the network for radical unschooling families

Introduce yourself!

Feel free to jump in and introduce yourselves!

I'm Dana, in Bellingham. I'm a coffee roaster and mom to *3* now! Just had a baby 2 months ago today! My kids are Lauren, 16 in a couple of weeks, Otto, 10 1/2, and little Miranda Grace. I've always unschooled, after having gone to college to be a teacher and realizing I *never* wanted to put my kids into school!

I am getting married to Paul, the love of my life, in September, so I'm busy making wedding plans right now...besides that, what takes up my time is roasting and drinking coffee, hanging out at the farmers market, reading, cooking, taking gobs of pictures of my new baby...you know, that sort of thing!

Lauren enjoys reading, writing, musical theater, ancient history, cryptozoology, and selling tie-dyes at the farmers market.

Otto enjoys drawing, deviant art, video games, listening to music, hanging out with friends, swimming, and spending the money he makes at the farmers market (the selling is just a means to an end for him!). He also designed the wizard picture on our list.

Miranda enjoys pooping, sticking out her tongue, nursing, looking in the mirror, and does NOT like the car seat.

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Trisha Cronin on August 30, 2008 at 10:09am

Hi Jennifer,

They're every Tuesday, at 1pm. I think that they're now meeting at Bigelow Park, the other park they were meeting at has some broken equipment. I'll email and see if I can find out for sure. I've wanted to try going again, too. The first time I went I didn't know which group to approach either! I've been a couple of times since then (and actually talked to people) but it's difficult for me to keep my motivation up when it's a whole group of people who know each other and I don't know any of them!

Trisha

Permalink Reply by Mama Cass on December 31, 2008 at 6:45pm

Hello friends!

My name is Cassie (Mama Cass) 38, and I live outside of Ellensburg, Wa. Who I am now, is a FAR cry from who I was in my 20's! I am loving being a stay at home mom, unschooling my two awesome boy's, Canyon, age 5, and River, age 3 (just turned yesterday!), they were born at home in the water. After dreaming it for over 5 years, I've recently started my home business selling my herbal blends. For a few years, I was a lay midwifes assistant (she is my bestest friend:), and was blessed to attend many a homebirth, and know that one day, when my boy's are grown, my path will lead somewhere in the lay midwifery area, once again. I also still do pregnant belly masks! My husband, Mike, 36, is a letter carrier, and my supporter of this crazy house! I am aso the proud birthmom to my first born, Sam, age 8, who lives in Oregon with the wonderfully loving parents I chose for him through open adoption. Though it's a very bitter-sweet situation, it's a beautiful story!

Canyon is our Lego Master of the house, loves playing his PS2 (MaterNational, Open Season, Spongebob), loves Spongebob, and now likes all the cartoon network superheroes cartoons. He is a great superhero, flying through the house with any cape mom can makeshift (she is in the process of making them both their own cool capes!), jumping off beds to make a cool pose. He loves making up "cool moves", and throwing the POSE after each move, I am often called to take a pic! He has his own language, I call it "Canyon-eze", and he loves to sing with his own words to songs. He knows enough sign language to chat a bit, it was his first language! He is also pretty "curious" about anything...to the point of destruction....he'll pretty much break anything, always has....I say he's going to be the greatest mind in invention!

River loves art. Any art, in any form, he is always needing to create art. He is my messy, messy man....he takes an average of 3 (or more) baths a day...long ones...he loves water (along with his brother). He is my extremely sensitive soul, to animals, and to anything other than love, or warmth. We have to be very careful of raising our voices (when he was an infant, I could NOT call to Mike for things...River would begin crying) around him. He reads my mind, which freaked me out a year ago, but it's old hat now. He loves Caillou, Spongebob, Veggie Tales, and learning about planets, and always asks, when a map is in front of us, "where are we", "where do we live". He still needs naps.

Being a good mom, doing the best I can for my children, with them, is my greatest goal!
This is a novel of sorts, sorry bout that, but the world of unschoolers is where I feel my most comfortable, what an awesome assortment of people! I'm still new to the unschooling path in our lives, but I feel like I've been warming up to it since I was pregnant with Canyon! I can't wait to attend our first conference!

Permalink Reply by Chessa on January 15, 2009 at 3:57pm

Hi all, I'm Chessa, mama to Silas, 2 1/2 and happy partner to Chad for 5 years. We just moved to Seattle (West Seattle, to be precise) in June 2008, so we're still getting to know the area and figure stuff out. We lived in Portland previously, so we're not totally ignorant about the Pacific Northwest, but we were in Detroit, MI for 4 years in between so it's been a reacquaintance.

I'm a SAHM to Silas, although I have training as a librarian. I LOVE books and to read, particularly science fiction and urban fantasy. I'm a big fan of cooking and eating, drinking assorted hot beverages, and watching movies when I can keep my eyes open. ;)

Right now Silas is really into wolves, playing fire and police rescue and doctor, figuring out some of the Wii Sports games (he's really really good at batting practice!), playing tennis with a full sized racket and nerf balls with his dad in the basement, singing songs, playing his guitar, and bowling. And he loooooves to be read to, and has just started wanting to "read" books to me and his dad. Oh, and he's really into helping me grind coffee beans in the morning and putting stuff in the microwave. When the weather is nice he looooves going to "swing-slides" as he calls it. Too awesome for words.

We are pretty new to the path of RU, but it feels so true for us and we are so excited to be learning from everyone here, reading books (I just finished Parenting a Free Child: An Unschooled Life by Rue Kream and I *LOVED* it!) and trying to keep up with prolific email lists on the subject.

I don't really know any radical unschoolers in the area, although I did just get signed up for the Seattle Homeschool Groups SmallFolk list (but we can never make any of their playdates because I swear every single one is at naptime!). I know another mom who plans to homeschool, but not sure about the unschool angle.

I look forward to getting to know you all! Is anyone planning to attend the Life is Good Conference in May? We've never been, but we really want to go!

Permalink Reply by mommy aimee on July 27, 2009 at 2:43pm

hi! This is Aimee, our family now lives in Raymond WA ( pretty close to all you Olympians). My husband and I are unschooling 3 radical kids! DEVO age 8, Kismet age 4, and Royal age 3. My kids need playmates pretty bad. Is there anybody close to us?

Permalink Reply by michelle dawn gregg on August 18, 2009 at 4:57pm

Hi my name is michelle ,I live with my husband steve and our 10yr old son nehemiah he will
be 11 in oct we live in spanaway , is there any others out there that are close to us ? We only
know one other unschooling family by us . Nehemiah loves nerf wars ,video games ,coumputer
games, making videos for ytube and any kind of tag games outside he also loves playing guitar.
Would love to meet others that love this life .Nehemiah would love more friends even some he
could talk to on the computer. I would love to meet others also that get what we are doing.
Michelle

Permalink Reply by Laura Z on October 28, 2009 at 8:41pm

Hey there, I'm Laura originally from Connecticut, dh is Stephane (he's French :)), and dd Caitlyn is almost three (we had her in Argentina). We are not in WA right now, but we're sort of checking there and Portland for a possible relocation. We're in Miami right now where we returned to last fall after leaving to go to Argentina, then to NC, then San Antonio, Savannah and finally back to Miami.

I'm really interested in finding out more about who's up in that area for a support network and exploring the possibilities of what living up there would offer (farms, hiking, ocean, mountains, city, people etc). so if anyone wants to give me their thoughts please feel free to email me at movingtoargentina @ gmail dot com

Well that's it for now, I'll just keep on a lurkin and a readin ;)
Laura

Permalink Reply by Christine Wasankari on February 3, 2010 at 6:22pm

HI there!

We are Heather (12.5) Christine (nevermind-LOL - 43) and Joel (50). We live out in Twilight country near Forks. We've been homeschooling for just about 4 years or so now. I've sort of fluctuated in and out of Unschooling (due to various panic sessions I have with myself) but by and large this has been Heather's experience.

We are into learning how to be as self sufficient as possible and small farm homesteading right now as well as the arts. (I'm a professional artist)(or rather was until I decided I needed to have goats instead) Just kidding. Really, hope we will be kidding soon LOL - Seriously though, this small farm business is seriously time consuming.

Ok, enough sillies. We DO hope to attend the Not Back to School Camp this year at Lake Crescent. We missed it last year :-( We had a blast the 2 years prior. Let us know if you head out this way, would love to meet you.

Permalink Reply by Dana Hoffman Ellis on February 3, 2010 at 6:42pm

I should re-introduce myself, because my kids are all older now! Lauren is 17.5, Otto is 12, and Miranda is 20 months + :)

Dana

Permalink Reply by Heather Delling Rossfeld on February 3, 2010 at 11:42pm

Hello All!

I'm Heather, wife to John and one son D'Artagnan (10). We live in Birch Bay, just north of Bellingham and south of the Canadian border.

Nehemiah sounds a LOT like my boy. He loves you tube, making videos and story mash ups, he is quite philosophical and thinks abstractly. :)

We've been unschoolers from the beginning. We took our son (3 1/2 at the time) to a drop in pre school, where after three sessions they told my husband he was Autistic. We had him evaluated and he is not, zip nothing. But he likes to think and talk (and act) aloud so I see why the teacher might have thought that. But, our ten-punch card never got used up as that was the last of school for us!

Nice to see you Dana. ;)

Permalink Reply by Tanya Dehmer on March 31, 2010 at 10:31am

Hi! I'm Tanya in Tri Cities. We moved here in December from Ithaca, NY with our 3 boys ages 6.5, 4 and 20 months. We are avid gardeners, chicken lovers and nutrition junkies. There's tons of fish oil and salad in this house (gulp, swallow, gag) and no sugar! We love food, maybe to much and our vises are coffee, wine and movies. I hate tv, but watch it and limit the amount my kids watch. I do control what comes into the house and what my children are exposed to. It matters to me and works for us. Having lived off the grid with no tv (no power at all) I have seen how it affects us, mostly for the worse.

My boys are science/explorer lovers. They're all about robots, space and paleontology. They also like playing the Wii and pbskids.org My youngest is into climbing on the table and dumping out liquids....

We go to parks, ride bikes, hike and read, read, read.....

My husband and I are looking forward to building a straw bale home with our boys in the next few years. Also, we would like to get involved with the local Farmer's Markets as a seller (of something) and increase public awareness about food choices and the impacts they have.

We're hoping that there are fun, "eco-minded" people in Tri Cities...that sounds funny.
Tanya

Permalink Reply by sarah on March 25, 2011 at 10:14pm

hi there, i'm sarah. looks like the last post here was a while ago, hopefully people are still checking this out..?

i'm excited to see there are other people here from the olympia-ish area- i am desperately seeking real-life people to connect with, as well as online. :) i like reading, crocheting, gardening, drawing... i love(d) to run, but have incurred an injury which currently prohibits that. i am an organic/non-gmo foods enthusiast, and volunteer at our local co-op with my eldest once a week.

i have 3 kids- sophea (9.75), ruben (6), and mariajean (3). we just began homeschooling in december 2010, and i quickly (much to my surprise!) found that we were definitely moving towards unschooling. it sounded so far out there when i first began doing my research, but now... it doesn't!

sophea likes knitting, reading, drawing, listening to audiobooks, playing math games online, and is currently training for her first 5 mile race (in mid-may). ruben likes to play with action figures, look at/read comic books, and play outside. he is perpetually full of questions which leave me stumbling, headed to the library for answers. midje likes books, polly pockets, pretending she's a puppy, and playing with her best friend. they all like to participate in raising our (egg laying) flock of hens and the gardening.

my husband is hesitantly supportive, although i'm not really sure he has any idea what we're in for! ;)

i am, as i said, very new to this whole concept, but it just really feels right. i'm already seeing a lot of things about myself that i want to change and/or improve. i can't wait until i feel like i know what i'm doing!! :D

Permalink Reply by Melissa Dunn on August 11, 2011 at 2:36am

Hi there! Yes, it looks like the last post was a while back, but I will jump in and introduce ourselves!

I am Melissa, wife to Adam and mama to two boys, Alexander (almost 3!) and Henry (8 months). We live in Tacoma, WA and would love to find other unschooling families with young kids in the Tacoma-Ruston area. :) Our boys are young, but the unschooling path is one that seems very natural to us as a family and is most likely a path we will follow in the years to come.

Alex loves dogs, cats, reading, Legos, laughing, Skippyjon Jones, hiking in the woods, playing in his sandbox, diggers, bulldozers, trucks, and jigsaw puzzles. :) Henry loves mama's milk, his brother, laughing, hiking in the woods, "toys" that aren't really "toys" (i.e., keys, plastic bottles, wrappers, measuring spoons, and anything shiny!) and snuggling. :)

Looking forward to connecting with others and soaking in more information about the unschooling lifestyle from others who are living it.