Here are 15 unusual ideas or websites to check out with Thanksgiving in mind. If you live outside the US, you can use this tweak these ideas a bit to celebrate your own county’s or religion’s version of Thanksgiving. On this list you won’t find the usual Thanksgiving crafts and ideas. Not that those aren’t…
Tag: planning
Interest-Led Sharing: Mining the Rich Resources of Your Homeschooling Community
A few weeks ago my children and I were privileged to take a tour of a local farm. Almost always when you sign up to take a tour, you’re required to pay a field trip fee. Then you’re usually restricted what you can do on the tour, either because the group is too large for…
Living & Learning – Tips for Including Your Young Child in Your Daily Life Part 2
Last Saturday I started a post where I shared tips for including your young child in your daily life. To read the first part CLICK HERE Now on to Part 2 3. Task – Doing the laundry. * Categorizing and separating clothes into separate piles *working together to load the washer and dryer *folding…
Learning through Living – Tips for Including Your Young Child in Your Daily Life Part 1
Young children learn by doing. Actually, we all learn best by doing- it’s the best way to create the neural pathways in our brain that allows learning to really “stick.” But, young children especially need a lot of time to use all their senses in learning. Young children also want to do real things. I…
15 Unschooling & Interest-Led Learning Travelling Families You Should Get to Know
To wrap up my September travel series, I’d like to pay homage to some of the many blogs and websites by travelling unschoolers & interest-led learners who have inspired me to pursue even greater adventures. They’ve shown me how travel can make learning richer and deeper. They’ve taught me to go outside my comfort zone. …
10 Resources to Help You Plan Your Next Interest-Led Trip
My family loves to travel. We travel as often as we can. For us travel is a way to learn more about our current interests and discover new interests, too. The next time you’re planning a trip you can easily go to your local bookstore and check out the latest edition of Fodor or Lonely…
An Untraditional Unit Study
When I was first introduced to the concept of unit studies, it really appealed to me. Even as a public school teacher I could never understand spending 45 minutes reading a book, then the next 45 minutes learning history totally unrelated to the literature we’d just read. Then it was crazy to be whisked off…
Why Lesson Plans Don’t Work Part 2
When I wrote last week about why lesson plans don’t work, I realized this position would be a bit controversial since almost all schools, including many homeschooling families, rely on lesson plans. But I feel it’s important to get the message out that most learning doesn’t need to be strictly pre-planned; in fact, in most…
Why Lesson Plans Don’t Work
When I was a teacher I was required to keep lesson plans-detailed lesson plans that outlined every page we would read, every writing assignment I’d give to the kids and every new vocabulary word we’d learn that week. In theory, this seems smart, right? It’s a good thing to plan ahead for what you want…
The Power of the Mini Adventure
Many people live a standard, routine life. They pretty much know when they’ll get up, what they’ll be doing every day, and about what time they’ll go to sleep each night. Once in a while they’ll celebrate a holiday or birthday, or plan for a week trip, but otherwise their lives are familiar, predictable, and…