Mudspark Life Learning

My kids are currently 9 and 13, and some of their favorite activities are making playdough, building forts, playing in the mud, and making blanket forts. All sorts of questions and discoveries arise through this sensory play that is often considered more appropriate for much younger children. Like why does Oobleck work the way it does? Why does the ratio of 4:1 make this substance but not that? What is the point of cream of tartar in playdough? Why is this mud grittier than that mud, and why does it smell like this? What makes clay from the ground turn into art class clay or stucco? You get the idea. You don't even have to come up with any sort of lesson plan - in fact, when I get all teachy, they lose interest. They don't listen. Play is important for all ages, even and maybe especially play that you think they are too old to engage in. What will you play today? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ For more ideas on natural parenting,  check ou...

How do I choose the right homeschool curriculum?  This is the first thing homeschooling parents ask. They are comparing their ideas of school to their projected ideas about homeschooling, thinking they have to cover EVERYTHING that school "covers" and do it well. Obviously we want our kids to get a good education, whether that means school or homeschool. I remind parents, though, that regular school is about managing 30 kids with divergent needs. Homeschooling is about one kid, or maybe three or seven. These are kids who have grown up with your rules and guidelines. In school teachers spend several WEEKS working on procedures like lining up, turning in homework, and using inside voices before they even get to  actual curriculum. Then their days are divided into blocks of time broken up by recess, trips, assemblies, and those very procedures. Homeschool doesn't have to work like that, and you can get lessons done in much less time, whether you do formal lessons to go...

Want to give your kids a world class education without spending any money? Here are my suggestions for a well-rounded home-based education that requires little or no money. Assume that all books are obtained through the library (learn how to use your local library's inter-library loan system). Also see what your local public school system has to offer homeschoolers; my kids participate in a once-a-week enrichment program that provides us with free curriculum. Museums often offer discounts to homeschooling families and groups, and they also offer free days. Trade lessons with friends: maybe you can offer child care or help remodeling a kitchen or canned tomatoes in trade for music lessons or mentoring. Visit thrift stores regularly and look through the education, books, and nic-nack sections - I've found science kits, books, unused anatomy coloring books, a decent globe, pencils, and book shelves for almost nothing at our local thrift stores. Book swaps are another great place t...

Supermom? I recently read an article in a parenting magazine about how parents today spend too much time directly attending to our kids and trying to be super-parents, and it's wearing us out. How in the past, parents could send their kids out to play and not see them until dinner time. And I got this flash of understanding as to why so many parents can't understand why in the world I would choose to homeschool. Why they often feel slightly threatened by my homeschooling. They think that by homeschooling I am spending even MORE focused attention on my kids, and they are already tapped out with the homework-driving-to-practice-school-drop-off-plus-quality-time rigamarole. How do I possibly do that plus teach them and be with them ALL DAY LONG???  I don't. Learning Through Living What people don't realize is that homeschool is not business-as-mainstream-usual plus being their teacher all day. The moms (and dads) who try that approach burn out pretty much...

My kids have never gone to regular school. My daughter spent three miserable days in a preschool till I said "Enough" and never went back. That's it. She's nine now, and her brother is five. Mostly we unschool. But I still find myself needing to shift my thinking away from the schooling mentality. I am getting my teaching license, but through an alternative program so I can teach for a homeschool enrichment program that my kids attend weekly and is offered through the public schools. As most homeschooling moms, I have looked at the local schools' websites to see where my kids might just fit in. I feel that professionally and as a member of society I always have one foot in the schooling door. However, any time I think about teaching full-time in a regular school, or enrolling my kids in school, I quickly come to the same conclusion: Nope. I am fully committed to homeschooling. I love the freedom my kids have to become themselves. I love that more than half of th...

My nearly-five-year-old son is really, really into Pokemon. He's the kind of learner who goes deeply into something for a long time. When he was a baby, he loved bears. And bugs. As a toddler he discovered trains, and we learned a lot about Thomas' world and real trains. Then it was super heroes, and the world of good and bad, helping people, and team work. His latest obsession is Pokemon. As an eclectic homeschooling mom, I am fascinated to discover what he learns about the world through Pokemon. Lots of online sources will tell you how Pokemon the card game teaches statistics and algebra, but my son is just learning to read, so that level of the Pocket Monster world is not part of ours yet. But by engaging with and encouraging his interest, I see myriad layers of learning going on. Math Pokemon creatures are often combinations of real life creatures, like Bulbasaur, who is a cartoon dinosaur with a bulb on his back. As he evolves, the bulb sprouts into a bud and then an...

In my search for balance and inspiration in my homeschooling life, as well as my own personal journey that blends mystical Christianity, Paganism, and sustainable living, I have begun to identify what I think children need to learn today. While certainly schools and other formal learning communities could take this curriculum on, it may be more suited to homeschool families because it's about understanding the insufficiencies of our modern relationship with spirit and the heart, and about changing those to create a vibrant and healthy world inside and out. It's about being flexible, individually designed, and responsive to the world. Traditional learning skills, such as reading, writing, and math are learned through the following five areas, rather than as separate "subjects." As our society grows ever more diverse and we tap into a global force through the internet, environmental stewardship, and the global market, children and adults need to know how to think in an ...

My eldest spends a whole lotta time on the computer. It's either Animal Jam, Netflix - the same few shows - or sometimes Poptropica (she's almost 8). I worry. I fear I'm letting her brain rot. I fear she doesn't know how to self motivate, that I let her watch shows too early (she loved her Caillou and Baby Einstein shows). And simultaneously, I'm a big believer in unschooling, or letting my kids choose their path of learning. She likes My Little Pony, Powerpuff Girls, and Horseland. She used to be really really into Rugrats and All Grown Up. Occasionally, she'll check out something else recommended by the Netflix algorithms, like Ruby Gloom. Sometimes she'll watch some other fluff, like Maco Mermaids. When she's into a show, she watches it over and over, and I know there are important wheels turning as she watches these shows. But still I worry. Not about the content, as some parents might, just about the seeming inability to do anything else. Yes, s...

"When you want to teach children to think, you begin by treating them seriously when they are little, giving them responsibilities, talking to them candidly, providing privacy and solitude for them, and making them readers and thinkers of significant thoughts from the beginning. That's if you want to teach them to think. There is no evidence that this has been a state purpose since the start of compulsion schooling." - John Taylor Gatto, "The Public Schooling Nightmare" in Deschooling Our Lives ed. Matt Hern Just have to say I highly recommend this book, a collection of essays blasting schooling and educating others, and celebrating how we learn and grow as a function of being human.

We participated in the Denver Botanic Gardens homeschool day last week, themed "nature and art." The stations were fun, including playing with clay after comparing clay soil to sand, dying yarn and squishing plant matter to "paint" paper, looking for patterns in plants and fruits, building Andy Goldsworthy inspired sculptures, and planting seeds. But I think some of the biggest learning happened just by observing. There were so many bees, and the kids (ages 2-8) were fascinated with the different kinds we saw (we learned later that there are 946 documented bee species in Colorado). We noticed what flowers they were drawn to, and which ones didn't have any bees on them. We watched water skippers, saw huge cabbages that had been chomped by something, smelled roses, and wandered through the tropical green house. One of the volunteers commented on how he wished he'd had activities like this when he was a kid, and implied that he wished more kids could do stuf...

So today my kids have learned (or at least encountered, no one really knows what a person has "learned," though you can be sure we are all learning all the time): How to clean mud off the floor. That while you may not care about the broken sword, you care about the person. Take a moment to  imagine what that other person feels like before saying you're sorry so that your being sorry is genuine and expresses some compassion. Egg whites don't whip when you get a little yolk in them. That some email accounts block certain kinds of emails and you have to contact Help to get your account going. That cookbooks can be wrong, recipes can be adapted, and then you learn from the finished product. But it still tastes good. It generally makes more work for yourself when you do things quickly and hyperactively. That imbalanced washing machines make great percussion instruments. It's harder to roller skate while holding dolls.