Cindy
Cindy has a passion for learning about and celebrating the diverse learning styles within her home, and moderates two yahoo group lists to support other families with similar children. You can find her at aut-home-fam, which supports families homeschooling their children with autism, or at homeschoolingcreatively, which supports families homeschooling children with a right-brained, visual-spatial, creative learning style. To peek in on her day to day lifestyle, you can check out her blog, Apple Stars.
I officially started my homeschooling journey just after experiencing the kindergarten pre-registration process with my first-born son, Eric. I chose to listen to the uncomfortable and uneasy feelings in my heart and mind that emerged from that brief hour and look into other ideas on how to continue the path of holistic living and learning that we had been implementing based on our Christian beliefs since the day he was born. I was fortunate to find a homeschooling mother who became my wise mentor who helped me discover my own homeschooling path. Her first order of facilitation was to help me discover what "style of homeschooling" I wanted to do? Huh? She gave me a resource that shared blurbs of the various styles utilized by homeschooling families, and she assured me that I would probably know the style I wanted when I read it. Well, sure enough, right there it was . . . what we've been doing all along since birth . . . the style called unschooling....
To Copy Is To Cheat; Or Is It?
"Wow!" I exclaimed as I picked up a drawn picture of my 4-year-old son's that I found in his pile of artistic endeavors. This was definitely an improvement in his drawing ability ...
Ayesha asked: I have 3 young learners and a 4 month baby. I have developed a learning program for my older girls 7 and 5 1/2, yet my 4 year old always seems to be left out. How can I incorporate her into the program so that she benefits from the day and feels a part of the family ...
Hema asks: Many thanks to all the writers, readers and others who manage this site. I'm learning so much as I transition my family into unschooling. My son is almost 5 years and my daughter is almost 2. My husband is not available during the week but tries to spend time with us on the weekends. The issue I'm facing is how are the logistics in unschooled homes ...
The Pendulum: To Choose or to Force
After presenting a workshop at Rethinking Education about our unschooling process, an attendee asked me a personal application question: "I can see that you are a Christian, right?" I replied in the affirmative. She then posed her searching question: "I can see how unschooling would be such a great fit, but as Christians, my husband feels that the children need to obey....
I smile knowingly as my fourth child, Adam (then 8 years old), who has been diagnosed with autism, skips past me in the hallway clutching his favorite book, Dr. Seuss' ABC....
Interest-Based and Child-Led Learning: A Comparison
I used to think that the terms interest-based and child-led learning were synonymous. But recently, I had a clarifying moment as I have helped various homeschoolers understand how I facilitate learning with my children as described in my Collaborative Learning Process....
Some years ago, I sat in a circle of homeschooling mothers, confused by the universal complaint among them that they couldn't find time for themselves within this lifestyle. I was confused because I had found the exact opposite to be true in my own life: I was free to discover through my children deep Truths that had been hidden from me as well as opportunity to explore new and exciting ideas, perspectives, and interests....
Socialization: A Shift in Perspective
My son, Eli, was diagnosed with high functioning autism/Asperger's Syndrome in 04/96. He knows about the good parts of autism and the hard parts of autism in his life. Eli also knows he has a tender heart which means he is highly sensitive and that he is very creative which means he is a strong right-brained learner....
Understanding the Right-Brained Creative Learner
"She's smart, but lazy." "He's living below his potential." These are some of the comments a parent of a right-brained learner may hear about their child in regard to their learning process. This creative learner is often later in developing the areas of reading, math computation, spelling, handwriting, and writing. But, there are reasons for this timing in the development of these areas based on their strengths and how they learn and process information. And there are reasons we subconsciously place judgments upon these children and how they learn....
Inspiration: An Engaged Life, by Cindy
On an e-mail list about diverse math resources, the listowner mentioned how she often forgets to talk about how critical inspiring her children is in their homeschooling lives, versus requiring, as talked about in A Thomas Jefferson Education. I couldn't agree more! When she brought this up and then described how that looks in her house, it inspired me to put the words about how that looks in our home, and particularly what was the catalyst to my understanding this concept so early in our homeschooling lives....
I was prompted to recall today some of the lessons I learned from my firstborn son, Eric, the first year we began to homeschool. Don’t we all have these? My most important lesson I learned was the snake lesson....
Alex, my fifth child and fourth son, was diagnosed with autism in February, 1997, at just over two years old. At twelve years old today, he would probably be considered high functioning autism. Although it is said that a person with autism has an "encompassing preoccupation with one or more stereotyped and restricted patterns of interest that is abnormal either in intensity or focus", I have found that with a little shaping through expansion, it can also be a catalyst for engagement in a full life. One of Alex's long-standing interests is ceiling fans, and I would like to share some glimpses into how this interest has enhanced his life....
I ended my last post about my oldest son, Eric's, first experience with formal education through a dual-enrollment community college program. He had taken two courses with very different instructors and expectations for what made up his end grade. Eric had brought his unschooling perspective into the classroom with him and did well with a professor whose grading recognized and reflected the real learning that occurred within the confines of my son's mind....
My oldest son, Eric, 16 at the time, wanted to learn to computer program for a possible interest in pursuing video game programming. Naturally, he wanted to learn the programming language that real video games are programmed in, C++, and so our hunt for resources began....
Answering The Question: "How Do You Homeschool?"
After finishing a meeting in the community, the woman who sat next to me, after hearing in my introduction that I homeschool my children, eagerly asked if she could have a conversation with me about homeschooling. She has an only daughter and has consistently been interested in homeschooling her, but has some worries as well as wondering how homeschooling works....
I was called "the bookworm" in my family of birth. Two of my siblings were considered "not good at reading", and the other "didn't bother"....
Socialization Already Answered
Eric seemed bored and I was newly nauseous with morning sickness with my fourth child, so we decided that Eric should try a well-lauded area child development center preschool associated with the local university for a half year. So in January, just before his fifth birthday, he began attending two days a week....
Of course I questioned the course to homeschool Adam when we discovered he was living with and struggling with autism! Why wouldn't I? Hadn't he been born into a loving, enriched unschooling environment of facilitation and nurturing guidance? But wasn't he completely floundering . . . increasing in frustration on a daily basis by the time of his diagnosis at 3.5 years old? How could any child not flourish under such a setting? Clearly, Adam wasn't. I was determined to discover with him what he needed in order to make sense of his world and find joy living in it....
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