April 20th, 2013 § Comments Off on Minecraft Birthday Party § permalink
My son loves Minecraft…. No… He REALLY LOVES Minecraft.
My son Caleb, Calebii01 on Minecraft, plays multiplayer with several people around the country and they talk while they play via Skype. Most of his online friends he met on Unschooling Gamers.
On his 10th birthday, he was wishing we could invite all of his Skype Minecraft friends to his real birthday party.
Well…we couldn’t do that, but we could invite them to an online party on Minecraft. Â So that’s what we did. With Cake, fireworks and even Creepers. We did it up right!
On his birthday, we set a time and invited everyone that he knew that played Minecraft onto our Minecraft server. A couple of his friends from Portugal got to stay up late to participate.
His older brother had prepared ahead of time for the occasion. Following is the result of that party. Be sure and read the chats.
Minecraft User Names: Â I’m momcraft01. His Dad is Stacy_C. His brother is Camii01. My husband edited this down to a 4 minute video but the actual party lasted about an hour.
Caleb had such a great time and all of the kids that joined us said it was the best birthday party every.
Hope you enjoy. Have you had an inspirational idea for your kids birthday party? If you have, please tell me about it.
April 17th, 2013 § Comments Off on A Typical Unschooling Day § permalink
I’m often asked what a typical Unschooling day looks like. “If you aren’t doing school, what ARE you doing?”
The answer can be as vast and expansive and as deep as the ocean. There is no right answer to this question. There are no two unschooling families that do it the same. Â The Unschooling life is a shift in awareness. It’s more of a letting go than a doing. It’s a stream that moves and flows rather than a concrete solid truth. To me unschooling is about living in the moment and being grateful for all that IS right here and right now. It’s about having faith that we have the tools and the strength and the ingenuity to face whatever the future may hold for us.
We wake up each day with a sense of wonder and possibility. What connections might be made today? What obstacles might we have to climb over to find a gift? Where will our passions lead us and what new adventures will be brought to us through those passions?
I can tell you what we don’t do. We do not do worksheets, work with textbooks, force “educational” materials or coerce our children to do or be anything other than  who they are today. We don’t force bedtimes, certain foods, limit t.v. or computer time or force a lot of arbitrary rules upon our kids. We don’t subtely try to sneak in “educational” information to make sure our kids are “learning” something.
We live our lives through following what we like to do in any given moment. We learn through real life experience. Life is our learning pallet and we trust that each and every day learning is happening either on the computer, in the kitchen cooking together, working in the garden, watching documentaries, reading Harry Potter, camping in the backyard, cleaning the house together, taking walks, volunteering at an animal shelter, having conversations in the middle of the night, visiting museums, playing with friends, etc. We see what WANTS to happen in a day and we follow that with gusto.
Kids are always FINE with this. Even the most diligent student, if asked openly by a parent that has a willingness to really listen, will tell you that they would love to learn this way. We as parents are the ones that have to make that leap of faith. We have been indoctrinated to separate learning into compartmentalized subjects and have completely disassociated learning with life. Life teaches us reading. It teaches us math, history, science and much more as well. We simply have to engage with life.
As parents, we must stretch our eyes open – wake up to the world as it really is. The world is a miraculous place with so much to offer. Yes, bad things happen sometimes. But when our focus is directed to the wonder and preciousness of life, we see all that it has to teach us. Allowing our kids to learn this way helps them to retain that sense of wonder about the world and their innate ability to be curious.
So, our day might start at 12 p.m. because we stayed up late to look at the globe and find out where their new friend from skype lives.
It may start at 1 a.m., like the time we got up to watch the meteor shower in the backyard. We took snacks and blankets and a heater and laid down on the deck and watched the “show”.
Or it might start at 5 a.m. because we’ve decided to go on a trip.
The day may unfold into a game of monopoly or gardening or visiting the planetarium. We might spend a whole day playing Minecraft on the computer. I might be writing while the kids are orbiting around me with their conversations and silliness and laughter. However it unfolds, we are enjoying life and trusting that if something comes that we need to know, we will LEARN it and KNOW it like nobody’s business.
The learning happens in the living. The living starts NOW.
April 15th, 2013 § Comments Off on Class Dismissed – A Film About Learning Outside of the Classroom § permalink
I’m so excited about this film. In my opinion, we need more of them.
From what I’ve seen on the Class Dismissed trailers, website, and Facebook page, this film will clearly and eloquently explore the ideas behind modern day homeschooling and unschooling. The director, Jeremy Stuart, hopes that this film will help families delve deep within themselves and ask the question, “What does it mean to educate our children?” On the website, he expresses his desire to paint a picture of the current compulsory educational system and the alternatives to that form of schooling.
There are currently three trailers that you will find on their Facebook page. I have provide one of them here.
In my mind, this is a film that can change the way that people think about education. If you already homeschool or Unschool, please share with your Facebook friends, homeschool groups and neighbors. If you are new to the idea of homeschooling or unschooling, please approach this film with an open mind and heart. With every passing year, more and more concerns arise with the current form of mass education. I’m sure you’ve recognized this or you wouldn’t be reading here. I invite you all to share this film, start discussions about education and spread the word about the film and the alternatives to the status quo.
Following are links to the Class Dismissed website and Facebook page. Perhaps you will visit those and rally support behind the film in any fashion that feels comfortable to you. Together we can make a difference in the lives of our children. Together we can raise children who are curious about our world, who think outside of the box and can bring unique resolutions and ideas to the issues we face as human beings now and in the future.
April 10th, 2013 § Comments Off on Caleb has a Blog § permalink
Caleb working on his Blog.
Caleb, my 10 year old talkative, full of life, totally huggable youngest boy has started blogging!
I never would have guessed that blogging would bring him so much joy. He’s never liked to read or write much. He loves computer games so he’s familiar with the computer, but I’ve never seen him want to create so badly in his life! He shot out like a rocket yesterday wanting to take pictures and write about everything in sight.
THIS is unschooling in action. It’s so rewarding to watch the sparks that ignite in our children and watch them run with it like nobody’s business. No history of prodding from me about writing. No writing assignments. No forced reading. No forced grammar. No worksheets. He has never written a paper in his life, so I was surprised when he was able to get his thoughts down in such a comprehensable way. I shouldn’t be surprised though. This is how unschooling works.
We let our KIDS lead US. We allow them to follow what they love. We help them find avenues that will lead them to MORE. They trust in themselves. They trust us as their guides. They learn. With whatever it is that interests them at the moment.
Caleb was asking me about puncuation yesterday. I was telling him about periods, commas and question marks. He loved that and wanted to implement it into his writing!
I told him that in traditional grammar, we capitalize the first letter of a sentence and we capitalize proper nouns. He DIDN’T like this. He thought every word DESERVED to start with a capitol. So that’s what he did and I loved that he felt comfortable in making that decision. After all,  E.E. Cummings didn’t always follow traditional grammar rules. Jim Davis who wrote Garfield doesn’t use periods. So who am I, to force Caleb into changing it? I love that Caleb feels comfortable in making these kinds of decisions without regard to how it should be done. He knows how it’s most commonly done and for now has chosen to disregard it.
Caleb’s first blog post
Caleb has seen me working on my blog. He’s seen his dad work on his blog as well. Add to that we have a family photo website that he has always loved to visit. He’s watched us work on these things for years, but we’ve never told him he had to do it too. We’ve offered in the past, but he never showed an interest so we left it alone. My genious husband however, decided to buy web domains for everyone in the family years ago, just in case. So it was super easy to get Caleb up and running.
Where did all this inspiration come from? Well, he has another unschooling friend that lives in Michigan that writes a blog. When Caleb discovered this, he visited his friend’s blog and was enamored. I could see the wheels turning in his head, connecting dots and realizing that he too could start one of his own.
He has also recently been experimenting with photography. When he realized he could combine photography with blogging, he was thrilled. So with camera in hand he set out to take photos of his dogs which led him to write a blog post about them.
I posted his first blog post on Facebook and some of my awesome friends visited and commented. You would have thought it was Christmas morning when he saw those comments. He approved them right away and instinctively wanted to reply. “I want everyone to know I care about their comments,” he said.
He’s learned more about writing and grammar in the last two days of blogging than he could in a classroom for a year. Why? Because he sees the value in it. Because he is INTERESTED in what he is doing. The motivation comes from a place within him that wants to create and share with the world. He values expressing himself and wants to do it better each time. That, my friends, is where we want our kids to be. Happy, enjoying themselves, engaged with the world and yes…learning.
