We all know that in the formal economy, women are paid less than their male counterparts. But did you know that in the home, women are finding themselves doing the bulk of unspoken labor and daily household work…even during the pandemic when there are two partners or spouses working from home? This extends far beyond…
Eclectic Homeschoolers Connecting with Nature
by Meredith Hanson As a homeschooling parent, I’m frequently asked why I choose to homeschool my kids. I always find myself a little at sea on how to answer this question, because there are many reasons that my husband and I have chosen to homeschool our three children. To add to the difficulty in responding,…
How Can Hygge Translate Into Your Homeschool?
by Leslie Kleppe As I write this post, it is -22° F outside. The cold temperatures of our Minnesota winter often draw us indoors to cozy up. The Danish phenomenon called Hygge has finally reached the United States, and it’s impossible to go to a bookstore, browse Instagram, or read the news without hearing the…
Unschooling in the Wild Urban Spaces Around Us
by Laura Madsen It’s a Thursday morning, about 11 o’clock. Breakfast remnants are still on the table and floor, the dishes unwashed. My 7-year-old is sighing dramatically as his pencil goes flying across the room again. My 5-year-old is moaning on her unmade bed, paralyzed by the mountainous task of getting dressed. The 3-year-old twins…
Creating Community Through Storytelling
by Aza Donnelly Last year, my kids had been in a bit of a social drought. They had a couple of friends they spent time with, but were pretty content to stay home. But the teen years call, and even introverted children begin to dabble with the idea of trying on an extrovert lifestyle. About…
UP CLOSE: A Day in the Life of This Eclectic Homeschooling Family
by Kathy Oaks We’ve got three boys aged 6 to 15, and we have a lot of fun homeschooling. We’ve been homeschooling for a long time—really, since our first son was born. What else is it we’re doing with our kids but helping them learn about life? We do our best to unschool, that is,…
Homeschoolers vs the Halloween costume
by Aza Donnelly MHA Board member I love Halloween. Pretty much everything about it. The aesthetic, the history, the time of year, the 1983 version of Disney’s Halloween Treat that I scrounge up on Youtube and force my kids to watch every year. But the costumes –I have a real love hate relationship with those…
Tips on teaching your children how to read
by Maria Almli former MHA board member I am in the process of teaching my fourth child to read. We sit on the couch together, I read her a picture book, then an alphabet book, then she reads me a book. This is not a magic formula, but it does contain what I have found to…
Hybrid homeschooling: not ‘all me’ or ‘all school’
by Kelly Sullivan Noah Pop quiz: Where do your children learn? A) Only at our kitchen table, and only what I teach them. B) Only alone in nature, and only what nature teaches them. C) All over the place, taught sometimes by me, sometimes through their own discovery, and sometimes guided by others. OK, that…
Unschooling Seasonally: Facilitating learning this fall
by Aza Donnelly, MHA Board Member It’s Fall. I love Fall; however, Fall makes me a bit unstable. I feel a little off my game. The excitement of the new school year is everywhere, regardless of the educational philosophy. As unschoolers we spend countless hours during this season with our more curriculum-minded brothers and sisters…