my creative space...

Making stuff for my owlets today... Here's the pile of fabrics big owlet and I are sorting through for her quilt. We'll need more red though I'm told..


And this is little owlet's scarf. Finally on its way to being finished sometime later today. She loves grey. The brooch has been requested to hold it all together. Fortunately for me the owlets are wild about garter stitch. It works well because I'm a lazy knitter and do it for the therapeutic quality, but find counting and keeping track all too hard...

See oodles of creativity an d some beautiful spaces at Kirsty's.

Brrrr!!

Well, the weather has turned. There's snow on the mountain today and the last of the autumn leaves are turning from bright golden and red to brown. Time to light the fire!! While we all settle into the cooler months, I've popped a couple of new bits and pieces on Etsy today.


Shades of brown...


Mushies...


And a springtime blossom to remind us there's light at the end of the tunnel!!

unschool monday :: support

I am fortunate to share my life with a very supportive partner. My soulmate. Huz was the one who yelled "yeah!!" from the other couch on the day when I said "you know, why don't we just unschool?" He's been into it from the beginning. While I spend 70% of our weekdays with the owlets, he often takes over when he comes home. He'll answer questions, spend the time on google earth, tackle the hard stuff or the silly stuff when I'm needing to get on with other things. He has the science, geography and music background where I'm more art and humanities, with a smattering of music too. We make a good team. This is perhaps why unschooling works so well for us. We share it because unschooling happens all the time. I can take the girls to a movie on a monday morning because we've been busily learning about other cool stuff at 8am on a sunday and will probably work on something else major later on. Really, unschooling is just parenting and around here, that's shared equally too.

I suppose it also works for me because I don't have the feeling that I'm doing it alone. I think parenting and unschooling completely alone is just too difficult for anyone to achieve. You need support around you. Whether that be in the form of a partner, family or friends. Like the African proveb says; "It takes a village to raise a child". It does. We're just not meant to do it alone. I'm often surprised when I speak to people who are home schooling their kids and have no support from parents, friends or family. I suppose it can seem like an odd choice to many, but it must be truly daunting to be the only one who believes in what you are doing. Then at the same time, I know single parents who are home/unschooling and have oodles of supportive friends and family around them. It can take a while to build that support and community around you. We're still building ours. We spend time with a bunch of different people and among those, we are striving to build a strong group who we can share this gig with. I'm looking forward to days where skills are shared and kids learn and play happily together. A village. We're getting there. But for now I'm thankful for the support I have here and hoping that you out there get the support you need too. x

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Related article:

Can a Single Parent Unschool? By Jan Hunt

Happy Mother's Day

Little owlet's card for me... Her favourite thing about me... Can you guess what it is?

Hope your day was spectacular. x

Autumn love - part 2

my creative space...

A little moment of creative pondering over breakfast... The quilt mum made for my cot when I was a babe... it needs some mending... And the first instalment of my birthday present!! A subscription to selvedge! I'm in love. Its all about quilts this issue, which has been the main topic of crafty conversation around here too. Quilty plans afoot.

My creative space will be moving to the Botanical Gardens for the remainder of the day. More Autumn love to follow...

See some more lovely spaces at Kirsty's.

unschool monday :: trust

Every now and then I catch myself in a moment. We've been travelling along just fine. Hanging out with friends, getting out, looking at stuff... or pottering around home doing our thing. Then the doubt creeps in. I might be on the phone to someone describing our day... "Oh, we went into town and did some shopping, stopped for morning tea. Then we came home and had lunch and the girls have been playing in the garden all afternoon..." Doesn't sound very educational. It sounds like fun, but what have they learned?!! I'm responsible for making sure they end up well rounded and knowledgeable about stuff and we went shopping?!! Then I think some more. What I forgot about was the conversation in the car on the way to drop Huz off this morning, about the moon, stars and sun. About how light travels and how we explained the concept of light years to big owlet. I forgot how her eyes expanded when she thought about looking back in time when she looks at the stars at night. She got it. Really understood it and will probably be processing that one for a while to come!! I also forgot about the counting money, multiplication to work out how many candles were in the box, fractions of a sandwich, the obligatory letter to the faeries and the craft the owlets concocted after they had played in the garden with big owlet's best friend. Not only that, their games are so involved they are actually long winded dramatic sagas which can go on for days!! Ok, so where's that checklist in my head... Literacy : check. Numeracy : check. Science : check. Creativity and self expression : check. Got that one in spades. Physical stuff? Ballet class and walking all over town... check! Socialisation : check. So really it was a well rounded day. We covered loads. The owlets never stop talking or asking questions and as long as I never stop answering them, we are fine. Phew! It seems I have a little more deschooling to do...

It comes down to trust. Trusting that they have an inbuilt sense of what they need to learn. Also a trust that I can recognise and help them access what they need. Trust that little owlet's lines on paper and occasional circles will lead to words one day. They will. Also a trust that allowing free thought, creativity and self expression will keep that spark for learning alive and set them on the way to a lifelong passion for the pursuit of knowledge. How can it not?


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Some bits and pieces on trust and creativity that may interest you...

TED Talks - Sir Ken Robinson SaysSchools Kill Creativity
How do Unschooling Parents Know their Children are Learning? - By Jan Hunt
You Have to Trust that the Child will Learn - By Rosalind Rossi
Deschooling a Parent: Learning to Trust - By Jan Hunt