Molly and her circus friends performed Saturday afternoon at ComFest. It was super hot!! ComFest takes place over three days. For so many it is the three days they look forward to all year. My son and his friends included. Our house is close to the bus that runs down to the park so we have had kids, many kids staying here this weekend. I am tired and looking forward to a quiet day tomorrow!

Here are a few more photos from the weekend.

Until next year—Happy ComFest!

Friday night we went to our local hoopers meet up in the park behind our house. So many awesome and talented hoopers to watch and learn from!

Hoops of all sizes!

And so many awesome and talented hoopers!!

Even a fire hooping performance!

And they meet twice a week!! Can you tell I am excited?! Everyone was so nice–I can’t wait for the next meet up.

Are you looking for a group to hoop with? Check out Hoop City. Click on the connect button and see if there is a group near you.

Happy Hooping!!

My two older kids learned how to hoop years ago. They have taken a few hooping classes and practiced on and off for years. They can do some tricks and walk around and keep the hoop up and going around effortlessly for hours.

These photos are from a few years ago at circus practice. I on the other hand never could get the hang of hooping.  Even as a kid I just couldn’t get the hoop to stay up. It always looked so fun but I also felt self conscious that I couldn’t do it so I didn’t practice at it much. And just figured I was just someone who couldn’t hoop.

Now fast forward to  this year. One of the great things about the internet and blogs is being able to see how other people live. I have been loving the new wave of unschoolers that have taken their lives on the road.  I have been  living vicariously through these families whose blog updates I  anxiously await just to  see what “we” are up to in our customized RV!  I so wish we could pack up and go–live an adventure on the road. But alas-my family says NO!  So as I sit here and dream I notice that many of these women have taken up hooping. They look like they are having so much fun.

And then Sara posted this giveaway and I entered thinking Molly would love a new hoop. But as I began clicking around her post I found that Lara and Superhooper were taking their hoops on the road and heading towards Ohio. Without a second thought I contacted Lara and invited her to Columbus.  And with that I decided eff it I was going to learn to hoop.  I didn’t care if I looked foolish. For three days my kids tried to teach me. Nothing. I watched countless how to hoop videos on Youtube and even checked a hooping book and DVD out of our library. I was dreaming about hooping.  Then it happened!!! On day 5 finally I could keep the hoop up for a minute or two. And each day it gets easier and I don’t have to make such huge exaggerated movements to keep the hoop up anymore!!! YEAH for me!!

Ginger learned too. But she is learning much faster and is working on tricks already. She literally went from not being able to hoop at all to using 2 full size hoops in less than a day.

One of our hoops broke and with 4 hoopers and being down to 1 hoop we needed more…we had to have more! So we went to Lowes and bought our supplies. (There are instructions and tips all over the internet.)

irrigation tubing  160 psi  3/4 inch

3/4 inch connectors

various colors of electrical tape and duct tape  (we found some metallic tape at a craft store.)

you will also need a hack saw and a blow dryer

Don’t be intimidated this is super easy

Measure your tubing –your hoop should come between your navel and your nipple.  The bigger the hoop the easier it is.  Mark it and cut it with a hack saw.

Heat one end with the blow dryer to soften up the tubing so the connector fits in easier. This only takes a minute or two. Once it is warm shove the connector in half way.

The girls wanted their hoops to make noise so we added rice to the tube

Next heat the other end and connect the tube together as close as you can get it. Then we wrapped a bit on electrical tape at this point to keep it together snugly.

Next–decorate your hoop however you want using electrical tape and  duct tape. The duct tape is a little slippery and wrinkly for hooping so electrical tape is recommended but we used both.

As soon as we finished we went and hooped in the dark in the back yard! There just isn’t enough room in the basement for three hoopers—unless we stand on the furniture!

Looks like we are set now! The white hoop in the front is actually an LED hoop that my husband made for Molly for Christmas a few years ago.  If you are local and are interested in joining us for free classes with Lara let me know!!! She will be here next weekend. Happy Hooping!!

Where to start?! The media is, well the media. They are a business.  They feature stories that will boost ratings.  They use shock value  to stir up attention and in turn receive more viewers.

So why we are surprised by  both the Good Morning America and the  Discovery Health reports on Unschooling?  They are typical examples of  biased reporting.  Both were short segments filled more with shock value than facts and true glimpses into real unschooling.

Mainstream America just doesn’t get Unschooling. They aren’t going to.  For heavens sake only about 25% of American adults have a face book account. I thought everybody was on face book! So imagine how the majority of the world could possibly understand Unschooling?  Especially with the shows that Discovery Health and Good Morning America put out. Yet, it is so easy for me to forget that we are radical. It is so easy for me to forget that my family is so different than almost everybody else.

Partly because I don’t reflect the mainstream and haven’t for so long.  I have my own  fairly large community that I identify with. I belong to a food co-op and rarely shop at Kroger and I love my public radio station where they don’t play anything you have ever heard of. —–That’s weird…… Yeah, I guess.  I recycle, compost, use cloth napkins, shop at the thrift store and line dry my clothes—-Oh, your one of those hippies!….. OK.  My kids don’t go school—-Oh, you homeschool? Will you always do that? Do they socialize with other kids? ……No,we Unschool—— Huh?????? Like those crazy people on TV? Did you see that, they let their kids eat donuts for breakfast—– That is main steam media for you!

I don’t sit round and think about how different we are. We just live. We aren’t purposeful in every move we make. We aren’t living for “the unschooling movement.” We don’t look different. We don’t walk or talk differently. (well maybe a little differently   ) Our daily life is pretty uneventful to the outside world. We get up and go about our day just like everyone else. Only we have learned a little secret that seems so unfathomable to the rest of the world.    Choice

We all have them. Really we do have  choices in everything we do. Yes, some choices make life harder than others but  we have choices in life. And as Unschoolers we have made many, many unpopular choices.

Kids don’t have to go to school–gasp! They don’t have to get up at a certain time of day to be productive—gasp! They don’t even have to be told to learn!  No, really, it’s just automatic. Adults may think they have control over what kids are leaning but kids and adults everywhere are learning ALL THE TIME!

I googled learning and Wikipedia gave me this: (from a very mainstream source even!)

Learning is a process you do, not a process that is done to you. Traditional education focuses on teaching, not learning. It incorrectly assumes that for every ounce of teaching there is an ounce of learning by those who are taught. However, most of what we learn before, during, and after attending schools is learned without it being taught to us. A child learns such fundamental things as how to walk, talk, eat, dress, and so on without being taught these things. Adults learn most of what they use at work or at leisure while at work or leisure. Most of what is taught in classroom settings is forgotten, and much or what is remembered is irrelevant

1. ^ Russell L. Ackoff and Daniel Greenberg (2008), Turning Learning Right Side Up: Putting Education Back on Track (pdf) HTML. Retrieved February 18, 2010.
2. ^ Greenberg, H. (1987), “The Art of Doing Nothing,” The Sudbury Valley School Experience. Retrieved February 18, 2010.
3. ^ Mitra, S. (2007) Sugata Mitra shows how kids teach themselves (video – 20:59). Minimally Invasive Education, Retrieved February 18, 2010.

These choices we have made are hard. And Unschooling is a journey of sorts. The vast majority of unschoolers did not wake up one day and decide to make all of these radical choices in one day. But it is easy to forget that.

Beginning with following your heart and letting go of what other people think. It’s your life –who care’s what other people think.  Really–let that go and be the real you. We only have one this one life to live. Live it the way you want to.

Then giving up  the ” should do’s”  and the  “have to’s”.   Really question why you are doing things. Do you really want to? Or are you just doing them because you should do them? What will really happen if you don’t do them? Can you live with that result? Can you make a different choice to get the end result you want?  Then make your decision based on that. It  is a process.  These choices we have made seem so normal and automatic to us now that sometimes we forget how the other 99% of the world is living.  There really are so few have to’s in our lives but we assume that we must do way too many of them. Don’t follow blindly. I want to make my life just what I want it to be. And fill it with what I want. You can to. You have a choice.

So to the outside world our life may seem uneventful but really it’s just the opposite. Really we are choosing to exercise our choices. We aren’t living lives full of have to’s. We are living fully everyday. Not just on the weekends or when we go on vacation. Not just when we have time. And you can too. You have a choice–to put your kids in school or homeschool or really trust yourself and  live your one life freely and Unschool.

May this be the year we soar to new heights

Dance with reckless abandon

Stretch ourselves

Take risks

Toast our friends

May this be the year…………

Photos taken at First Night Columbus 2009

Kristina Isabelle/High Jinks Dance Co

KidCo

The unplugged theme this week is BALL.  I had wanted to make these juggling balls as a gift for Jake for Christmas and we never got around to it.

I decided to change up the instructions a bit. I was afraid if we just filled the balloons with rice or flour they may break. So we used raquet balls and tennins balls, rice and ballons.

First we carefully cut slits in the raquet balls and filled them with rice.

Then we cut the tops off the balloons and stretched them to fit over the balls. The tennis balls we just covered with balloons.

This is were it got a little tough. If you follow the links directions we should have cut small holes in other ballons and wrapped them round the balloned balls. We couldn’t stretch the ballons with out breaking them. A few worked.

But then I remebered we had these tiny rolls of colored masking tape.

This worked great. Ginger preferred stickers and a crayon!

I would post a photo of Jake juggling these new juggling balls but he is in bed with the flu! I am sure he will love them but in the mean time I’ll post this old photo and you can pretend he is juggling the new fancy balls!

2008 went out with a party!!!

Stilt dancing downtown at First Night

Jake got to walk in the streets with the big boys…lucky him!!!!!!!

We made it home just in time!

2008 was good but 2009 will be even better!!!!! The pork is in the crock pot (to ensure my good luck!) And we are off for a day of skiing. Welcome 2009!