The folks from Texas

Rodney (50), Andrew (14), and I (Glenda, 47) will be driving from west-central Texas to the symposium. Although Rodney’s been to Minnesota several times for business, this will be Andrew’s and my first trip to the northern part of the U.S., and our first long driving-trip as a family. It will also be our first time to meet up in person with other unschoolers, including friends Andrew and I have made over the years via several unschooling lists. It will certainly be a trip full of many “firsts,” which is quite exciting!!

Andrew has always been homeschooled, and we’ve been unschooling, really, from the point at which he would’ve had to enroll in school (age 6, here).

In their bio, Deanna said this about her son, Alexander: “Alexander has long enjoyed gaming and has met some truly awesome friends on the Unschooling Gamers group.” I can say the very same thing about Andrew!! Andrew is looking forward to hanging out with those friends in-person.

In addition to a love for many-things-gaming, Andrew has a passion for participating in plays at our local community theatre (recent productions include “Get Smart,” “Cat in the Hat,” and “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever”) and would like to expand his theatre knowledge to include the technical side of productions. He tried out our local youth bowling league last fall, and looks forward to joining again this fall. Now that he’s between theatre productions, we’re all three ready to blow the dust off our bowling balls and start honing our bowling skills again! We’re also looking forward to his cousins’ schools letting out for the summer, as we enjoy hanging out with them and their parents at the pool….that’s probably the only perk of the triple-digit temps we have during the summer! When Andrew’s looking for some downtime to recharge his batteries, he likes watching YouTube and reading.

Rodney and I both work in the family business, Rodney full-time as a safety/loss-control consultant, and I very part-time as an executive assistant. We are fortunate to have a boss (my mom) who places a huge priority on “family first,” and who is incredibly supportive of allowing us to work our schedules around things such as this trip.

Rodney is a fantastic nature photographer and is looking forward to coming home from this trip with a memory card full of beautiful-scenery photos. He also has a great love of being outdoors, which results in us having a garden for as much of the year as our weather allows! He built a fantastic chicken coop for our (city) backyard a couple summers ago, and is always looking for new ways to capture rainwater (which has been in woefully short supply the past several years).

I currently enjoy doing Zentangle, but was an avid embroiderer for several years before that. (I keep thinking I’ll mash-up the two hobbies, but it hasn’t happened yet.) I love finding new-to-me tv series (“Supernatural” and “Battlestar Gallactica” are current faves, with “Dr. Who,” “Sherlock,” and “Elementary” next up in the queue), reading (favorite series are “Game of Thrones” and “Outlander”), being at the pool in the summer, playing with our dogs, and hanging out with my fellas.

The Schad family

Greetings from the Schad family! We live in the White Bear Lake area of the Twin Cities, Minn. -- Steve, Tracy and two girls Skyler (9 y.o., soon to be 10 on 5/9) and Delaney (6 y.o.). Steve and I will celebrate our 18th anniversary at the end of May.

I'm a former animal shelter worker; my favorite role was that of foster care and breed rescue coordinator. Animal welfare is a part of me. I enjoy reading, photography, and creating arts and crafts (well, more honestly, the idea of doing so; I love my Pinterest boards.) and simply enjoying our tree-nestled home with its large backyard and the small forest backing up to our property.

Steve enjoys history (reading biographies and watching documentaries), art and creating amazing vegetarian dishes for us. He works at Andersen Corp. as a corporate training and development manager. Like me, he loves being awed by natural beauty, and some day soon, we are going to take that love on the road with more traveling and enjoying what the world has to offer.

I first came upon unschooling while reading John Holt's How Children Learn as I rocked a 6-wk-old Skyler. I bought it thinking it was a how-to book; in a way, it was, but of the opposite sort of what I anticipated. Most importantly, It was a happy accident that set us down this path early. As an attachment/peaceful parenting household, it was a natural progression. We prefer doing things as a family and make home our sanctuary, to us and our 8 indoor cats. We are fortunate to live in an area where we can nurture many of our passions and easily meet up with like-minded families, or as least ones we can find commonalities with despite our differences. We enjoy art, board games, field trips, open play and nature outings with our various homeschool friends. The girls and I volunteer together with our local cat shelter.

Skyler's current interests include American Girl dolls, reading, fashion design, horses, drawing, Guinea pigs, dance (currently, tap) and musical theater. Delaney loves Littlest Pet Shop critters, American Girl dolls, cats, dance (currently, ballet and tap), butterflies, swimming and Squinkies. Both of them enjoy playing Club Penguin, Animal Jam and Webkinz, often together, side-by-side on their computers and with on-line friends. They can't wait until the trampoline goes back up outside for the warmer seasons.

We're a more quiet, introspective bunch, but are excited to have this opportunity to spend time with other unschoolers in a relaxed atmosphere.

Stopa Family (Pearl, Cas and Larry)

Hello, my name is Pearl. I’m a 15 year old girl from Wisconsin. I like geology, although I’m fairly new to it and I don’t know that much yet. Still, I have a decently sized rock collection. I play a lot of video games. Recently I’ve been playing a lot of Touhou and Minecraft, and I like to use level editors in games. I also like making necklaces, especially when I can use beads made out of rocks. I have a Tumblr where I post about all of these things. If you’re interested, you can find it here: http://rock-paper-mario.tumblr.com/

I am Cas Stopa. I am 13 years old and live in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. I like playing video games. My favorites are Minecraft, Portal, Ratchet & Clank. My sister, Pearl, and I play Minecraft with each other. I like all kinds of sports. I like to watch football, and play basketball.
I’m a drummer. I’ve played for about 5 years now. I really like Tré Cool, the drummer from Green Day. I’m really into theater. I like to act and have been in 20 shows, playing everything from a mafia godfather to an old wise man from Persia. I really love roles where I can do an accent.

I am Larry Stopa, proud papa of Pearl and Cas. (I like to call him “Mir” which means “Peace.” His full name is Casimir.) I try to stimulate their curiosity however it might work, such as in nature or on computers. I run an online marketing firm. I enjoy biking along the many off-road trails around here and commuting with nature. I play with N-scale trains, and collect football and non-sports cards.



The photo is from our vacation last year in Copper Harbor, MI. as we left on a sunset cruise – 
Jennie Neary, Pearl, Cas and Larry Stopa.

Godfreys from Nebraska

Hi! We are the Godfreys. Attending the conference are myself (Michelle 43), my 5 year old daughter, Isabel and my 4 year old daughter, Clara. My husband, Ben has to work so he won’t make it this time. I am bringing my sister, Marilyn Anderson and her 15 year old daughter, Marrissa who have recently started to home school.

I decided to homeschool our two girls just after Clara was born. I thought I would have a small Montessori classroom in our home and do it that way. I even set said classroom up and bought an expensive curriculum. Isabel and I sat down to do some of the first lessons and it became clear very quickly that the Montessori style of teaching was not going to fit our family (some things in theory are way different in practice).

I began reading about unschooling in 2011 and it resonated with all that I believe yet had not yet been able or brave enough to practice (I had been working with young children in preschools and tutoring center situations prior to being a mom). I began deschooling myself and talking about the concept with my husband. We put some things into practice in a “testing” type fashion. In 2012 I began to implement more unschooling concepts into our lifestyle yet still in a “on the fence” fashion. It had been about a year since I had read Sandra Dodd’s “Big Book of Unschooling” and I picked it up again. To my surprise and pleasure, some of the concepts that went right over my head the last time I read them now made sense and some of them I even “got”.

At the beginning of this year, I chose to unschool. It is a practice similar to how I see my yoga practice. I know and have experienced the magical benefits. I am just past the beginning steps and am determined to continue on the path, even through the unknown, uncertainty and angst that shows up. I trust those that have followed the unschooling path before me and I am trusting the human spirits of my girls.

Isabel (5 years old) loves her mommy, daddy, her cat, her dog, her pigs, her chickens, her bees, her geese, her sister and her grandma. She likes to run. She likes zebras because of the stripes and giraffes because of their long necks and their long tongues. She likes exercising, such as jumping and skipping. She likes to play Barbies. She likes to help people cook. She likes to take pictures, too!

Clara (4 years old) likes to play house and princess, watch princess movies, jump, watch Winx Club and Bubble Gumpy. She likes to eat strawberries, apples, pears, bananas and sweet things like cake, ice cream and chocolate covered berries. She likes to dance like ballerinas and princesses. She likes to hold our baby chickies and visit our piggies. She wants the animals to grow big and strong like their moms and dads. She also likes her pretty dresses and her party dress.

We are looking forward to the Always Learning Live weekend in front of us!

Study up on Minnesota

The locals will know all this. I only knew six or eight of them.

Things Minnesotans are Too Nice to Brag About

Bob Dylan. Betty Crocker. Lucky Charms. Indoor malls! Lots of goodness comes from Minnesota.


They didn't mention cheese curd. I guess it's not exclusively in Minnesota, but if you're not from that part of the country and you're in a lunch place and one of the options is "cheese curd," try it. But don't buy it from a drive-through and leave before tasting it, because you might need more if there are many people in the car.

THURSDAY night (correction)

Those of you who are in the hotel Thursday night, though, should find me, Alex or Jill somewhere in the common area.

When I wrote "Friday," I meant the night before the exciting thing really starts.

A few more people made hotel reservations, and we might have access to the water park Thursday night after all. Either way, we will have fun. :-)

Locals and those who might be staying elsewhere can buy waterpark passes at the desk at a discount. Tell them you're part of this conference.

Rooms with more than four people might need to buy extra passes, too.

Head Count, two weeks out

Updated head count has some interesting stats:  86 people are registered, from infants to grandparents.

43 of those are adults
43 of those are teens and younger

Of the kids, 22 are boys, 21 are girls.  

http://allunschoolingminnesota2013.blogspot.com/p/people.html