Getting it, and the state comes to call

There's a new piece, short but sweet, on the "Getting It" page, and I
thought it would be a good page to bring to light in general:

http://sandradodd.com/unschool/gettingit

Last week when I was super-busy with other things anyway, I got a
letter (left on the wrong house, but I got it) from the State of New
Mexico department of Children Youth and Families. You might imagine
how thrilled I was not. I figured I was finally going to be called
on to defend my homeschooling or something along those lines. It was
something completely different, though, and I documented it here:

http://sandradodd.blogspot.com/2007/05/control-and-jealous- craziness.html

The background post is here:
http://sandradodd.blogspot.com/2007/05/holly-news-sandra-muse.html
and
http://sandradodd.com/blogcomments/license

Although it's not at all a classic unschooling essay or anything, I
think there are things there to make one consider the benefits of
living a life of open trustfulness (or of fearful negativity, but why
spread it around more than necessary?).

Sandra

Limits and page names

Limits

http://sandradodd.com/limits.html

Deb Lewis wrote something great on a list I'm not on. Kelly Lovejoy forwarded it to me, and it needed a home. I went to name a file "limits" and found I already had one, with a good bit from Deb Cunefare I had saved but not formatted. I guess I knew someday I'd come back there and fix it up. Today is that day.

I wrote an introduction, threw in five reasonable links.

Pam Sorooshian's daughter, Rose, discovered one day that she could guess URL extensions for my site and lots of them were there. That's been my plan for a while. You might try it, and if you find there's a perfect keyword that's not opening a page, send me a note and I might make a redirect page to the closest existing page, or a directory page, or just build the page.

additions and updates (boring title, but I only tweaked)

"if there is junk in the house my 3 yo will eat that and nothing else if i let him"

Another edition to the "If I let him..." page. I am attracted and repulsed by that page, but I think it's important to have. It's here:
http://sandradodd.com/ifilet

If you've never seen it, you might want to start from the bottom.
If you haven't seen it for a while, maybe read it with your own family's improvements in mind. Many of the parents who wrote those things went on to change, and their children very wonderfully proved them wrong.


http://sandradodd.com/help
This page for people curious or new to unschooling might be a good one to pass on to people who inquire, who are considering it for next year, etc. It has links to other unschooling sites, lists, podcasts, recent news articles, local contacts, the flickr photo pool, Typical Days posts, blogs, and Unschooling Voices.

And it's possible it's a page some of you didn't know about. I keep finding pages I had forgotten about. I don't mind, as long as the links are still good.

I added two links to sandradodd.com/unschooling (my main page). Neither page is new, but they hadn't been put in the alphabetical listing on the main page.

When Siblings Fight
http://sandradodd.com/peace/fighting

It's linked as "transition" on a couple of pages. The page is titled "Learning to See Differently" but I used "Transition" on the list.
http://sandradodd.com/peace/newview

If you find any bad links, please let me know!

Thanks for reading,

Sandra

Ren, Marty, sex

http://sandradodd.com/renallen

This page isn't new, but I had failed to link it from my main unschooling page, so I wanted to make sure people were aware of it. It has links to various Ren Allen items and her blog and unschooling pages.

As usual, I make pages or add to them and forget to tell people, but I have two:

http://sandradodd.com/marty/thatmarty
Started off about the good job Marty did as MC of the talent show at Mary Gold's recent conference, and expanded a bit. And because of that (indirectly) I got another testimonial for the page about what about kids looking at internet porn (vaguely it's about that, mostly it's about... you know, the whole trusting kids thing): http://sandradodd.com/sex (down under the Marty story, I think the second item there is new, and the whole page might be new to some of you).

New Blog Layouts

Holly made this with photos Marty took, sitting in a sculpture of broken carts Marty made (behind the store where he was working). I'm putting it here partly because I like it and it shows some of the things they do for fun, but partly to see if this blog format will accept wider images than the old one.

"Parenting Resource of the Month"

Each month for the past ten years, The Natural Child Project has named a resource of the month. Beginning tomorrow, my unschooling pages will be featured. The first resource named was La Leche League, in April 1997. Last year Rue Kream's book was featured in February, and Joyce Fetteroll was "Miss October" (as it were ). Last year the AlwaysUnschooled list and the magazine Live Free Learn Free were also featured. It was a big year for unschooling! I find myself in excellent company, and am glad Jan Hunt likes my site enough to share it out with her readers. Most of her letter is below. I don't know when her review will be up, but I'll put a link here when it is: http://sandradodd.com/unschooling

Sandra
===================================

Hi Sandra,

We have selected Radical Unschooling for our February 2007 "Parenting Resource of the Month" feature. A review will be posted at http://www.naturalchild.org/site_of_the_month/. Our site receives about 250,000 visitors per month.

We'll place a link on the Natural Child Project home page at http://www.naturalchild.org , and will note this selection in the February issue of our email newsletter, which currently over 5000 subscribers. Previous issues can be read at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/naturalchildproject/ .

[then there was some stuff about how to link and get the graphics...]

Congratulations and thank you for providing such an inspiring and enlightened resource!

Best wishes,

Jan Hunt, M.Sc., Director
The Natural Child Project
http://www.naturalchild.org

"Change the world - nurture a child."

magical day, food controls and speed reading

http://sandradodd.com/typical
http://sandradodd.com/day/danielle

The first link will lead to the second. Danielle had a beautiful day described on her blog and I added it to the "Typical Days" section, with a link back to the original.

http://sandradodd.com/eating/longterm
Two new accounts of the problems with controlling food, and the surprising benefits of freedom and choices.

The page existed. The two new accounts are in the middle, after Kelly's story of the restaurant. IIt was a good page, and now it's better.

There's a new account on the speed reading page by Ria.
http://sandradodd.com/r/speed
and I've added an image of part of what would be lost by reading too fast.

health food and multiple intelligences

Health food and multiple intelligences—totally unrelated to one another:

http://sandradodd.com/eating/healthfood
Short new page on eating,
and the main food page is cleaned up and improved
http://sandradodd.com/food

I'm working on a page on Gardner's Multiple Intelligences. If you're interested, check back by Wednesday, by when I'll have added more.
http://sandradodd.com/intelligences

the heart of it; WoW reading; bedtime

http://sandradodd.com/unschool/gettingit
Short new bit added to Unschooling: Getting It

http://sandradodd.com/game/reading
Hayden reads the back of the World of Warcraft expansion set box aloud—check it out.

http://sandradodd.com/bedtime
well... bedtime! choices, sleep...

A New Math Story

One new math page and I cleaned up the others (larger margins, double-checked and update links).

http://sandradodd.com/math/think

Main math page: http://sandradodd.com/math

Updated pages:

My son knows Algebra (somehow!)
A Tale of Times Tables
An Unschooler does "Word Problems"
A letter from Wendy Petti at mathcats.com
Unschooling, Money and Math
Pam Sorooshian on Dice
Games and Math
Teens who didn't study math

Peace and Flowers (and a rant and stuff)

Sandra in the early 21st Century
http://sandradodd.com/00s

New writings added here:
http://sandradodd.com/t/holly
http://sandradodd.com/t/peace

New from Schuyler (not newly written, but newly available online):
http://sandradodd.com/schuyler/rant

Some new photos and clarifications on the Morning Glories page, a page that's brought in a couple of readers who were looking for morning glory information and found unschooling and other things.
http://sandradodd.com/morningglories

Sandra

The Blindmen and the Elephant

I wasn't going to announce this page, as it's not original writing,
nor about unschooling or the SCA.

Then I thought, all things being connected, that it might be just
the thing SOMEone needs this week, for some unknown reason, or it
might be something someone will need next week, so I might as well
put it out there.


http://sandradodd.com/theblindmenandtheelephant

Joyce found the poem a couple of years ago, and when I went today to find a text, I found slight variations, so I've tweaked this one to a matching set myself. If you find any errors, please let me know.