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September 21, 2011September 20, 2011

15 Interest-Led Learning Families You Should Get to Know

Unschooling blogs usually read like a diary. A peek into other people’s lives.  It’s not that you don’t get that peek in more traditional homeschooling blogs, but unschoolers tend to live unusual lives….and I like unusual!

You get to see what resources and materials they use in the context of their lives. You get to vicariously travel with them when they take trips away from home…and see how much learning takes place along the way. You can get a million ideas just from reading what they’re up to.

Interest-led learning families approach life in so many different ways. You can’t duplicate one family’s life exactly like you would a boxed curriculum. But you can read about their interests, and if they match some of your own, it’s a great way to get new ideas for resources or travel. They also will introduce you to new ideas and interests that might be something you’d like to try for yourself.

So, here are 15 Interest-led Learning families to check out. Have fun taking a peek into their lives. Don’t forget to keep a computer document or notebook nearby, though. You’ll get so many new ideas you won’t know what to do with them.  Enjoy!

 1. Teachable Moments  Jessica is a mom to two girls, ages 10 and 13 I believe, living in northeast USA. I love her passion and writing about the amazingly cool things her girls do.

 2. Ordinary Life Magic  I’ve been following Stephanie and her family for a few years now. Her family is very artistic, creative, inventive and imaginative. She shares lots and lots of ideas and resources. Check it out!

3. Sparkling Adventures   A nomadic family of six currently traveling around Australia.

4. Mom in Madison  Denise lives and learns with her husband, and two sons (ages 6 and 8) in Wisconsin. They truly live a lifestyle of learning and adventure.

5. Learning All the Time  Susan blogs about her family of four, including her 9 and 10 year old daughters. I’ve just followed this blog recently, but love Susan’s passion for living a lifestyle of learning.

6. An Untraditional Home  Heather blogs about her family’s untraditional approach to learning. She learns everyday with her husband and three children.  A great example how Christianity and unschooling can go together.

7. Unschooling Lifestyle  Sarah McGrath shares a wealth of information and resources on her site as well as plenty of stories and ideas from her own family’s adventures.

8.  Journey into Unschooling  Amida and her family, including three kids, live a wonderfully creative lifestyle. She shares tons of ideas about art, science and much, much more.

9. Ramblings of an Unschooling Family Think your unschooling family gets a little crazy with all your different interests pulling you in a hundred different directions?  Check out Laura, her husband and their 8 children!  Lots of lots of fun ideas here.  

10. SwissArmyWife  This is a relatively new blog for me, but I just love this family’s sense of adventure and their love of life and learning (they have 3 children).  A lot of great stuff here.

11. bonafidemama  An unschooling mom of three writes about their unschooling adventures, including what it is like to have one child who is a leukemia survivor.

12. OnBradstreet  Maine mom Amy writes about her whole-life unschooling family, including her 14 year old daughter and 12 year old son. She combines stories of their life with thoughts about unschooling. A great blog to follow.

13. Classroom Free  A mama of 5 blogs about living and learning in the UK.

15. Ninth Street East  Sam write an awesomely, creative blog about the learning adventures of her two kids ages 6 and 8. Lots of great, creative ideas here.

 Photo Credit: Insomnia

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Welcome!

Hi! I'm so happy to have you here. My name is Christina Pilkington. Those are my two wondeful children in the picture above (they're twins!). We daily live a life of passion, adventure and connections.

Our philosophy of learning is to dive into life and take in all that interests and amazes us, on our own time and in our own way. We're particularly interested in travel, community-based learning, and exploring the world.

You can read the rest of My Story here.

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