Reading, Writing, and Texting

Homeschooling in our house looks more like unschooling so reading and writing, along with the learning of other subjects, is largely unstructured. As the kids get older though we are trying to add a little bit of structure in and hold them accountable for some work. Reading has been slow going for my oldest and although…

Ask The Educator – February Edition

Photo By Barbro_Uppsala Our contributing educator this month is Amanda Lehrman, from The Momma Files. If you have a burning question for her we’d love to hear it, just complete the form below. Now on to this  month’s questions: Lauren Gordon from MommyBreakdown.com asks: Two of my three kids are summer babies. It seems that everyone is holding their…

Parents Can Use Reflection to Gauge Unschooling Progress

  It’s a common theme among homeschooling and unschooling parents to have this constant nagging feeling that we are somehow not doing for our children what we need to be doing. That we’re somehow experimenting on them with unschooling and the educational choices we have helped them make. I have discussed own issues with  this here several times before Over…

Ask The Educator – January Edition

I’m starting a new feature here at Harmonic Mama where you can “Ask the Educator” any burning questions you may have. In our first installment we have a question about how to encourage your child to read. The answers will appear here on Harmonic Mama on the last Thursday of every month. Our contributing educator this month is…

A place of their own, the reading nook.

Yesterday we put together a little reading nook in the unused space at the end of our daughter’s bed. This space often collected stuff and was never a very usable space but with the addition of a small chair and two book ledges made long ago from these plans we made a great little reading…

Learning Through the National Park Service Junior Ranger Program

Recently while on vacation in the Great Smoky Mountains we discovered the Junior Ranger Program offered by the National Park service for kids ages 5 to 12. The way the Junior Ranger Program works is that you purchase (or download) a booklet that is age appropriate and has various activities related to the park that…

Guest Post – Educating our Children…and Ourselves

Educating children is one of the primary focuses of our family. As unschoolers education is ingrained in our every day and always on our minds. Today I’d like to share a different perspective with you all. We have a great guest post from Ellie Hirsch, The Mommy Master™ about her experience with the education system and quest for the…

The Mathematics of Doctor Who’s Fez

My oldest is a huge Doctor Who fan. She has seen all of the episodes from the last couple of seasons and quite a few of the previous ones. When Halloween started getting close she wanted to be Doctor Who, more specifically the 11th Doctor. We went to various thrift stores and department stores and outfitted her with his trade marked suspenders, tweed jacket and bow tie but the one additional think she insisted on was a fez, because to quote the Doctor “I wear a fez now. Fezzes are cool”

Self Directed Math Learning with Base Ten Blocks

Can you unschool math? Sure you can, especially with base ten blocks and other manipulatives! My kids love math and love working with numbers, splitting up sets, multiplying (although I’m not sure if they understand what that word is), etc… A great deal of this enjoyment comes from unstructured work with base ten blocks. Base ten blocks are a…