Conversations on Twice Exceptional Homeschooling
It’s been a while since I’ve had time to write a post. This has less to do with actually being over-the-top busy (which is almost always the case), and more to do with being completely disorganized!
So last week I decided ( after we showed up over half and hour late to a gymnastics class) that I needed to put a bit of scheduling into our free-form natural-learning journey.
This week is our trial week. And so far it has been a success. So far.
Continue reading “Scheduling the Chaos”
It’s been a week since we returned from our holiday (which I plan to write about soon), and we’ve come down with the Something-My-Child-Caught-While-Exploring-Germ-Covered-Surfaces bug. As a result, we’ve not exactly gone swinging back into our usual routine, but kind of limped close enough to wave dispiritedly in its direction.
Continue reading “What We Do When We’re Not Doing Anything”
I know one of the things I really struggle with when I let my kids take the lead is dealing with my own fear. Are they learning everything they need to learn? Are we ‘keeping up’ with whatever imaginary goals I have set – whether that’s state curriculum outlines, or some hybrid of that and what I think they are ready and able to learn? But in reality, it is my fear, not their progress that is really getting in the way.
This post is about how I manage my record-keeping, which I have found to be one of the most important ways to calm down the nagging fear that we aren’t doing ‘enough’, whatever nebulous form that ‘enough’ takes.
Continue reading “Record Keeping With a Natural Learner”
We as a family have just finished watching the BBC documentary ‘The Men Who Made Us Spend‘. If you haven’t seen it, it’s definitely worth having a look at, as it documents many of the PR tricks of the trade that encourage or trick people into buying and spending.
This is something we have been aware of for a long time through reading consumer advocacy magazines like CHOICE or watching comedy shows like ‘The Checkout‘. For us, they were a great ways to raise our awareness of the psychological enticements and tricks used by almost all businesses.
And that got me to thinking about the ways I have trained my brain to try and reduce the influence of these techniques. This is something that was taught to me by my mum, and it is knowledge that I try as much as possible to pass on to my children.
Continue reading “Passing On Frugal Thinking”
One of the greatest experiences about visiting NZ was a chance for all of us get some hands-on learning that would not be available in Australia.
Knowing my kids and their preferences and attention spans, I had to carefully select what we visited – so good-bye long guided tours, talking heads or demonstrations. We would need something a little more hands on. And being science people, there was naturally a focus on science education. And boy was it fun.
Here are some of the great places we visited – in roughly the order we visited them.
Continue reading “Campervanning Across New Zealand on the 2e Bandwagon: Strewing Education”