photo by Eyo Shahid (click it, to enlarge)
Saturday, February 21, 2015
Beauty in the moment
Parvine Shahid wrote: SandraDodd.com/wonder
photo by Eyo Shahid (click it, to enlarge)
photo by Eyo Shahid (click it, to enlarge)
Friday, February 20, 2015
One of the best parts
"If you want to unschool. You should be willing to—expecting to—rejoicing to!—grow and change. It's one of the best parts." —Lisa J Haugen in a facebook discussion |
Thursday, February 19, 2015
Mystery word history
Many words carry a story with them. Why an old word here, and a new word there? If you can't figure it out, maybe you know someone you could ask, or you could look around.
Don't believe every word-history story you read on the internet; there's some nonsense, but you can learn how to double-check, and after playing with etymology a while, you'll get better at spotting fiction.
SandraDodd.com/etymology
photo by Holly Dodd, in India
Don't believe every word-history story you read on the internet; there's some nonsense, but you can learn how to double-check, and after playing with etymology a while, you'll get better at spotting fiction.
photo by Holly Dodd, in India
Tuesday, February 17, 2015
Special places
What memories, sights and sounds can make a place special? |
photo by Marta Pires (but the tent is here, too)
Other special-place posts:
Normal or exotic? and Learning at home, and in other special places
Monday, February 16, 2015
Words and thoughts
Words and thoughts are what you will use to change your beliefs and behaviors.
Tool used to create the image is gone now. Sorry.
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Sunday, February 15, 2015
Do, offer, think
"When we can we should always do more, offer more, think more, and make our bit of the world as big and full as we can for our kids. Our kid's lives get bigger and better when our thinking gets bigger and better." —Deb Lewis |
photo by Rippy Dusseldorp
Saturday, February 14, 2015
Lack of control
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Friday, February 13, 2015
Real and good reasons
Every choice you make should be made consciously, thoughtfully, for real and good reasons.
photo by Sandra Dodd
Thursday, February 12, 2015
The safest place
Make yourself your child's safest place in the world, and many of your old concerns will just disappear. |
photo by Rippy Dusseldorp
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Wednesday, February 11, 2015
Kids blossom
Kids blossom and get bigger from doing adult things because they want to, instead of kid-things they have to do because they're small.
photo by Colleen Prieto
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Something looks like this:
bird,
child,
stonework,
structures
Tuesday, February 10, 2015
Power
"I want my kids to feel empowered, so I empower them." —Jenny Cyphers |
SandraDodd.com/jennycyphers/
photo by Rippy Dusseldorp
Monday, February 9, 2015
Love and respect
"Start with love and respect and all the good things follow—it is not magic, and it is a lot of hard work especially at the beginning."
(one day on Always Learning)
photo by Chrissy Florence
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—Marina DeLuca-Howard
photo by Chrissy Florence
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Sunday, February 8, 2015
What the...
"People learn by playing, thinking and amazing themselves. They learn while they're laughing at something surprising, and they learn while they're wondering 'What the heck is this?'"—Sandra Dodd |
Note: The quote lives at that address, but (awkwardly) it also shows up in the random quote in the upper corner, with my name after it (as above).
A sweet message arrived yesterday:
Hi Sandra,
I just wanted to share this funny story. My son Angel (9) was reading to me the daily quote from the top right corner of your website, he read it out loud as this:
People learn by playing, thinking and amazing themselves. They learn while they're laughing at something surprising, and they learn while they're wondering "What the heck is this Sandra Dodd?"We both laughed heaps!
Tan Hibbert
Saturday, February 7, 2015
Books and clocks. . . music, blocks
Meredith Novak wrote, on facebook:
SandraDodd.com/meredithnovak
photo by Sandra Dodd
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If you live in a home with books and clocks, movies, music, blocks, games, dishes, furniture, toys, clothes, the internet, and adults who are interested in kids, then you have "the basics" all around your kids all the time. And because those basics are there, kids will learn about them&mdashthey'll learn that words are a valuable tool and there are many ways to use them. They'll learn that numbers and patterns are as useful as words and sometimes better than words for a given purpose. They'll learn those things without lessons, living and playing and snuggling on the couch with you without ever needing to draw a line between those things and learning. —Meredith Novak * |
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Friday, February 6, 2015
No pressure
Model trains, WWII, Japan—any obsession or "limited" interest touches on geography, history, materials, technology, cause and effect, human actors, religion, engineering, art, languages, all kinds of stuff.
The best thing an unschooled child can have is a parent who realizes there is learning in everything. As to "resist," it can only happen in response to force or pressure, right? Parents should resist pressuring their kids, I think.
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Thursday, February 5, 2015
Old and new
Right between the past and the future, here we are. What's new today is getting old tomorrow. Be glad to be there as the future reveals itself. You'll be able to say "I remember when that was new..." |
photo by Sandra Dodd, of part of The London Eye
Wednesday, February 4, 2015
Regrets
I regret some times I spoke without thinking first, without breathing first.
Live (think, breathe) as well as you can now so your own list of regrets will be as short as it can be. You will sleep better in future years if you breathe before you speak today.
photo by Sandra Dodd
Tuesday, February 3, 2015
Do things and go places
Say “yes” a lot. Do things and go places and explore the world together with your family — whether the world, to you, means your backyard, your neighborhood, your town, your state/country, or a giant chunk of the globe.
—Colleen Prieto
photo by Claire Horsley
Something looks like this:
bridge,
perspective,
ride,
water
Monday, February 2, 2015
Exotic whatever
Be open to unexpected art.
Suggestions for Creating Abundance when Funds are Low
photo by Sandra Dodd
Saturday, January 31, 2015
Being more present will help.
When connection is less good, parents sometimes see their children as needy, demanding or unreasonable, and focus on dealing with practicalities rather than on the child and her needs.
—Debbie Regan
(but the quote is from an Always Learning post here)
photo by Colleen Prieto
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Friday, January 30, 2015
Little actions
—Pam Sorooshian
photo by Sarah Dickinson
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Thursday, January 29, 2015
Sharing movies with our kids
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Wednesday, January 28, 2015
Respecting young children
photo by Julie D
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Tuesday, January 27, 2015
Actually change!
I practiced saying yes. That was the only way to make changes. To actually change. My thoughts changed gradually as I said yes. Yes to cookies, yes to grapes, yes to letting go of "good" and "bad" labels for food. —Karen Angstadt |
photo by Sandra Dodd, of an Australian salad with mouse melons
Monday, January 26, 2015
Native habitats
photo by Rippy Dusseldorp
Sunday, January 25, 2015
Guarantee
photo by Laurie Wolfrum
Saturday, January 24, 2015
Hidden secret rooms and magic doors
When I move thru your site, I feel like a child in a candy store, or like I'm in a fantastic meandering castle with hidden secret rooms and magic doors to new realities.
SandraDodd.com/random
photo by Julie D
Friday, January 23, 2015
Less terrified, more attracted
I've been reading your unschooling writings for around five years or so, being simultaneously terrified and attracted. Well, less terrified and more attracted as time goes by. Thank you. |
(Quote saved without attribution, from a private note years ago.)
SandraDodd.com/feedback
photo by Sandra Dodd
Thursday, January 22, 2015
Gradual Change
Leah Rose wrote:
The leaps I've tried to take always seem to leave me feeling shaky and uncertain that I'm on the right track. When I inch forward in baby steps the ground feels solid and I know I'm heading in the right direction. I know it's working when I'm at peace. That's the marker I look for.
—Leah Rose
photo by Eileen Mahowald
Wednesday, January 21, 2015
No bad choices? But...
Without choices, they can't make choices. Without choices they can't make good choices OR bad choices. |
photo by Sandra Dodd
Tuesday, January 20, 2015
Sand and water
Play with sand and water. Find seeds. Sit in the shade, and in the sun. Set ice in the shade and in the sun. Write with ice on a sunny sidewalk. |
photo by Janine
Monday, January 19, 2015
People change
Be generous with your patience. Life is long. People change, and more than once. |
photo by Sandra Dodd
Sunday, January 18, 2015
Dress up and play
My three children grew up around adults who played, not just putting on feasts and tournaments and building medieval-looking camps, but also playing strategy board games and mystery games, having costume parties when it wasn't even Halloween, and making up goofy song parodies on long car rides.
Maybe because I kept playing I had an advantage, but I don't think it is beyond more serious adults to regain their playfulness.
photo by Julie D, and is unrelated to the text,
except around the costumes and joy, and the Holly Dodd
(and is also a link)
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Something looks like this:
costumes,
friends,
wheelbarrow
Saturday, January 17, 2015
Skipping a stone over history
My children don’t go to school. The boys are 12 and 10, and lately they have been obsessed with a game they borrowed, Warcraft II, which they play on a Macintosh right next to mine. This has been great for me, because just as with the “parallel play” of toddlers, we’re together, but have nothing to fight about. Well hardly anything. They want me off the phone sometimes so they can call their friends and brag about how many pixellated orcs they killed. And I would like to listen to Prince, or Donovan, and they whine “I can’t hear the game, mom…”
The photo is Holly when she was three, possibly four. The writing is from when she was seven. The reason they needed me off the phone to call friends is that the internet was on dial-up. When we had two computers, only one could be online at a time.
Today we're in four different places, and of course I miss the days of three young children. A photo to match the days of the writing above is at this link:
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Friday, January 16, 2015
Everything and more
photo by Sandra Dodd
Thursday, January 15, 2015
Bringing money back
Written in 2005 or so:
Recently I paid Holly $5 to do a title for a webpage. She's thinking of doing some more of those. Other than that, there's been lots of me and Keith offering money and them saying "That's okay, I still have my allowance," or of them accepting it graciously. I'm thinking of things like "We're going ice skating," or "Can I go to the movie with Marty and them if he'll let me?"
"Do you need money?"
They usually say they don't. Sometimes I send a ten or twenty dollar bill with Holly to hold in reserve just in case they end up short, or wanting snacks, or going to eat later. As often as not, she brings it back.
photo by Sandra Dodd, of Marty, in Minnesota once upon a time
The title Holly did for five dollars and some others by Holly
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
Step by step
Schuyler wrote:
I can almost pinpoint the minute when I turned from feeling a need to have my own needs met in a separate but equal kind of way to seeing how being with Simon and Linnaea was meeting my needs in the most involved and deep way....
For me, it was very clearly incremental, it was a step by step building from small changes to a point where I was in a position to find personal fulfilment in being with my children. It wasn't martyrdom, or it didn't feel as though I'd sacrificed myself for their joy. It did help to get the almost kinetic memory of being kind to them, of meeting them where they were instead of expecting them to meet me where I was.
—Schuyler Waynforth
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Tuesday, January 13, 2015
See the joy and learning
Look at your child directly, and not through the lens of other people's fears. See the joy and learning and doing and being. Be with your child in moments, not in hours or weeks or semesters.
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Monday, January 12, 2015
Just the next one
Pam Sorooshian wrote: Becoming the Parent You Want to Be
photo by Sandra Dodd
New, April 2020:
The writing from which the quote above was taken has been translated into French, by Valentine Destrade: Une interaction à la fois.
photo by Sandra Dodd
New, April 2020:
The writing from which the quote above was taken has been translated into French, by Valentine Destrade: Une interaction à la fois.
Sunday, January 11, 2015
Change for the better
With apologies to male readers... adjust as necessary.
You don't have to change everything. You can't change everything at once anyway. If you start acting consciously and mindfully with a goal in mind (more peaceful, richer environment, more patient, more gentle—whatever direction or combination of principles you want to hold as your guiding lights), you can and will be a better (more conscious, more thoughtful) mother, and a better person.
SandraDodd.com/choices
photo by Sandra Dodd
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I wrote "have to."
Perhaps it was in response to someone having used it in her "yeah but..."
I could have written "You don't have to change everything, yet everything will change."
photo by Sandra Dodd
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I wrote "have to."
Perhaps it was in response to someone having used it in her "yeah but..."
I could have written "You don't have to change everything, yet everything will change."
Saturday, January 10, 2015
Be generous.
"Whatever lights them up, spend as much as you can on it—time and money and creativity and the rest. Don't worry if it's more or less than someone else. Be generous. Fill them up to the brim."
—Meredith Novak
photo by Sarah Dickinson
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Friday, January 9, 2015
Easy, but wait...
photo by Sandra Dodd of mugs by Brenna McBroom
The image refers to something later in the linked article.
My bamboo spatula looks like a piece of toast here, but it's not.
I didn't realize this photo would need so many notes!
Thursday, January 8, 2015
Trivia is knowledge
Trivia is knowledge that connects things to other things, and ideas to images, and sounds to places. |
photo by Janine
Wednesday, January 7, 2015
Don't talk it. Be it.
Some unschooling parents talk too much to their children about unschooling. Just DO it, don't talk it. Be it. |
photo by Rippy Dusseldorp
Tuesday, January 6, 2015
TWO steps, maybe; then more and more
There are several sayings about the journey of a lifetime beginning with a single step and such. One step isn't the beginning of a journey if you keep one foot in the yard. You have to get away from the starting point completely.
SandraDodd.com/peace/newview
photo by Colleen Prieto
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SandraDodd.com/peace/newview
photo by Colleen Prieto
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Monday, January 5, 2015
Moment of sweetness
—Deb Lewis
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Sunday, January 4, 2015
What's happening?
Expectations can get in the way of seeing what is really happening.
—Robyn Coburn
photo by James Daniel, of Julie and Adam at the Grand Canyon
Saturday, January 3, 2015
Knots
Knot tying can lead to all kinds of history and geography. Hunters, traps, climbing, ships (wrapped bottles, in addition to all kinds of sail rigging and tethering knots), and cowboy stuff, and...
SandraDodd.com/math/knots
The photo isn't of tied knots, but drawn and painted knots, by Keith Dodd. Keith knows lots of knots, with rope, but I don't have photos. What's there looks confusing. It's a three-legged tooled-leather-seated folding stool with a painted shield leaning on it.
The photo isn't of tied knots, but drawn and painted knots, by Keith Dodd. Keith knows lots of knots, with rope, but I don't have photos. What's there looks confusing. It's a three-legged tooled-leather-seated folding stool with a painted shield leaning on it.
Friday, January 2, 2015
The weather of the soul
When I was younger and I would change, I thought something was wrong with me. I was under the mistaken impression that personality and mood should be constants. Life is better when I think of those fluctuations as tides, or as the weather of the soul.
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Thursday, January 1, 2015
Consider them to be whole
Consider them to be whole, no matter how old they are. |
SandraDodd.com/interviews/bloggingboutboys
photo by Roya Sorooshian
(The photo that was here got lost, so I've replaced it
with another of Wyatt, and his Mom!)
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