Wednesday, September 4, 2013
The Allowance Game –Review
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
New for Strew: Update on our Unschooling Workboxes
Still love this, but it's sitting on hold for now! |
A cool under-stairs storage area |
I picked up one of these bin-style toy carts and tucked it away inside the cupboard under our stairs (which we’ve jokingly dubbed “Privet Drive,” but I digress). Now, I have an easy place to store “strew” when I’m not leaving it out for Bri to find.
Okay, I realize this is hardly an innovative solution since I’m betting one out of every four or five homeschooling houses has this exact same storage bin setup. What got me excited about it is that it offers me a quick and interchangeable grab-and-go solution for offering fun activities without the mess. And we’ve got it right next to the dining table, which is where art, projects, and games happen most often.
Our bins are currently stocked with Play-Doh, art supplies, a puzzle Grandma sent, laminated fact sheets on the 50 states and U.S. Presidents that I will be turning into a game, dice games, blocks, library books, workbooks-for-fun, and more. Even better, some of the boxes are still empty, or are about to be emptied out, so as I acquire strew it will have an automatic (albeit potentially temporary) “home”.
Also, don’t tell anyone, but the cupboard under the stairs is nice and deep and just BEGGING to be turned into a super-secret kid’s nook for Bri to read, play, or hang out in. I’m thinking of repurposing it as a surprise for her birthday. Having the bins in there means it’s already stocked for fun!
Stocked for fun! |
Friday, August 16, 2013
The Unschooling Path to "Success": What is it?
How is success defined? The trouble with the word success is that the answer varies based on who you ask. A cross-section of homeschoolers asked this question might offer answers like these:
Monday, August 5, 2013
Workboxes for Unschoolers: Organized Strewing
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Brianna's Wonder World Episode 4
Shopping Shenanigans abound when Bri decides to take Mom's wallet for a fast ride over to Walmart.
Saturday, February 16, 2013
Double Sock Buns: Hairstyle of the Week!
As mentioned on Valentine's Day, we started doing our Hairstyle of the Week videos over on YouTube. Here's our very first, featuring adorable double buns that were easy to make...and as a bonus, see the photo below for the beautiful curls Bri wound up with after sleeping in the buns overnight!
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Valentine's Day Fun: Hairstyle!
Bri has been spending a lot of her learning time lately over on YouTube, and I took a cue from her this past week to explore hairstyle ideas. We've had so much fun with it that we'll be featuring a different style each week. Here's what we did for Bri's Valentine's Day hair:
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Star Wars: Jedi Academy at Disneyland!
Bri recently got picked to be part of Disneyland's Star Wars: Jedi Academy show. It was awesome! Check it out here.
Monday, February 4, 2013
Friday, February 1, 2013
Brianna's Wonder World Episode 2
Check out this week's episode: Dolls Gone Wild! Bri's dolls have a couple things to say about the new YouTube channel and pillow flight. (Yes, that's flight, not fight. Right?) Also, Bri (sort of) unboxes her Monster High Valentine's pencil set early.
Monday, January 28, 2013
Monday Mingle
In my other guise as a romance author, I've done a few blog hops in my day...but this Monday Mingle is a first for Wonder World Classroom!
Thanks to Tough Cookie Mommy for launching this great hop.
About our unschooling family: I have seven children, all of whom are grown except the youngest, 9-year-old Bri. Almost all were exposed to some type of homeschooling at one time or another, beginning with the oldest back in 1988. None, however, were unschooled. We knew from age 3 that we wanted to homeschool Bri exclusively, and of the various forms we've tried, unschooling has worked best by far.
Anyway, we are happy to be jumping on the blog hop circuit! I am eager to meet some fellow hoppers. Happy Monday!
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Finding Social Group Interaction
Several things have been tried in the past, but for various reasons, fizzled. Our homeschool group park days changed to days we're not available, a local PE program lasted for three months before she begged to stop, and attempts to contact the one and only girl scout troop in our area have not been responded to once I mentioned Bri is homeschooled. (That will be looked into at some point soon.) She does attend the kid's club when my husband goes to the gym, but the number and ages of kids vary so much from time to time that it isn't always a good "kid time" outlet. (The last time, she was the only kid and spent her time playing with the teachers.)
Enter the dragon...or rather, the Tae Kwon Do studio by our house. She has been begging to take classes for quite a long time, and we finally signed her up this week. Not only will she be getting group interaction, physical activity, and training in self-defense, but the school has rules about students keeping their hair/teeth brushed, their rooms clean, and their attitudes respectful. She is so excited she floated three feet off the ground when she left the signup, and we're looking forward to seeing how things work out.
Saturday, January 19, 2013
Brianna's Wonder World Episode 0.5
Brianna's first Wonder World video is here...sort of! Check it out and subscribe!
Monday, January 14, 2013
Bri's YouTube Channel!
Bri is hard at work shooting her first video...except she experienced technical delays due to a disharmonious Feng Shui event in her room.
Here is her "coming soon" video!
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
A Wonder Post on How Kids REALLY Learn to Write!
Since my husband and I are both published fiction authors, one might actually think we had at least a modicum of confidence on the subject of teaching writing to our child. Alas, it's not true. Bri from the beginning has had difficulties with penmanship and putting thoughts to paper, in part because we suspect some issues like dysgraphic and dyslexia.
Check out this great post by following the link below. I hope you get as much out of it as I did. Thanks, Patricia!
Monday, January 7, 2013
We're Back--and Unschooling Again!
So what happened?
We were required to show that Bri was being taught the concepts her grade level "should" be focused on, an idea which pretty much runs counter to our personal view of unschooling. Gone was spontaneous learning from the process of life and Bri's own interests. Enter mandatory essays, work packets, and (gasp) standardized testing. We struggled to show core standard instruction every month for a child whose heart (and right-brained spirit) is strongly anchored to experiential learning. And I do mean we struggled. Our membership to the local museum lapsed, our weekly trips to the library dwindled to monthly, and park trips with other homeschoolers fizzled. This blog went kablooey. In short, we were too busy "schooling" to get around to learning. And much more important, the fire for learning Bri had found with unschooling fizzled, replaced by frustration, boredom, and many tears.
So we're back! And now that Bri is reading and writing, she's excited about participating herself on the blog. She also plans to launch her own YouTube channel, posting videos about what she's up to.
It's great to be back...and wonderful to return to the process of learning with the world as our classroom.