It’s been a wonderful first week in our last rental home in California. We have one month in total here. It’s a beautiful home, with a lovely swimming pool, chickens in the garden, a great tree swing and in a friendly neighbourhood. A great place to finish up over a year of living in Santa […]
unschooling
Eight months into our first year of natural learning
I like the term ‘natural learning’, rather than ‘home schooling’ – as over the last eight months we’ve definitely been doing more natural learning than creating a school like environment in the home. I didn’t enter into this as a choice from the outset – but a reaction to my child’s anxiety at being in […]
Lyrical Sunday [Fool]: Am I a Fool?
As I waved Charlotte and her class off on the bus, after watching their cross country race at Karori Park, a child’s voice still rang in my ears… ‘Why is her other daughter not at school?’ And another child’s voice… ‘Does her mother not work?!’ ‘Who teaches her daughter?’ And I answered, ‘I do!’ with […]
Notes from our unschooling diary
We’re still finding our way as a family on this new path that our middle daughter is leading us on. We’re getting to know some really lovely families in the home-schooling community (though the word *school* doesn’t really work – as learning in a natural / home environment is very far removed from a school […]
Schooling & Unschooling: Our Week
A snapshot of our week, with one daughter at private school (her choice, our expense!), one being unschooled (her choice, our suffering/joy!), one toddler undertaking experiments in life under her own steam at home! In my life this week… I’ve had a rotten cold and the overwhelming feeling of tiredness and body cramps that comes […]
Things I’m Loving: Nature abound
It has been a week of celebrating the beauty of nature. ♥ Loved learning of New Zealand’s native trees and the amazing variety of different trees the world over. ♥ Loved identifying different tree species in our garden at home and in Wellington’s Botanical Garden with Sophie and Alice. Sophie worked so enthusiastically and wrote […]
Thing’s I’m Loving… Decision Made!
There’s been a niggling, nagging feeling for a while now that someone moved the cheese. We could have stayed and waited it out, to see if another delivery of the good stuff was going to arrive – but we probably would have got awfully hungry, lethargic, zoned out and depressed. From time to time life throws […]