two chats coming

February 4, 2016 chat on Teens (resources below)

February 11, 2016 chat on abundance/finances

Thursdays, 4th and 11th

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Sue Patterson, who has written a book about homeschooled teens (lots unschooled, but not all) is offering a free excerpt. I've downloaded it.

Did you know I'm giving away a free chapter to my book, Homeschooled Teens?
Would you like to see the chapter about the Advantages these young people found to homeschooling/unschooling through the teen years?

And - I'm including the the Preface that explains more about my family and why I wrote this book PLUS the Introduction, explaining what all the other chapters are about!
Hard to resist, right?

Please share with anyone you think might need a little encouragement!
http://suepatterson.com/free-chapter/

It has:

• table of Contents (1 page)
  
• Preface (5 pages)
  
• Introduction (7 pages)
  
• Chapter 4 — The Advantages of Homeschooling

My site has two index pages on teens. Most of the photos were taken at conferences.

http://sandradodd.com/teen/

http://sandradodd.com/teens/

If you're reading this by e-mail and you need a path to the chatroom, click on the title to get to the blog, which has a tab up to the left with the link and password.

January 28 chat on Food

FUN food, food problems, odd preferences, worries, surprises.

Let's talk about what resources are helpful to unschooling, and what's different, with unschooling. I'm helping with a six-year-old who goes to school these days. I'm learning some new little-kid preferences myself, and some scheduling realities.

There are two chat transcripts from 2009, about food. Here's a quote from one:

mindyh: I just read the most facinating article about food and sex. The author was saying that the old morality concerning sex has transferrred to a new morality about food.

What do unschooling principles have to do with food, though? How does food affect the family relationships, togetherness, and happiness?

Thursday, noon in New Mexico (mountain time). 7:00 pm in Lisbon and London (or in London, 19:00). Find your own time zone, please.


If you're reading this by e-mail and you need a path to the chatroom, click on the title to get to the blog, which has a tab up to the left with the link and password.

Chat January 28, 2016

My reminder notification for January 21 arrived in my e-mail at 3:03, an hour after the chat ended. :-) I don't know why.

Next week, January 28, Thursday, another chat, noon my house. If I come up with a great topic, I'll write again.

If you're reading this by e-mail and you need a path to the chatroom, click on the title to get to the blog, which has a tab up to the left with the link and password.

chat this week

January 21, noon at my house, chat about unschooling.

If you're reading this by e-mail and you need a path to the chatroom, click on the title to get to the blog, which has a tab up to the left with the link and password.

Chat on January 21, a Thursday

I'm sorry to be having a flakey season, but I am.

Some of the people who responded about chats preferred Thursday.
This week I'm sick with a head cold and am spending most of my time happily in bed. I don't mind, but sitting up isn't comfortable.

Next week, Thursday January 14 is Marty's 27th birthday. Holly will be here to help me make food for all our extended family. It will be the first time we're all together without extra people.

The week after that, the third Thursday, noon in New Mexico, I'll be here. The topic can be progress or questions since the last chat days, and ideas for future chat topics. People children are all older, and we've lived through some changes, many of us, and a few holidays. Come and share successes.

If you're reading this by e-mail and you need a path to the chatroom, click on the title to get to the blog, which has a tab up to the left with the link and password.

A chat transcript, Openness to Experience

From February 2014, a chat transcript.
http://chattranscripts.blogspot.com/2014/02/openness-to-experience.html

I finished editing it because I was adding something to a web page, and notice the link was still awaiting completion.
http://sandradodd.com/open

There is the page on openness. I added something to the bottom, from a topic that's been stirred up at Radical Unschooling Info.


SO!! I feel guilty about not doing chats and am willing to start them up again in January, if there's enough interest. My favorite time is Wednesday at noon-at-my-house, partly because it's super easy to remember, middle of day middle of week. That's dinnertime/evening in Europe, 11:00 a.m. West Coast of north America, 2:00 East.

If there are regulars who can't make that time, please propose another time.
If there's interest, please try to stay for as much of the chat as possible. Part of my frustration was people coming in for half and hour and leaving, and all different half hours. We could do one hour instead of two, if that would help people be there.

If there's not enough interest, I could let the chat room go. Donations covered the cost for another year, so it's there until October 2016, when I might let it fade. Maybe facebook is fast enough to cover the desire for immediate feedback and we don't need a chatroom anymore!

Please write if you have opinions, either to me by e-mail or in comments at the blog. If you got this by e-mail, click the title and I think it will take you there. Thanks!

Chat hiatus continues

I just haven't gotten myself back in the mood.

I was sick for a few weeks, then Keith was incapacitated for a while, and when he was better, I got sick again. But it's not just that...

Turns out, I guess, I'm tired of chats. And I'm sorry to say so. But the two hours of the chat plus prep (however slight) and the clean-up (NOT slight, when it involves editing and coding and publishing a chat) takes longer than two hours.

Jill suggests maybe if there's a really good topic, maybe once a month would be good. The chat room is over $10 a month. Maybe that's okay. Maybe that much to "rent a room" isn't bad.

I think if it's not weekly and regular, people will forget. But rather than having a small regular crowd, it might be better to get good topics and advertise widely. I'll think. Input is welcome.

It seems to me to be a better use of time (more satisfying to me, and useful to a greater number of people) for me to work on my webpage, and on Just Add Light and Stir, and to respond on discussions.

Every week (or more often) I discover a web page I started and never finished or announced. This "deprivation" page is an example.
http://aboutunschooling.blogspot.com

Here's another unfinished page:
http://sandradodd.com/barrage

It is partly, and will (maybe someday) be more links to things from 1994, 1995, that we used to send out on AOL. Here's a transcript of a chat from 1995. Twenty years. I know I missed a few years, but there were weeks with two or three chats a week, too. That's a lot of years.

http://sandradodd.com/chats/detox

So there's some excuses for me and some reading for you! Have fun. :-)

Sandra