Posted in Curriculum or Lack Thereof..., language arts on Oct 15th, 2011 9 Comments »
And still on a winter’s night, they say, when the wind is in the trees, When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas, When the road is a gypsy’s ribbon looping the purple moor, The highwayman comes riding– Riding–riding– The highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door. (That’s an excerpt from [...]
Posted in Curriculum or Lack Thereof..., Superboy's projects on Sep 5th, 2011 14 Comments »
I am glad to report that our move back into unschooling for Superboy was exactly the right move. He is once again enthusiastically pursuing projects of his own choosing, and impressing me daily with his capabilities. Anyone who has ever wondered what unschooling a teen looks like, here is one version. These are his subjects, [...]
Posted in Curriculum or Lack Thereof... on Aug 30th, 2011 9 Comments »
In a bit of a contrast to our public school friends and family, who are all aflutter with back-to-school hoopla, JBug and I will be slipping quietly into the year by spending the first few days with just a few fun projects. Because we are all ninja like that. The first thing she will be [...]
Posted in Curriculum or Lack Thereof... on Jul 16th, 2011 13 Comments »
Planning for JBug may be an exercise in perspective… But planning for Superboy is an exercise in letting go. THE GOOD Superboy has been unschooled, for the most part, since I pulled him from school in the third grade. Sure we’ve done some awesome unit-studies, some cool notebooking, but it’s all been super-fun, child-led, and [...]
Posted in Curriculum or Lack Thereof..., JBug on Jul 12th, 2011 17 Comments »
Planning school for JBug is an exercise in perspective. As a parent it is sometimes hard for me to admit that my children have weaknesses. I mean, in my heart they are all perfect, right? But as JBug’s teacher…well…lets just say that those weaknesses make themselves all too obvious. She struggles to read, math is [...]
Posted in Curriculum or Lack Thereof... on Feb 7th, 2011 7 Comments »
and red, and blue, and green, and purple as well! JackJack had a lot of fun with this little color-mixing activity I set up for him. A bowl of snow, a snowflake-themed muffin mold, and some food coloring and he was busy spooning and droppering and mixing colors for quite some time! (hint: just as [...]
Posted in art, Curriculum or Lack Thereof..., JBug on Nov 5th, 2010 9 Comments »
JBug’s latest famous artist was Henri Rousseau. What a lot of fun he is to study! We found a really great book about him at our library: JBug really enjoyed this one with it’s gorgeous, richly-colored pictures! (fyi there are a couple of pictures that you may want to avoid for more sensitive kids: a [...]
Posted in Curriculum or Lack Thereof..., Random Ramblings on Oct 22nd, 2010 10 Comments »
I can’t believe we are finishing our tenth week of the school year! Wow! Time is flying by! I think it must be because things are going soooooo smoothly that the days just sort of flow on by, one after the other in a happy little chain. Which also must explain why I haven’t been [...]
Posted in Curriculum or Lack Thereof..., science, Superboy's projects on Sep 23rd, 2010 11 Comments »
A couple of weeks ago Superboy’s project for Caveman Chemistry was to make mead. Since this is a long-term project, I thought I’d share a little bit of the process so far. Mead is an ancient wine made not from grape juice, but honey. The first step was to make what is called the “wort,” [...]
Posted in Curriculum or Lack Thereof... on Sep 12th, 2010 4 Comments »
It happens, doesn’t it? Even the best laid plans, after a few weeks of *actual implementation* inevitably have some rough spots that need smoothing. It is week 5 for us and luckily this year things are going so well that Superboy’s schedule needs no changing at all and only minor adjustments are needed to JBug’s [...]
