the
realization that some people think that unchoolers somehow have houses devoid of
books.

School-trained adults (like me) have developed an internal school year, and
in the fall we might pine for school supplies and new books. I have a
suggestion for new unschoolers who feel the book-buying imperative coming upon them,
or for experienced unschoolers who have been given money for "supplies" or
whose relatives want ideas about what to buy. The good news is there are hundreds
of these books. The better news is you can find them used almost anywhere.

I'm talking about collections of trivia. These are gold and diamond mines
for unschooling. I'll name some books we've played with to good advantage, but
there are many out there at used book stores and garage sales, or on the
shelves of your friends and relatives, and probably some right under your nose.

I have a few personal favorites the kids haven't yet discovered: The Voice
of the Middle Ages in Letters, Royal Anecdotes and Eyewitness to History. Some
people might be "tsking" at this moment that those are not trivia books, but
they are! They are snippets of the best parts of some obscure situations about
which a whole book or chapter might never be written. They're books about real
things and people and places, but they don't have to be read from beginning
to end. In fact, there's no reason to read the whole book. It makes more sense
to flip through, open randomly, play with the index. Mine are all filled with
sticky notes, marginal marks, and folded corners.

Then there are things to read to children at odd moments, when they're
eating, when we're sitting in waiting rooms, driving in the van, or reading someone
to sleep. How to Do Just About Anything, published by Reader's Digest, has
been a guessing game on van trips. I start reading the instructions for making
or doing, and the kids and my husband shout out guesses, getting progressively
closer until they know, and I start another one. Sometimes they want me to
finish what I was reading even though they've guessed. Shish kebabs, short
circuits and shower curtains are all on one page! Now that's educational.

Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable has snippets from songs, stories,
riddles, mythology, and literary references which came into public use with a
vengeance. Their entry for Nine Man's Morris has the game board illustrated, with
instructions for play. The "Whitsun Morris Dance" mentioned in Henry V can be
illuminated for your whole family with this book, as can a few thousand other
common linguistic details of everyday life.

So what is trivia, then? For school kids, trivia is (by definition) a waste
of time. It's something that will not be on the test. It's "extra" stuff. For
unschoolers, though, in the wide new world in which everything counts, there
can be no trivia in that sense. If news of the existence of sachets ties in
with what one learned of medieval plagues in Extraordinary Endings of Practically
Everything and Everybody, there are two pointers which tie microbiology to
European cities in the Middle Ages, and lead to paradise-guaranteed pilgrimages
to Rome. Nowadays sanitation and antibiotics keep the plague from "spreading
like the plague." [Note: Extraordinary Endings... and Extraordinary
Beginnings... might not be suitable for young children who read well. Read-aloud can
avoid some topics that might not be ideal for pre- teens.]

Looking around my office for another book to name, I see Fowler's Modern
English Usage. Trivia!? Well if there isn't going to be a test, the history of
the word "paraphernalia" is as interesting as the death of Billy the Kid. There
are minotaurs and griffins in there , just for flipping through!

The edition of The New York Public Library Desk Reference we have might be a
little outdated, but the rules of ice hockey haven't changed, nor the way in
which one addresses a letter to the Pope, nor the date of the discovery of
Krypton. (Some of you thought it was just a Superman thing, didn't you?
Nope--1898, the year before aspirin.)

We have a quiz book on New Mexico. You can find one for your state too. We
challenge our adults friends in front of the kids and the kids can't wait to
know enough to play. I won dessert at a restaurant once knowing how many
counties there were and the kids were in awe.

Stephen Biesty's cross-sections books, David MacCaulay's The Way Things
Work, any "What to Do With the Kids..." kinds of books, question/answer books like
The Star Wars Question and Answer Book about Space, all will fill your kids
with more questions than they had before they opened the books. This is good.
This is not school-good, but it's unschooling-good. Parents don't have to know
the answers, they just need to be on the lookout for a source to come along.

Doing the Days might be a good intro book for those afraid to embark upon
the sea of trivia. (Look up the history of the word "embark." Any word history
book will enthrall your whole family.) It's a set of activities divided by days
of the year, designed to encourage thinking and doing in children. I never
pay attention to the dates, much, just mine it for trivia!

2201 Fascinating Facts is well worth the dollar I paid for it, and The Book
of Fascinating Facts by Encyclopaedia Britannica is worth the whole $13 I paid
for it on sale at Toys 'R Us because it has over 350 pages of colored
pictures. Life-size photo of a human stomach, a 1930's typewriter with the paper half
typed and legible in it, and singing cowboys. Every one of those leads us to
pull out another book, or a record, or to go dig in the garage.

Visual dictionaries, books of birds, mammals, local flora, the dictionary,
encyclopedia, atlas, almanac--these books can be used by the hour or by the
half minute. There is no time wasted when children are thinking, asking
questions, fitting new information with what they already have, and all the while
smiling and laughing. Have fun!

© 1998, Sandra Dodd




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[email protected]

In a message dated 5/27/03 11:35:40 PM, mjsolich@... writes:

<< Sandra, this is great. Could I please put it in my next newsletter?


Julie >>

Yes! And if it's too expensive, you don't have to send me a copy, though I
really enjoyed getting the one I DID get, and put it in its little file folder
lovingly. So if you CAN send a copy of the newsletter I'd really appreciate
it.

Sandra

Julie Solich

:

<< Sandra, this is great. Could I please put it in my next newsletter?


Julie >>

Yes! And if it's too expensive, you don't have to send me a copy, though I
really enjoyed getting the one I DID get, and put it in its little file folder
lovingly. So if you CAN send a copy of the newsletter I'd really appreciate
it.

Sandra

It's no problem to send you a copy. I'd be glad too!
Julie


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[email protected]

In a message dated 5/29/2003 12:25:03 AM Central Daylight Time,
mjsolich@... writes:

> Sandra, this is great. Could I please put it in my next newsletter?
>

So what is the name of your newsletter??
Amy Kagey
Email me for a list
of used homeschooling books!


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

Julie Solich

> Sandra, this is great. Could I please put it in my next newsletter?
>

So what is the name of your newsletter??
Amy Kagey
Email me for a list
of used homeschooling books!

It's a newsletter I produce for my homeschooling community. I've been doing it for a few years. The name is gastfreundschaft. German name for an Australian newsletter, a little confusing I know!

I read a book a while ago by Henri Nouwen, a Dutch priest and part of the book was about hospitality. He wrote about friendship and seeing it as a safe place we create where people can come and be free to be themselves, to be accepted and ministered to while they have need. A friendship that doesn't try to possess but will allow them to come and go in our lives.

Gastfreundschaft is the German word for hospitality and a german friend explained that it is the opening up of your home to someone and treating them not only as an honoured guest but as a part of the family. An all I have is yours kind of attitude.

So I guess I wanted the newsletter to be that for my homeschooling friends.

Sorry, rather long winded explanation but it's a pretty weird name!

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



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