First Slingshot Lesson – 10 and 12 year olds

young child with slingshot - a trusted Unschooler

We would come home hungry if we were hunters! Is 10 too young for a slingshot? I know as soon as I got mine as a 12yo, I wanted to break windows. Holy eff did I break a lot of windows – I could do it from far away! You can’t really blame me for […]

Unicycling : Getting Closer and Closer!

unicycle stroller

We had a ‘big’ dose of unicycle lessons recently. By big dose, I mean about 20 minutes of practice over a few days. It was a push to see if he could get it before he turned six. He’s not there yet, but it will only be a few more tries…he’ll get it next month for sure…if he wants to…I don’t actually care if he does or not…as long as he keeps practicing whenever…there’s so many other ways they are both being active, it’s low on everyone’s list.

Teachers Don’t Need Training. They Can Even Be Five.

homeschool dinosaur teacher

“What I like the most about playing dino doctor is teaching her the dino names like you taught me ” – Aidan, 5

I wondered, very briefly, when we had our second kid, isn’t it going to be a lot harder trying to manage two kids learning at different ‘grade levels’? That was quickly replaced with, ‘well, I guess she’ll have two teachers, and he’ll be a teacher of things he learns.’

Getting Around : We Now Convoy :D

unicycle stroller razor e90 electric scooter

Razor E90 Electric Scooter : Unicycle Stroller Speed Getting Around : We Now Convoy 😀 i can put heavier stuff up on the roof rack and still push it with one hand while filming with the other now that one of the kids pushes their own weight 🙂 walkie-talkie installed to handlebar so i can […]

Dam Fun. Dad & Son.

big wheel scooter for kids

Our second T-shirt day of the season – our first was a month or so ago. (Let’s get with Spring, ammiright?) The great part this time was the high winds. Strangely enough, he seemed to benefit from the wind BOTH ways! When does THAT happen? Sure we have adventures that are enjoyable for both kids, […]

A Broken Keyboard

keyboard innards mask

We had to replace the keyboard. What to do with the old one? Take it apart!

Lots of screws to unscrew, and lots mysteries to unravel.

Introducing Children to the Dark Side

star wars lego

Back in my day it was star wars OR lego. or star wars WITH lego!

she hasn’t seen the movies. he’s seen the ‘making of’ 🙂

dad: make sure you put those pieces together very carefully. don’t use FORCE

5yo: good one, dad

Birthday Terrarium From Gramma

terrarium for homeschoolers

Here’s a fun little activity for the kids…let them grow their own life in a container…Well, actually, let them follow the instructions, give or take, to make their own life in a container…I guess we’ll see in a few days if it worked.

A Week of Unschool : Episode 3

unicycle lessons in london ontario

Another great week of learning! He learned how to more properly navigate a giant ice pile that used to be a snow pile. They even got to climb up and slide down it when it was a snow pile again.

We were on the DIY kick after our homemade playdoh, so we made up some homemade puffy paint. Just self-rising flour, salt, water, and food colour, but oh no, we didn’t have any self-rising flour. We had to find out if we could make some from our existing ingredients. You bet your baking powder we could!

A Week of Unschool : Episode 2

We had another fun week. It was winter jackets and snow at the beginning and no coat scootering at the end of it. We went to the library and were excited to see they added two ipads to the computer section. The three year old went with me to get the cars and trains for the car and train table and wanted to return them before setting them up after I said ‘huh, oh look, they have ipads like at gramma’s library!’

It’s all about Roblox at the moment

gaming roblox for unschool

So what do you do if your kid discovers computer games and watches computer game videos on youtube?

You fit as much education into that as possible!

Dad, Come See My Swidda!! Introduction to Computers

screen time for kids

I’m so glad we found the game called Slither.io, a browser-based game that has helped our three year old start to figure out how to control a computer. I wasn’t trying to find a way to ‘teach her computers’ yet; that’s just what happened. She saw her brother doing it…and well…that’s all she needed.

Making Changes For Fun: Skyscraper Destruction

lego homeschool unschool

It turns out the kids LOVE Lego skyscrapers. They play together, (or alone) for hours. They follow common sense Lego rules like if one kid builds and ‘claims’ something, the other kid can play with but not modify or break it. Or not to worry about things falling apart on their watch if they were trying to rebuild something, but to not break something ‘just because’

Can you stay back, dad? I’m going to do this.

syringes for science experiments

A perfect example of unschooling? I think so!

The five year old was watching youtube. Interestingly enough, it wasn’t about some lady opening toys! He asked if we could do a science experiment…but we needed a syringe and we didn’t have that.

I let him know Walmart probably had them, and I knew of the general area where they might be.

“We need to ask someone if we don’t know where something is,” he reminded me.

Fun Ways To Educate? Use the Force. Always.

We knew she was ‘officially pregnant’ when she cried her eyes out seeing little Anakin leaving his mom in the desert…again…seriously, we had seen this several times already…)

Star Wars has always been a big part of my life (well, only if you include making a Star Wars reference whenever possible and owning and wearing too often an adult sized Star Wars costume) but the kids hadn’t really shown too much interest…no more than any of the other things they are in to – from every comic book hero to anything that’s in a ‘Flying Bag’ (blind bag)…or anything that they have seen on youtube.

Unschool Math Immersion

lego at unschool

The main lego pieces are bricks and plates. (the plates are one third the depth of bricks).

“Hey, can you find this 2 by 3 plate? It’s called a 2 by 3 because it’s two rows of three. How many posts does it have?”

“1,2,3,4,5,6!”

“See how much faster I can count them because of how I am just adding groups of numbers? See how they are organized in rows and columns?”

Multitasking: Taking Toys & Things Outside

spinosaurus kids

Little kids love (well, whatever you teach them to love, in this case, toys and instruments) toys and instruments. They also love the playing down by the river. (The nitrate-heavy, city-gross, unswimmable river) Dad loves to unicycle. Sounds like a plan!

Five Year Old Explains What a Fossil Is

learning fossils

He’s been watching a lot of youtube videos. He noticed that they always ask to subscribe to their channels and asking the kids to comment. It’s pretty funny watching it in real life!

What we are doing though, it building ‘speaking in front of camera comfort’ which will translate easily to ‘speaking in front of people’ comfort.

Unsocializing? Unicycling, For Example

unicycle lessons

Among the many unschooling and life benefits that come from unicycling is the socializing. (one of the other ones is that if you can physically walk and have access to a unicycle, you have all you need to be able to do it)

What’s the first thing people think about when trying to get your kids more socializing? Sports. Sign them up for soccer or baseball, right? Not necessarily!