Summer Unschoolers

As June nears and summer approaches, many parents are anticipating bright, outdoor days of unstructured play with their children.  Many homeschooling families who follow a curriculum during the year take the summer off from their studies, and some families with children in school choose to take a break from a busy school-year schedule with wide-open summer days.  Summer is also a time that many families experiment with the idea of homeschooling for the upcoming fall, trying to decide if a life without schooling fits their family's lifestyle. 

Whether families are "official" homeschoolers or not, summer is an extraordinary time to celebrate "unschooling," savoring the opportunity to live and learn together using the world as a dynamic classroom. 

Throughout the coming weeks, I will be writing blog posts about "an unschooling summer," highlighting the ways in which we can use these long, warm days to learn alongside our children.  Unschooling, by definition, doesn't follow any set criteria or learning methodology, but it can be helpful to point out the ways in which our summer surroundings continuously teach us, revealing just how much we can learn from our everyday lives with our children.

I would also love to hear from you, the "summer unschoolers," on how you plan to spend these next few months as a family, learning together in an open, unstructured, invigorating way.  What does summer unschooling look like for your family, and what tips can you share for other families choosing a slower, simpler summer schedule? 

I look forward to sharing your insights throughout the coming weeks, and offering tips for taking full advantage of your summer unschool!

An Unschooling Friday

This week, I have shared snapshots of our unschooling life and how we live and learn each day.  I hope to run this series again in a few months to show how our daily unschooling rhythms change with the seasons and with our children's expanding interests and knowledge.

In the dizzying pace of modern childhood, unschooling helps us to live more slowly, more simply, centering our time around family, community, and the natural world.  In a way, I suppose, unschooling is a lot like the summer vacations I recall as a child.  With a few weeks off from school each summer, and not enrolled in camps or classes, I spent magical days exploring with my mom, visiting with family and friends, roaming through woods and water, and captivated by my own imagination.  Unschooling is really like a never-ending summer vacation, fueled by our children's powerful creativity, ceaseless energy, and drive to learn and do.

This morning at the lake unfolded slowly and simply, with early morning fishing and rolling in the grass.  It was also low-tide at the nearby ocean beach, so we piled in the car to take advantage of the vast expanses of sandbars and sea creatures left behind by the retreating waves.

One of the great benefits of homeschooling for our family is the flexibility it allows for us to spend time with Daddy whenever he is able to manage some time off from his work.  He joined us on our beach trip, enthusiastically searching for crabs and snails and other sand critters.

Later during naptime, my five-year-old painted the shells she collected.

And once the little ones were in bed, she and Daddy went for an evening kayak ride. Slow and simple.

An Unschooling Thursday

This week, I am sharing glimpses of our "unschooling life" and how we live and learn each day.  Thanks for joining me!

 

Summer in New England is fleeting.  We're lucky if we get four full months of bright, warm, swimsuit weather.  Unschooling gives us the opportunity to take full advantage of this season, to soak in all that sunshine and warmth, and spend each beautiful day mostly outdoors.  In late-spring/summer, time in water and woods replaces our time spent at museums, and classes, and indoor playdates that fill most of our year.  These barefoot outdoor days are my favorite, so after my five-year-old's morning in-home piano lesson, some play time with neighbors who were off from school this morning, and a visit with Auntie and Uncle who entertained the children while I cooked and packed, we made the naptime drive to my family's summer cottage.

Most of the afternoon was spent in the water, surfing and splashing and enjoying a May swim day together with my parents, Nana and Bumpa.

A dinnertime canoe ride with Bumpa and an evening of outdoor dining and playing with grandparents rounded out this beautiful and fulfilling unschooling day.

I hope your Thursday was bright and enjoyable!

An Unschooling Wednesday

This week, I am sharing glimpses of our "unschooling life" and how we live and learn each day.  What does your homeschooling week look like?

2 A.M. sounds like a great time to be awake for a couple of hours, at least if you're a three-year-old, which also meant that my one-year-old wanted to join in on the fun (one of the admitted downsides to co-sleeping). As a result of the late-night party, the three of us "slept-in" to 7:30, while my five-year-old, asleep in another room, awoke at her usual earlier time. I must admit that waking up to the sight of her reading quietly on the living room couch made my late-night grouchies disappear.

Later in the morning, we walked through Harvard Yard, abuzz with preparations for tomorrow's Commencement.  I had some errands to run in Harvard Square and then we were planning to catch the bus to meet some homeschool friends at a park just out of town.

Bus delays and a potty emergency conspired to derail those plans, so instead we spent much of the day at one of our city playgrounds, where the sprinklers and water troughs have already been turned on for the summer.  Sand and water, sand and water... is there anything better for childhood play?

That's a nice thing about city homeschooling: if Plan A doesn't work out, Plan B is great too.... especially if it involves ice cream.

Hope you had a nice Wednesday!

An Unschooling Tuesday

This week, I thought I would share with you what our "unschooling life" looks like each day. I am not sure what the week will bring, but I *think* it will be fairly typical.  I hope it will offer a glimpse into how we live and learn each day.  What does your homeschooling week look like?

In my view, unschooling is fundamentally about two things: freedom and trust.  It's about the freedom to learn what, how, when and where we want, using our everyday world as our classroom, and it's about trusting our children, their innate curiosity, and the extraordinary ways in which they reveal to us their gifts and passions when allowed the freedom to do so. It's also about trusting ourselves as parents as we accept different, some may say radical, views about learning and education and childhood.

Boston College psychology professor and unschooling advocate, Peter Gray, writes in his blog, Freedom to Learn, that "unschoolers have a view of education that is 180 degrees different from that of our standard system of schooling. They believe that education is something that children (and people of all ages) do for themselves, not something done to them, and they believe that education is a normal part of all of life, not something separate from life that occurs at special times in special places."  

I think this definition fits perfectly with our view of unschooling as both a seamless and profound way of living and learning. Here are just some of the special places and special people we learned from and with today in our unschooling journey.

After breakfast with Pandora, (the children's folk station is my favorite but I try to vary the genres as much as possible), we read some books and prepared for a morning at our city's community art center drop-in studio.  I presented several options for how we could spend this rainy Tuesday morning, and the drop-in art studio, facilitated by a talented and energetic art instructor, won the vote.

We were fortunate to have Grammy with us this afternoon for her weekly visit, appreciated even more so today given the wet weather.  She always brings fun activities for the kids, like puzzles, crafts, or the latest issue of Highlights magazine.

Once the rain let up, we puddle-stomped our way to the library, where Grammy and my five-year-old enjoyed afternoon story-time with the librarian while the little guys and I puddle-stomped outside.

Family dinner, books and bed topped off our Tuesday.  

How was your day?

An Unschooling Monday

This week, I thought I would share with you what our "unschooling life" looks like each day. I am not sure what the week will bring, but I *think* it will be fairly typical.  I hope it will offer a glimpse into how we live and learn each day.  What does your homeschooling week look like?

Our Monday began with our weekly park day sponsored by one of our local homeschool groups.  Children of all ages invented games together, ran through the fields, climbed on the playground structures, and were immersed in childhood play.

After lunch, quiet time, and reading while my littlest one napped, my five-year-old painted in the small backyard of our condo building, and my three-year-old helped me to get a head-start on dinner preparations.

In the afternoon, my one-year-old awoke and we took a bike/scooter/sling ride to the nearby library grounds, with a stop at the children's room to stock up on library books.

Auntie and Uncle, who gratefully live just a few blocks away from us here in the city, joined us at the library park and returned home with us for a yummy family dinner and evening stories.  Their presence and proximity in our lives are cherished, especially with Daddy's long consulting hours and weekly travel.

My two little ones fell asleep and my oldest and I finished a chapter book in bed, with her beginning another one herself just before dozing off.

Tell me about your Monday!

City Food and Farmers' Markets

Many of my city's farmers' markets are returning this week to share their fresh, local food with us urbanites.  I felt almost giddy today as I stuffed big bunches of kale and lettuce and asparagus and Swiss chard into my shopping bag.

Over the past year, I've been writing about and reflecting on my rising commitment to feeding my family mostly seasonal, locally-produced foods, as part of my broader urban homesteading goals.  The clincher for me was reading the book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by best-selling novelist, Barbara Kingsolver.  Kingsolver writes about rejecting the industrial food complex that feeds most American families, and instead committing, along with her family, to consume only local, seasonal foods--including much that they produced themselves. I love this entire idea, and have been steadily moving in this direction, inspired by books like Kingsolver's, and friends of mine here in the city who have led the way.  One such friend, for instance, is endeavoring to only purchase "raw," farm-fresh ingredients, nothing prepared in a factory, including things like raw wheat to self-grind and prepare at home.  

As I realize more and more how detached I have become from my food, even as I've focused more on purchasing locally in the past year, I become increasingly disillusioned by the rise of the industrial food complex over the past half-century, and bewildered at how I was able to be easily lured into its variety and convenience without much effort.  The effort, it is clear, is in recognizing the cost of convenience, things like genetically-modified and highly-processed foods, and seeking alternative ways to feed my family using farm-fresh, local, seasonal foods.

When I think about it, it is baffling that to eat the way our great-grandparents ate is so hard. It takes a lot of conviction to feed one's family pure, local, seasonal foods--not to mention re-learning what those seasonal foods actually are.  And it is especially hard to re-learn what came so naturally to our ancestors when we have hungry little mouths to feed who could care less whether the kale they ate tonight for dinner came from near or far or was produced with pesticides or without.  But I care.  I care about learning what I don't know, committing to what is hard to do, and contributing to a larger cultural shift in helping families to reclaim control of local, farm-fresh foods.

Springtime Measurements

After a couple of dreary days this week, the kids and I awoke early and hit the road to my family's summer cottage to spend the day in the sunshine digging and building, finding and collecting, wandering and imagining by lake and sea.

There is something special about returning to the places that fill our days in the warmer months. Neglected since last fall, these spots take on new meaning, vividly measuring all the growing that took place while the northern earth slept. A five-year-old, a three-year-old, a one-year-old--so much bigger than they were in October, so much more that they can now do, and learn, and think about. And yet, they are still so little, so very much immersed in the important and temporary job of childhood.

Returning to these familiar spaces, the beaches and trails off Cape Cod, after a seasonal hiatus reminds me to take note of springtime measurements, to acknowledge just how quickly my children grow, how quickly they will arrive at adulthood, and how important it is to provide and protect the freedom for their vital childhood work--all that digging, and discovering, and dreaming.

Transforming the Pantry

Have you read The Homemade Pantry by Alana Chernila yet?  If not, it is definitely worth adding to your kitchen library.

As with so much of modern homemaking and homesteading, Chernila's book inspires us to reconnect with the talents of our grandparents and great-grandparents and create and cultivate right in our own homes.  It helps us to re-imagine an existence based on self-sufficiency and heirloom skills, and a home humming with busyness and production.

The first recipe I tackled was yogurt-making.  I have been eager to make yogurt for a while now, and The Homemade Pantry gave me just the nudge I needed.  Wow! Yogurt-making is so cool!  First, I realized how astonishingly more delicious homemade yogurt is compared to even the best store-bought brands.  Second, I realized how far-removed I really am from much of my family's food, not understanding until this yogurt-making project how delightfully simple and mysteriously complex a process it is.  And third, I realized that practice makes perfect, as is true with most of the homemaking and homesteading skills I am slowly building on.

Today, we made the Yellow Cake recipe from The Homemade Pantry to celebrate Daddy's birthday.  Next up might be cheese, or butter, or homemade pop-tarts...  So many tasty recipes to try, so many ways to transform our pantries with more baking and less buying.

City Mouse, Country Mouse

Every time I read the "City Mouse, Country Mouse" fable, I can relate to both mouse characters.  I love the vibrancy of the city, its diversity, energy and immense resources.  I also love the country, with its wide open spaces, quiet simplicity, and greater connection to nature and earth.  It's hard to choose.

Luckily, this weekend we didn't have to.  We spent the first half of the glorious weekend on a day-long city adventure complete with carousel rides, scooting along the Greenway, and dinner on the waterfront, and we spent the second half of the weekend at a lovely, off-the-beaten-path working farm not too far from the city, where we spent time with cows, and lambs, and chickens -- and even helped the farmers to plant their spring potatoes.

I am equally content on buses and tractors, as city mouse and country mouse, and feel fortunate that a bright, warm spring weekend could include both special spots.

Is Attachment Parenting Newsworthy?

I've been away from the screen for much of this week, and it was a blog commenter who directed me to the current Time Magazine cover story about Attachment Parenting. (Thanks, Jill!)

The article, which discusses the tenets of Attachment Parenting, explains that this parenting "philosophy has shifted mainstream American parenting toward a style that's more about parental devotion and sacrifice than about raising self-sufficient kids."  It also asserts that Attachment Parenting is a "demanding brand of child-rearing" that "has ignited a philosophical battle that rages within the parenting community."

What always strikes me with articles such as these is the question: why is this news?  How can it be that practices that are as common as breathing in the majority of the world--and in our own not-so-distant American past--become headline news and grounds for mommy wars?

Like many of you, I stumbled upon the label of "Attachment Parenting" when I was well into the process of "following" its ideals with my first-born.  I didn't deliberately decide that I would be an Attached Parent; I simply followed my powerful mothering instincts and realized that it made much more sense to me, and helped me to parent more peacefully, when I breastfed on-demand, co-slept, wore my baby in a sling, responded lovingly to her needs, and so on.  And this is how it goes in much of the world.

What is presented as so new, trendy, and odd here in America-- things like natural, non-interventive birth and breastfeeding into toddlerhood and beyond--are among the most ordinary of mothering practices elsewhere.

I suppose it's possible that some parents are following Attachment Parenting practices to make a point or follow a script of parenting guidelines, but my guess is that most mothers and fathers gravitate toward Attachment Parenting because it feels right, natural, time-honored.  For me, Attachment Parenting is about listening to and trusting my powerful mothering instincts, tapping into the maternal wisdom that has been relied upon for millennia to raise our children.  It's not about labels.  It's about parenting naturally, instinctually, the way it's always been done and continues to be practiced the world-over.  It's old news.

City Homesteading

There is a lot of growing happening in these parts.  Yesterday's annual Mayfair street festival in Harvard Square included an urban agricultural component called "Get Growing!" which we felt lucky to be a part of.  As I've written before, my five-year-old is passionate about "pod-picking," or helping rid the city of Black Swallow-wort pods, an invasive weed that imitates milkweed thus confusing Monarch butterflies who lay their ill-fated eggs there. The organizer of the urban agricultural fair appreciates my daughter's passion and solicited her help in spreading the word about these pesky plants at yesterday's festival.

In addition to education on invasive plant species, the urban agricultural fair featured many inspiring resources to create and enhance one's own urban homestead.  I am fantasizing about beekeeping, backyard chicken pens, and all of the luscious food we could grow if only we had an ounce of sunlight in our shared backyard, darkened by an old, towering, beautiful pine tree.  While bees and chickens will likely remain fantasies while we share a homestead with five other families in our city condo building, the growing part of homesteading is so captivating and realistic, even on the very small scale of our container garden on the back deck.  It seems we can't pass a nursery these days without purchasing just one more seedling of parsley, which my five-year-old devours in the mini-salads she creates from our modest herb garden.

One of the several books I am currently reading, most relating in some way to homesteading, is The Urban Homestead: Your Guide to Self-Sufficient Living in the Heart of the City, by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen.  Brimming with ideas for returning our homes to units of production instead of only consumption, the book tackles simple steps (like composting and using raised garden beds), and more ambitious projects (like chicken and bee-keeping), revisits the homemaking arts of preserving foods and making yogurts and cheeses and butter, and offers strategies for producing one's own energy on an urban homestead.

I can't help but get excited by the whole idea of urban homesteading, of (re)discovering the many ways to produce more within and from our homes (aside from carbon), and in so doing reconnecting more deeply with nature, food, and family.  I find it remarkable how much we are truly able to accomplish in our homes, how self-sufficient we can be, when we make the decision to rely less on factories and more on ourselves.

Weekend Giveaway: The Other Baby Book

I think this weekend is a good time for a giveaway!

I am giving away three copies of The Other Baby Book: A Natural Approach to Baby's First Year, by Megan McGrory Massaro and Miriam Katz.  This book provides the alternative to the many traditional parenting books available, encouraging a gentler, more natural, more connected parent-child relationship in babyhood and beyond.

To enter, use the Rafflecopter "widget" below, and then be sure to "like" the City Kids Homeschooling page on Facebook.

Winners will be announced first thing Tuesday morning!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Homeschooling in the City Series: Buffalo

This week, I am delighted to present a series of guest-posts by urban homeschoolers in Los Angeles, Chicago, Toronto, Philadelphia, and Buffalo. I hope you'll check in to see how other families approach city homeschooling. Today's post was written by Liz, a homeschooling mom in Buffalo, New York who discusses the many formal and informal learning resources available in her city that cover every "subject-matter" imaginable! Liz blogs at Homeschooling in Buffalo. 
****
On a recent warm Friday we postponed some of our routine to take pictures of the spring flowers on our block.  The closer together homes in our urban neighborhood mean that we can cover many front yard gardens in a short period of time.  There are many "Buffalo in Bloom" signs out yearly in our neighborhood.  It was a chance for the kids to practice taking digital pictures to research flowers later for Science and possibly print some for an Art collage.  If I feel energetic in the fall we may plant bulbs of our own as a project!

There are opportunities throughout the neighborhood to socialize and live while covering each and every subject.  Physical Education is covered so well by daily walks to complete activities turning to our feet or the nearby bus stop as a habit rather than the door to door habit of a car.  Don’t forget about Geography.  Every so often we take a map of our neighborhood and trace our way to where we are going, not to mention following bus maps on field trips to great area attractions like the Buffalo Museum of Science or the Aquarium of Niagara.

Library skills, Reading, and Art are only several blocks away at our local branch of the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library.  From story hours to art hours, the library is so friendly and close it feels like an extension of our home.  It is also great to see all the familiar faces of friends and acquaintances in the neighborhood often leading to extended social time at the local playground.  The proximity also gives Dad the time to participate and spend quality time with kids around his work schedule.

There is no need to skip art by artists either.  There’s the Albright Knox Art Gallery and Burchfield Penny Art Center, both in the neighborhood, and famous artists like Ylli Haruni working as you walk by them. Math is also great in the Elmwood Village.  My kids routinely help me when visiting the bank and we weigh produce at our local market co-op while learning to interact properly with adults out in the community and the importance of organic and local food.  We even practice place value with ones, tens, and hundreds by stomping on the address numbers embedded in some of the sidewalk blocks in front of local businesses.

Free History and Music are available too for a walk or bus ride downtown.  St. Paul’s Cathedral, an important church in the history of Buffalo, offers free concerts on Fridays. The kids also love to stop at city hall with its historical and architectural significance and look at the building, statues, and out at the waterfront from the top of the building.

This is just a sample of some of our activities as urban homeschoolers.  Some things become routine and some things wander in and out of the mix.  The freedom of homeschooling in the city allows us to follow our interests and speed up or slow down as health or life permits.

***
Liz is a homeschooling mom of two living in Buffalo, New York.  She blogs regularly at Homeschooling in Buffalo.