Nice quote

"The one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can." Neil Gaimon

Thursday, June 26, 2014

Teen or Young Adult Looking for a traveling adventure?

If your teen or young adult is considering traveling, here are some links to explore:

Blake Boles Unschool Adventures website:
http://www.unschooladventures.com/
Unschool Adventures


Blake Boles Unschool Adventures Facebook Group:
Unschool Adventures

image
Unschool Adventures
We run life-changing trips for self-directed young adults. http://www.unschooladventures.com
Preview by Yahoo

Blake Boles' fundraising book (free): Unschool-Adventures-Online-Travel-Fundraising-ebook

Hila Shooter's fundraising book. Ticket To Ride (Amazon Link) 
If you want to save money, I'd advise searching on ebay and other sites for a used copy. Or check with your library!

Here is the group Hila went on an adventure with.

Ava Burgos went on a trip to Maui where she had tent housing with beds, wifi and food provided, worked a few hours a day, and then had time to travel and explore the island.  I had the pleasure of meeting her last week and hearing about her experience (which was extra interesting since Jim and I lived on Maui in 1996-1997).  


image
Have you Heard of a Gap Year?
Here's one experience of self-directed learning, from a friend of Open Doors in Warwick, NY: *** Warwick residents Ava Burgos, 19, and Calvin Linn, 21, are settling...
Preview by Yahoo

This is the site Ava Burgos used to find the Huelo Lookout Fruit Stand on Maui:


Link to the Huelo Lookout Fruit Stand on the Help Exchange site:
http://www.helpx.net/host.asp?hostID=9128&network=5

Note: Ava wrote that it costs fifteen dollars for a two year "premium membership" which allows you to add photos to your profile and look at the full job profiles including reviews from other helpers who have visited the properties.


WWOOF | Work exchange on organic and sustainable properties
Work exchange on organic and sustainable properties. Volunteer exchange on sustainable and organic farms and properties. Association of WWOOF International Limited
Preview by Yahoo





Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Pam Laricchia's third book, "Life Through the Lens of Unschooling: A Living Joyfully Companion"

My third book, Life Through the Lens of Unschooling: A Living
Joyfully Companion, is now out with a special launch price of
$2.99US for the ebook and $11.99US for the print edition
(those are my list prices, though Amazon sometimes plays 
with them a bit from there). At the end of this week
they will go to their regular list prices of $4.99US
and $13.99US, respectively.

http://www.amazon.com/Life-Through-Lens-Unschooling-Companion-ebook/dp/B00KXGNJU4

Here's the book description:

As more and more parents challenge the assumptions of the school
system, their curiosity about unschooling grows, and often one of
their burning questions is:

What does day-to-day life look like for an unschooling family?

Pam Laricchia has been unschooling her three children for over a
decade. Life Through the Lens of Unschooling, like day-to-day
life, meanders here and there, covering a wide array of topics.
You'll find essays tackling everything from learning to read to
visiting relatives, all organized around nine key words that have
been woven into the fabric of their unschooling lives: 
deschooling, learning, days, parenting, relationships, family,
lifestyle, unconventional, and perspective. The theme is life;
the lens--unschooling.

Drawn from her popular blog at livingjoyfully.ca, imagine this
book accompanying you, a joyful companion on your unschooling
journey, as you dig deeper into your understanding of unschooling
and what it might look like day-to-day in your family.

****

If you're interested, here's where you can grab the book:

Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00KXGNJU4/
<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00KXGNJU4/>

Amazon UK: 
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00KXGNJU4/
<http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00KXGNJU4/>

Amazon Canada: http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B00KXGNJU4/
<http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B00KXGNJU4/>
(still waiting for the print edition to appear)

FYI ... it's enrolled in Amazon's MatchBook program, so
if you buy the paperback, you can get the ebook for
free.

It should also show up on Kobo in the next couple of days
(they made a booboo but are fixing it asap).

****

And if you want more info, here's the introduction:

When I first started blogging regularly about unschooling in the
fall of 2012, it was a place for me to have some fun. I had one
book published at that point, Free to Learn: Five Ideas for a
Joyful Unschooling Life, which I had written with an eye to being
concise, accessible, and as helpful as possible for people trying
to understand the principles behind unschooling. The blog was,
and is, a place I could share more about the day-to-day
antics of living with unschooling. Share some personal
experiences. What does life look like for an unschooling
family? And I could ask myself questions and play with the
answers in short bursts, without the need to form a larger
narrative.

Now we're in early 2014 and the Living Joyfully with Unschooling
blog has over sixty posts of varying length, covering a wide
array of topics that look at life through the lens of
unschooling. Yet the chronological nature of an online blog
means that, for the reader, it's easy to find the most
recent posts, but even with categorizing and tagging,
digging through the inventory to find the particular posts
that would be most helpful to them at this particular
moment of their unschooling journey is challenging.

I began to think about the value of bringing together all this
writing in a more manageable format. Yet I also didn't want to
just create a "blog in a book form." The chronological nature of
the writing is now irrelevant. And the posts are already 
categorized by monthly topic on the blog, so that's taken care
of. How might I bring this project together so that it has
greater value for the reader?

So I created a swirling pot of all the posts. I stirred and
peeked and stirred some more. I played with numerous ways
to organize and group them, looking for ways that might
bring additional clarity beyond the posts themselves.
Eventually I hit upon the single words you see in the table
of contents. These are words that, since we began
unschooling in 2002, have been woven into the fabric of my
understanding of unschooling. And as I sorted and re-sorted
my blog posts into these threads, some wonderful synergies
emerged.

You may find some content overlap, yet each time it's within a
different context. I specifically chose to keep that because I
don't know which context will make sense for which readers.
That's how learning works—different connections for
different people.

Gathering my blog writing into book form also gave me the perfect
excuse to work with my lovely editor again! Typos were caught,
thoughts clarified, grammar tightened. All very good things.

Why call it a companion?

I've chosen to call it a companion book because it's not meant to
explain the ABCs of unschooling. It doesn't march from beginning
to end, illuminating different aspects of a single theme. It
meanders here and there, diving into the thoughts and questions I
have pondered on the blog up to this point in time. The theme is
life; the lens—unschooling. I imagine it accompanying you,
a joyful companion on your unschooling journey, as you dig
deeper into your understanding of unschooling and what it
might look like day-to-day in your family.

Speaking of which, it needn't be read in order. If you're 
wondering about something in particular, skim through the table
of contents. Which word seems most closely related? Which
post seems like it might stretch your thinking, or spark
new insights?

Thank you for inviting me along on your unschooling journey!

****

Have a great day!
Pam