how do you define unschooling? how do you describe it for your family?

our favorite unschooling definition is "pursuing our bliss".

when i tell neighbors and others who assume that my children have sit-down scheduled lessons each day that my children are free to do whatever they want with their time, i am jolted by their reactions into realizing that creates an entirely different picture for them than the one i intend.

i think they assume my kids watch cartoons, fight with each other, and eat ice cream all day. the lack of trust in a child's own motivation for learning is sad.

anyway, homeschooling for us means we are all busy pursuing things we love and new things that interest us. all the time. any way we please. we structure our home so that lots of educational and art materials are available for exploration no tv. kid-friendly set-ups with comfy places to read and nice desktops for projects, stools for kitchen assisting, kid size garden and cleaning tools, etc. easy access to nice outdoor spaces, lots of field trips. my husband and i work away at the things that we do, and so the kids see us reading, writing, researching, crafting, cooking, gardening, making music, etc., and they follow our example as well as lead us in new directions. we all respond to each other in this conscious journey.

our kids spend lots of time reading, doing math for fun and for practical reasons, asking questions and looking up answers, building, gardening, cooking, drawing, making things bubble and explode, learning to get along, doing puzzles and playing games, riding bikes and skateboards and rollerblades, playing outside all over the place, snuggling stuffed animals and each other, helping with housework because they want to, making friends, following workers around to learn what they do, pretending and imagining.

sometimes we have days or even weeks at a time where we don't do much of anything. sometimes we're just quiet. other times we're grumpy.

gotta go, baby is needing me.

hope you hear from you!

what do you do?