Wide view and close-up

A closer photo of this gate might look more limiting than this distant view. There's no fence attached, past the low places on each side of the road. It will keep vehicles out, but not animals.

If you're feeling limited by something that doesn't really have a fence, it might be illuminating to look more closely at some of the construction, at the details. Things are different different places, and interesting.

To young children, things can be new even if they're the same old hardware, or view, or tree, or sky, to the adults. If you can see through a child's eyes, things might seem new again.

Seeing as a visitor or a tourist, in your imagination, will reveal another layer to your same-old, too. Even when you don't have visitors, you can think of what might be interesting to someone from another side of the world.


Your House as a Museum
photos by Sandra Dodd, visiting Queensland in 2014
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Shady shadows

Light makes art, by projections, reflections, animated shades, and shadows! It's beautiful, temporary and only costs the time it takes to remember to look for it.


SandraDodd.com/light
photo by Karen James

Getting it

When people say "I read [whichever] webpage last year, but..." and I say "Read it again," I think they might think I'm accusing them of not having read it, but it's that after using the ideas a while, the description makes lots more sense.


Whatever it is we're learning—crochet patterns, musical notation, using crutches, building a fire, making cookies—hearing instructions (or reading them) makes VERY little sense at first. Later it makes more sense. But after trying it and figuring out some things for ourselves, and then going back and looking at the directions, they come to life, in color, and they make 3-D sense.

SandraDodd.com/gettingit

Read a little, try a little; wait a while, watch
art and photo by Roya Dedeaux
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Just play

I've decided it's not so much the "what" that we do, but the attitude in which we do it. The whole wide world is open, just play and enjoy it. —Jenny Cyphers

"What (if anything) should I be doing to help..."
photo by Linda Malcor

Being inside

If you can't go outside, look at the beauty inside. There are things you might have missed, if you didn't have time to sit and see.
Creating history
photo by Tara Joe Farrell
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Finding a social spot

Humans are social animals, and learn in mixed-age groups, when they learn naturally. A family can create that natural learning environment, or can fail to create it. :-/ Being around other people, though, IF AND WHEN a child wants to learn and is encouraged by parents to learn how to be considerate and sociable, can be a good place to learn "manners"—ways to behave politely.

In school, children are still social animals with the need to identify who might help them, and what their role is within the social structure. The social structure being unnaturally 20+ kids the same age, they figure out who are the leaders and the "young" and they act in accordance with their instincts in an unnatural setting. More adults to—teens, and young adults, and middle-aged, and elderly, behaving in natural real-world ways. TV is better for that than school is. Ideally, a rich unschooled life *IN* the real world is better than either.



photo by Julie D

I can't find where I wrote that, up there, but three people shared it in 2012,
and I still think it's true. —Sandra

Be curious about life

Get interested in things yourself. Not interested in your child getting educated, but in learning for yourself. Pursue an interest you've always wanted to but never had time for. Be curious about life around you. Look things up to satisfy your own curiosity. Or just ponder the wonder of it all. Ask questions you don't know the answers to. "Why are there beautiful colors beneath the green in leaves?" "Why did they build the bridge here rather than over there?" "Why is there suddenly more traffic on my road than there used to be?"

Let your child know that all the questions haven't been answered yet and it's not her job to just keep absorbing answers until she's got them all.

—Joyce Fetteroll

Five Steps to Unschooling
photo by Pushpa Ramachandran