Showing posts sorted by date for query sparkly. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query sparkly. Sort by relevance Show all posts

Thursday, March 21, 2024

The bright, shiny parts

On a scale from dull and dusty to bright and shiny, where is your life? How much of the happy outside world is flowing in? How much are you and your children interacting with the bright, shiny parts of the world outside?

Unschooling should and can be bigger and better than school.

If it's smaller and quieter than school, more should be done to make life sparkly.


Let one thing lead to another for you. Explore. Not the parent pressing the kid to explore, but the parent exploring and connecting.

SandraDodd.com/strew/how
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Friday, January 5, 2024

Environmental factors


In the quote below, "it" could be replaced with
  • home
  • life
  • your nest
  • your children's day
  • yourself

Make it happy and funny and comfortable and exciting so that they want to be with you. Be sparkly.

SandraDodd.com/unschool/sparkly
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Tuesday, February 7, 2023

Courage? Confidence.

Courage is sometimes about making life bigger, more sparkly, about living in the world, about creating a good nest.

I think of it as confidence. They're similar. Confidence grows from the inside, though, while courage can be reckless.
. . . .

When you're thinking about what unschooling can bring into your life, don't forget confidence, or courage. And do things to build that, so your children's lives and worlds expand.

Slightly edited from Building an Unschooling Nest
photo by Janine Davies

Sunday, September 11, 2022

Ideas and energy and fun

Joyce Fetterol wrote:

One of the factors that drew me to homeschooling rather than public schooling was that I thought learning should be fun. But only the unschoolers were focusing on fun and having positive relationships with their kids.

Much of the other forums were devoted to how to make kids do their work, what products were best, what to do with younger kids while older ones did their work.
Pam Sorooshian responded:

This got me thinking, Joyce. Because I found unschooling the same way, just looking for homeschooling information and discovered that the message boards where the unschoolers were talking were the ones that got my heart racing because they were so alive and sparkly with ideas and energy and fun and love of their children.

SandraDodd.com/unschool/sparkly
photo by Sandra Dodd

Saturday, August 13, 2022

Bigger and better

A mom who's going to help a child learn from the whole wide world should herself become ever increasingly comfortable with what all is IN the whole wide world, and how she can help bring her child to the world and the world to her child.

Unschooling should and can be bigger and better than school.

If it's smaller and quieter than school, the mom should do more to make life sparkly.
spiral dragon slide at a playground

SandraDodd.com/strew/how
photo by Kirby Dodd

Friday, May 20, 2022

Ease, joy, and sparkle


"Unschooling, for me, works better as a practice and less well as an identity. I can always get close, understand the problem better, and lean on unschooling principles to find more ease, joy, and sparkle."
—Tara Joe Farrell

SandraDodd.com/unschool/sparkly
photo by Cátia Maciel (her camera, anyway)

Tuesday, March 22, 2022

Sparkly and wonderful newness

Part of what makes something sparkly and wonderful is the observer being new to it and seeing it as a giant wall of glory and potential.

Be patient and understanding if your child is growing tired or more cynical about an interest or pursuit.

When unschooling isn't as new, it can begin to dull for the parent. Find what you can see as new and sparkly, in your child and his interests.

The first paragraph is a quote from the Focus, Hobbies, Obsessions chat.
photo by Kinsey Norris

Sunday, January 31, 2021

Where learning abounds

Unschooling should be rich, flowing and mindful living where learning abounds. Too many people see "living" as nothing more than the absence of death. Let's encourage sparkly, bubbly, warm and effusive lives.

SandraDodd.com/sparkly
photo by Elise Lauterbach
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Tuesday, November 17, 2020

Make home sparkly

Jo Isaac wrote:

What do your kid LOVE to do in the home? Do more of it. Buy more of it. Make home as sparkly as you can. Buy fancy foods, buy take-away dinners from different cultures, make extravagant hot chocolates, put your Christmas decorations up early, plan a cool advent calendar event, plan to watch a bunch of cool movies, etc.
—Jo Isaac


Sparkly Unschooling is a good match,
but the original is here on facebook
photo by Kinsey Norris
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Friday, October 2, 2020

Smiling about Smiling

Find something to smile about.

Beginners, aim for once per day—one extra smile.

More experienced unschoolers, raise that to several a day, and then once per hour.

Before long, you'll be smiling easily and more often than you could count.

You'll know you're significantly happier when just the thought of counting smiles will make you smile.
Sparkly Unschooling
photo by Karen James
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Wednesday, August 14, 2019

Changing focus


"I focussed on making sure that my son's life was better, bigger, more sparkly, and had none of the 'have to's' that my life had."
—Jo Isaac

The path to peace
photo by Jonathan Medina
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Wednesday, December 26, 2018

Sparkly and joyful

Choices in an environment maintained with learning in mind are different from choices in a quiet, boring place. If I were a kid, my choice in a quiet, boring place would be to go to school.

Make your unschooling sparkly and joyful.


SandraDodd.com/schoolchoice (righthand box halfway down)
photo by Sandra Dodd

Tuesday, December 4, 2018

Choose the good things


No parent has to do anything. They choose to do things.
. . . .
Through all the innumerable factors, how DO people decide?

By deciding what principles they are following. Each principle one clings to eliminates about half the choices in the world easily, and in a good way. Each additional principle eliminates some more options, until the world becomes manageable.

One of my guiding principles is that I want my children's worlds to be sparkly.

There goes the dull and the darkness. Easily not chosen, not an option.

SandraDodd.com/unschool/sparkly, 2004
photo by Irene Adams
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Tuesday, November 13, 2018

Real relationships


There are multiple facets that make unschooling work best. The two biggest facets that go hand in hand for me are the absence of school and school think, combined with real working relationships with my kids. People can go and do one or the other and not let them overflow into each other, but it won't be as bright and sparkly.

Relationships and wholeness
photo by Colleen Prieto
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Monday, October 15, 2018

Sparkly thoughts and moods

When someone said she should make her house seem more sparkly, I wrote:

Not seem. No pretending.

Not your house. Your thoughts, your interactions, your moods, your responses. Sparkling, like sparkling from one thought to another, connecting a picture with a song with a joke with a movie with a dog.

Sparkly ideas
photo by Colleen Prieto
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Tuesday, August 1, 2017

Explore. Connect.

On a scale from dull and dusty to bright and shiny, where is your life? How much of the happy outside world is flowing in? How much are you and your children interacting with the bright, shiny parts of the world outside?

Unschooling should and can be bigger and better than school.

If it's smaller and quieter than school, more should be done to make life sparkly.


Let one thing lead to another for you. Explore. Not the parent pressing the kid to explore, but the parent exploring and connecting.

SandraDodd.com/strew/how
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Sparkly and flowing

Sometimes it's fun to try to think with fewer words.

Unschoolers can move toward "better" by making better choices.

Imagine a way to be. What about clean, moving water?

When you choose activities, responses, thoughts and moods could you choose things more sparkly and flowing?

SandraDodd.com/feedback
photo by Maria Wong
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Monday, March 30, 2015

Funny and comfortable

Make it happy and funny and comfortable and exciting so that they want to be with you. Be sparkly.

"It" could be
  - home
  - life
  - your nest
  - your children's day
  - yourself

Sparkly Unschooling
photo by Janine
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Sunday, August 24, 2014

Flowing play

One of my guiding principles is that I want my children's worlds to be sparkly.

There goes the dull and the darkness. Easily not chosen, not an option.


SandraDodd.com/unschool/sparkly
photo by Julie D, in Leiden, at a playground
also seen here: Clearer and larger

Saturday, April 19, 2014

See what you see

Things don't need to be colorful to be fun.

Ordinary can be colorful. Plain can be exotic.
SandraDodd.com/unschool/sparkly
photo by Sandra Dodd (click for another view)
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