uuhomeschooler.org

https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/90232 My friend Annie and I were having one of those homeschooling parent conversations the other day, the ones where, among people who know and and live the highs and lows of this model of education, you can drop the carefully worded justification and pedagogically couched assurances that yes, the kids are learning and socializing and otherwise turning into fine samples of humanity, and instead talk about the tough parts that you actually need some support with, the hours and struggles that make you wonder why you decided to do this whole-life thing in the first place. My hard thing was the fact that my older two kids are fighting something fierce these days. Her hard thing was that bedtime reading wasn't going so well. I'm a little too close to my own issue at the moment to process it well publicly, so I gave some thought to Annie's struggle instead. (Aren't we glad we have friends for this kind of thing, to distract...

I was Googling "strabismus" the other day and came up with this article, about how the condition (where both eyes cannot work together in stereo, and so compensate using the visual equivalent of context clues to navigate the world) is actually a great boon to visual artists. Why? Because instead of seeing the world primarily in objects, which the brain translates to icons, people with strabismus pay more attention to the actual colors and contours in front of them. But of course this is a trait that can be and is learned by visual artists, over the course of many years.  In many ways, we often fall into perceiving circumstances, events, and people around us icons rather than the unique and significant collection of traits that we are actually encountering in a real-life moment. (A closeup of the painting "Spring," by artist Bertha Gutierrez . 2016) "My child is a real tough cookie." (Oh, I hear you on this one.) "This house is always a wre...

Our real-life family friend Edmund, who is a mathematician and artist, recently co-created a coloring book called Snowflake Seashell Star , and gifted us with a copy for Christmas. We've been playing around with it for a couple of days, and found some great extensions to some of the math concepts introduced within it. This Ted-ED video discusses the debate over whether mathematics were discovered or invented.  "So, is mathematics an invention or a discovery? an artificial construct or a universal truth? human product or natural--possibly divine--creation? These questions are so deep, the debate often becomes spiritual in nature." And that video led nicely into some activities taken from the UUA's new "Miracles" curriculum, specifically session 2 , which uses poet May Sarton's work to talk about looking at the natural world with close attention. "If one looks like enough at almost anything, looks with absolute attention at a flower, a sto...

Many UU families, for a variety of reasons, take a blended and eclectic approach to December, mixing secular and religious customs, as well as family-of-origin, borrowed, and newly created traditions. Susan Katz, Miller author of Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family , argues that there is great benefit in these blended and eclectic approaches to ritual, celebrations, shared belief systems, and observances. The families she interviewed conscientiously created rich and meaningful experiences where their children were doubly-blessed with two faith heritages rather than feeling pulled to one or the other, or removed entirely from a religions perspective that they could claim. (Katz Miller was the featured speaker at this year's national conference for UU religious educators, and found in that audience many with whom her ideas strongly resonated.) Within the framework of both/and, a UU homeschooler can go in a lot of directions this month, inspired by t...

Some families take to the road full time, selling homes and possessions and living in an RV or car camping for months or years at a stretch. Some families embrace it temporarily, making the rounds by couch surfing at the homes of far-flung friends and family members for a season or so. And some plan overnights and day trips on a regular basis or every so often, getting to know the places just outside their usual perimeter. Whatever road schooling or car schooling looks like for you, there are some big benefits to getting outside of one's routine and customary locale. Children can be energized and challenged by taking on new roles, such as that of the navigator, the camp manager, the budget minder, the itinerary planner, the food pack carrier, etc. They may also be inspired to muster some extra courage and try something new: horseback riding, a subway ride, ordering their own food at a restaurant, picking their own food on a farm, zip lining, attempting communication in a diff...

It's late summer where I am in the Northern Hemisphere, and more precisely, in the stretch of mountains and valleys that I call home, it's still tick season. Ticks attach themselves to people in warm, moist, dark places, and I'm glad to say that with both my older boys having Our Whole Lives (O.W.L.) Sexuality Education in the background--even at ages 6 and 9--they can communicate the very delicate location of the ticks without awkwardness or self-consciousness so we can get right to addressing the problem! Which brings me to the main topic: sexuality education. I'll readily admit my bias, but I think Unitarian Universalists lead the nation in doing sexuality education well . Before I was a UU, I was a classroom teacher. And my parents and students approached me asking for sexuality education to be added to the curriculum. I spent that summer researching programs, and knew immediately when I had the right one in my hands. OWL blew me away with its focus on self-...