It's spring break this week for our local school friends. When I heard they were off of school I had a flash of, "Hey! We should take a week off, too!"

But a week off from unschooling is like trying to take a week off from life. We live and learn, all at the same time. There is no spring break, no summer vacation, no start time and no stop time. We're either unschooling or we're, well, asleep. Because around here, learning = life. There is no distinction between the two.

So until we figure out a way to take a week off from cooking and reading and creating and  experimenting, I guess we'll keep rolling right on through. Making kites, sewing clothes, learning to speak French, building robots, and experimenting with chemistry. Spring break or no, unschooling is everyday.

And that's just fine with me. In fact, it feels downright perfect.

Love,
Rachel

P.S. If you are curious (or confused) about what unschooling is, this link is a great place to start. The links in the post are exceptional as well if you want a bit more detail. This is what we do. 

It's bedtime.

And we've got a rhythm to honor. You know – teeth to brush, books to read, lights to turn out…

But just then Pete rolls in from fishing at a nearby creek. And he found an owl pellet. An owl pellet! My years as a naturalist come rushing back and bedtime is delayed until further notice.

Clad in jammies, the kids dig in and dissect it with their hands. A rodent skull emerges (muskrat?) and we talk about how rodent teeth constantly grow and they must chew on hard things or be killed by their own teeth. Freaky cool, right? Fur is piling up on the dining room table, guard hairs and the underfur – the waterproof layer and the insulating one. We tease it apart more and find gnawing teeth, tiny bones, and other bits of the story of this one mammal, one bird, and one meal.

Natural history. Oh, yes. This is my favorite kind of "schooling".

All four of us dug in and reveled in the unexpected, spontaneous, after-dark learning to be had this night.

So they went to bed late. They also went to bed brimming with questions and answers and ideas and curiosity. Welcome to unschooling. Welcome to my kitchen table. There is so much magic that happens here.

(Oh, and don't worry. We'll wipe up before breakfast.)

For those who are wondering what an owl pellet is, it is the undigested material from any owl meal that becomes a compact lump in their crop. (Since owls swallow their prey whole something needs to happen with all that fur and bones.) The indigestible bits (bones, teeth, fur, and/or hair) form into the pellet and they bring back up. (You know, as in puke.) Cool? We think so.

As quiet homeschoolers, we're often doing our own thing. We love the peaceful space we've carved out. We thrive in it – all of us. Last week actually cancelled plans with our homeschooling coop two days in a row (two very fun activities – ice skating at the outdoor rink and a hike into the woods to see ice caves) because we'd had a trying week and just needed to lay low. The kids reported that those unexpected free-days were the best part of the week. Who'd have thought?

Sage does not thrive in large groups. He loves hanging with other kids, but prefers them one family at a time. (Even his birthday parties rarely consist of more than one friend.) My kids play with friends each week, but don't crave the busyness that many children are accustom to. After watching a school group walk by us on an outing one day he reported that sharing his learning space with so many children would be "horribly distracting".

So this is how we roll. It's a good match for us.

But we are hardly going it alone.

Yesterday we enjoyed a full day with another unschooling family. The three younger children wore every costume in the closet and had a picnic out in the snow while the two older kids did dozens of chemistry experiments and started working on a robot. It was wonderful to watch all of them. Learning, playing, exploring, socializing. And being with another like-minded mama means we could be there to answer their questions without meddling in their process and without second-guessing our own.

There is another family we visit with often who's children enjoy spending a day with us on occasion. Our kids are embarking on a Waldorf doll-making adventure together. Each child (ages 5 – 10) is making a doll by hand, week by week around our table. They chose their skin and hair fabric, cut out their dolls, pinned, and have now begun the sewing.

I love this so much.

To have my children with other kids who "get them"; to share what I know with my own children and our friends; and to have them share their day with this family we love. Yes, our unexpected quiet days are among our favorites, but really, these days with good friends are the ones we all love best.

P.S. Homeschooling friends, you likely know well the perpetual dialogue about socialization. I thought you would enjoy this article about it. It's fabulous and goes right to the heart of what I have seen. Don't be put off at first. She throws down some surprising statements, but follow her for a bit and I think most of you will agree. 

Love, Rachel

The bluest sky possible is overhead and every branch is cloaked in ice. In the wind the branches crackle and tiny icicles rain down around us. It is so magical. I look up, lost in the texture of the snow around me and see that my kids are doing the same. We're all just sitting there in silence, absorbing it all.

These days I feel such deep appreciation for homeschooling my kids. We get to learn together and play together out in the beauty and then come home and warm up with tea and cocoa around the table together. Everyday. Together. I am so grateful.

Yesterday I set the intention to restart our weekly and daily rhythm. And for me, the first day of a new rhythm is always the best. It was seamless. (Well, if I hadn't chosen the craft myself for the kids – which one loved and which brought the other one to tears – it would have been seamless, but that's another story.)

But the rhythm. The rhythm was perfect.

I think we all thrive with rhythm. Sage has stopped pushing against chores since they became just a normal part of our week. It's just what we do. And since shutting off the computer for 90% of my day I'm hitting my rhythm too. When to work, when to be with my family. I feel more rooted, more present, and more aware of the joy that is my everyday. Because really, my kids are awesome. But when my computer is on I sometimes forget that. But they are. Freaking awesome. And I get to hang out with them all the time. Seriously. How good can it get?

Our daily rhythm is broken into an early block, a morning block, an mid-day block, and an evening block. We made time to play outside together, to walk the puppy, to read, to clean, to do chores, to craft, and to restart our chapter and tea tradition. And at bedtime last night the house was clean. (This is one of the biggest shifts of honoring rhythm.)

In case you are curious, here is how our days will shake out. The times are loose and flexible, but those times are an accurate estimate of the times we transition from one phase to another.

Daily Rhythm

Early Block (6-9)

• Mama works until 8:30
• Breakfast and Clean-up with Papa
• Morning Checklist (brush hair, brush teeth, get dressed)
• Laundry (kids fold and put away)

Morning Block (9-12)

• Morning walk with dogs
• Outing (optional): library, park, sledding, etc.
• Lessons: Reading, writing, spelling, math, science, etc.

Mid-Day Block (12-4:30)

• Lunch and clean-up
• Mama's quiet writing time ~ 1 hour (kids play quietly inside or outside time)
• Afternoon chores
• Tea and chapter
• Crafts and handwork
• House clean-up

Evening Block (5-8)

• Dinner and clean-up
• Free time
• Books and evening checklist (brush hair, brush teeth, floss, tidy bedroom, pj's on)
• Lights out by 8

The "lessons" above are free-form. As unschoolers we don't follow a curriculum, but Sage has academic interests that I need to make time for and Lupine is obsessed with addition, numbers in general, and learning letters. It gives me time to stop washing dishes or folding laundry and ask them what they're curious about. While these "lessons" are a part of the flow of our whole day, I now have additional time to focus on them.

And now it's time for me to get back into our rhythm. Because life is calling.

Love,
Rachel

One dreary, wet morning was all the encouragement we needed to dig out the paint, glitter, acorn caps, and peg people and create. The simple nudge of me quietly sitting down and painting one little elf by myself lit the creative fire of my two kids. They joined me with gusto (nearly crowded me right out of the craft corner!) and we painted together for an hour, and then I slipped away to prepare our lunch. They painted happily for the morning, guided by their own interests.

They are planning a new wee house built of scrap wood. I'll let you know how it turns out!

Let me begin by saying we each choose our own perfect path. This is mine. If your kids go to public school or private school or you "do school" at home, no judgement here. This is my answer to the many emails asking "What is unschooling? Just how do you learn?" Love, Rachel

Today our regular schedule of homeschooling resumes with the return of our last school friends to their classrooms. The rhythm of summer, comprised of learning at home along with much play with school friends, will give way to our fall rhythm today where we pull more closely in as a family, find the new tempo of our days, and dig into this life.

Unschooling means we don't follow a curriculum or "do school" at home. You won't find my kids at desks, me teaching them from a book or stranding at a blackboard. Sure, books are a big part of our learning, but not like you or I experienced in school years back. It means we learn everywhere and with everything: in the kitchen, the woods, the park, the garage, the garden, the city, the river, the farm, the library, the coop. We learn with measuring spoons, caterpillars, woodchucks, rocks, a microscope, scissors and tape, tennis balls, seeds, straws, and salt. (Thought not at the same time, thought that would be interesting…)

Our 3-R's come through everyday experiences – learning to read together snuggled under the afghan on the couch with a captivating book or by following the instructions for putting together a solar robot; learning division and fractions by determing how many pieces of watermelon we each get if it was cut into 11 pieces and there are 4 of us; learning to write by jotting down recipes for plant medicine. And not because it was my idea. Because it is theirs. Because they – like anyone who has not learned otherwise through the intervention of well-meaning adults – are hungry for knowledge.

Unschooling is built on trust. We trust that our kids will learn – in their own time and way – everything they need and want to know. Everything. We're not cramming them with facts. Instead we're helping guide our children and facilitate their learning. We are helping them keep their passion for knowledge alive.

For those who don't unschool or know any unschoolers it sounds too easy to be true. Live and learn, literally? Well, yes. We love it. We believe in it. We see it work each and every day. And we can't imagine it any other way.

Some favorite books on the subject include:

The Unschooling Handbook

Homeschooling our Children Unschooling Ourselves

and Teach Your Own

I'll leave you with a John Holt quote (author of Teach Your Own and the "father" of the unschooling movement):

"Of course, a child may not know what he may need to know in ten years (who does?), but he knows, and much better than anyone else, what he wants and needs to know right now, what his mind is ready and hungry for. If we help him, or just allow him, to learn that, he will remember it, use it, build on it. If we try to make him learn something else, that we think is more important, the chances are that he won't learn it, or will learn very little of it, that he will soon forget most of what he learned, and what is worst of all, will before long lose most of his appetite for learning anything." ~John Holt

Happy learning everyone!

From garden to table, this girl is my culinary sidekick. Every day she takes her harvest basket out to the garden to see what has ripened and brings in food for our dinner. Often I hear "Mama! Come quick! Come quick!" (I call this my garden alarm.) I dash out in to the yard and she shows me that the beets have come up or there is a giant cucumber that we missed or the broccoli is ready to harvest or a squirrel is lunching in our compost bin.

She knows well the birds that frequent our garden and what their preferred meals are – the grey catbird, the goldfinches, and "friend blue jay".

This day her harvest basket so inspired her that she set to work making her own salad without a word of coaching from me. She got her stool, her sharp knife, the salad bowl, and her harvest and set to work. I didn't say a word. I just watched her work, smiling.

Yes, I let my kids use sharp knives. It never occurred to me not to. My mom told me that she never would have thought to allow my sister and I to use sharp knives when we were so small. But she remembers with amusement one visit to my home when Sage was two (and naked) helping in the kitchen, cutting vegetables with a small kitchen knife. She heard Pete's calm voice sing out (as he searched for a small apron) "Remember, buddy – keep your penis below the cutting board."

As the pictures above will attest, my kids are comfortable with knives. They are safe. In fact, I don't believe either child has ever cut themselves working with a knife. Lupine has been using our two small kitchen knives since before she turned three, and Sage – more cautious and slow in his body – started at an early two. I don't view kids with knives as dangerous, rather to me the opposite is dangerous. In most of Western society children are growing up in a padded and protective world. As one grandma at the park put it last week (while discussing that balls are no longer allowed at the school where she works – too dangerous), "How else can you learn about gravity unless you fall?"

I encourage you to do "dangerous" things with your kids. Let them use real knives (and real scissors). Sew with sharp needles. Get scratched by berry brambles. Start fires. (Especially start fires.) Gently lead them, teach the basics, stay close, and then let them explore their world. They will learn, and they will flourish. Despite everything they (and we) are led to believe, the world is not a dangerous place. It is a wonderful place full of wonderful experiences. We just need to silence our "be careful" voice and watch them soar.

Need more encouragement? Watch this.

Today is Mystery Thursday (formerly know as Mystery Wednesday when our rhythm was a little different).

It is arguably our favorite day of the week. Because – who knows? It's going to be fun, but the kids have no idea exactly what kind of fun. City? Country? Water? Woods? There's just no telling.

I think I value this day so much because we just go. We leave the house – the phone, the computer, the laundry, the dishes – for hours on end, and get lost in the joy of now. There are no distractions, just the three of us on our weekly adventure. It is a great balances for the kids and I, regardless of what the first part of the week has been.

This morning, like always, they know nothing except what to bring. Their instructions today were simple:

On your feet: tennis shoes or sandals.

Clothes must be "rough and tumbles" (code for "Lupine, please don't wear a tutu.").

And bring three things: a basket, your sunhat, and water bottle.

I have packed us a picnic lunch (Okay, and an iced latte for the drive.) and we'll be taking the car.

Any guesses as to where we're headed?