I\'m Summer, a mouthy, sarcastic bitch. I\'m passionate about natural birth, long term breastfeeding, and living naturally. I curse too much, love tattoos, and will some day be crushed to death by my book collection. I homeschool, dream of gardening, and swing to the left. 
Unschooling Voices #14
Welcome one and all to the 14th edition of Unschooling Voices! I am super excited to be able to host April’s edition. Though I know it is April Fool’s day I’ll try not to joke around too much here. Oh heck, let the joking commence!
Laura from Sea Bird Chronicles shared a very important holiday with Poem in my pocket, saying “April 17 is the first annual Poem In Your Pocket Day! The idea is to carry a poem with you on that day and read it aloud whenever you like. A fun activity to do with kids!”.
How about What I’ve Learned at School by Robert Pottle:
At school I’ve learned a lot of things
I really like to do,
like running in the hallway
and eating gobs of glue.
I’ve learned I’m good at making pencils
dangle from my nose.
I’ve learned to hum and pop my gum.
I practice, and it shows.
I’ve learned I like to cut in line
and love to cut the cheese.
I’ve learned to fake a burp, a cough,
and even fake a sneeze.
You’d think with all this learning
I’d be doing well in school,
but everything I learn to do
appears to break a rule
I found that poem at Giggle Poems, a fun site of silly poetry for kids. Laura has also been collecting fun sites in her post Favorites: web sites for children posted at SeaBird Chronicles. She says “For months now I’ve been bookmarking sites for children that are truly delightful to visit. The sites below are well-designed, fun, clever, and probably just as interesting to you as to your children!”.
Rose shared a little of her family’s day in An Uncredentialed Day posted at Learning At Home. Behold, the horrors of an uncredentialed parent teaching her children. Oh the terror, oh the pain, oh… look pancakes! Mmmm.
Karen shared a perfect example of unschooling in action in 98 Seconds on YouTube Leads to Hours of Fun and Learning posted at Two Boys and a Dragon. Not only is that spark of creativity pretty cool, but her blog name totally beats mine. I’m so envious.
Stephanie W has a post near and dear to my mom of boys lovin’s heart called Interest Led Learning, “All Boy” Style over at the always great group blog Life Without School. She shares that “I’ve found that most of our formal interest-led learning richochets off things I would never have tagged as “educational.” We’ve followed rabbit trails from interests like trading card games and ended up in new and sometimes unexpected places.” OK, but what about burping contests at the dinner table? Cause my boys are excelling at that right now.
Feeling a little hesitant by all the super cool unschoolers around you? Don’t worry, Kevin has some Unique Learning Adventures For Homeschoolers that you can take advantage of from his blog M4K Homeschooling and Education.
Ending on a more serious note, Jennifer Price shared her thoughts on the passing of unschooling advocate Lisa Heyman at her blog Cosmic Mama. Her life touch so many and she will be greatly missed.
I hope you all loved this edition of Unschooling Voices as much as I did. For more information on next month’s edition and for links to all the previous editions check out the Unschooling Voices main page. Thanks!
[tags]unschooling, unschooling voices, home education, family[/tags]
Thanks for hosting. It all looks like so much fun. And if you are looking into a way to turn that interest in burping at the table into a learning experience, you can have them learn about esophageal speech. It is used by some people who have laryngectomies (removal of the voicebox, usually due to cancer) as a way of communicating. Some get to be so good at it that they can even present speeches. Alas, it is a bit of a dying art as technology (and the use of the tracheoesophageal puncture with a speaking valve–much easier than learning esophageal speech) is replacing the need to learn esophageal speech. So, your kids could be on the cusp of reviving a lost art. Imagine!
Rose’s last blog post..Monday guest blogger