MidAtlantic Unschooler GatheringS (MUGS)

May and ARGH

2010-04-22T02:52:00.000-07:00

In May, many MUGS attendees will be attending ARGH in Eastern TN, so there is no separate Gathering planned. I am trying to plan something near Ocean City for June, but nothing firm yet. Have a good month!

Review of Charlottesville Gathering

2010-04-13T04:58:00.000-07:00

Oh, we had fun, yes we did! Folks did what they choose on Sunday (Mitchie's Tavern, Downtown Charlottesville, setting up at the campground, etc.) afternoon, and those of us from out of town met up at the campground mid afternoon. After everyone was set up, we enjoyed a pot luck dinner, cooking over the fire, playing, henna application (Thanks!), and making new friends. The next day, everyone helped each other get ready to go and facilitate play so we could head over the the Frontier Culture Museum. We started off in an Igbo village where learned about their culture, the kids prepared mud balls with their bare feet and hands, and threw them onto the wall of the second wife's house that we helped build. After getting shod again, we headed over the the English settlement where there was a fair amount of musket firing and information sharing. Pairs of kids got to work together to saw pieces off large logs, just as if they were thinking of getting married (do you work well together?). After that, we freely wandered the rest of the cultures, enjoyed a picnic in the shade, and headed home. Thanks to everyone for coming and we will see many of you next month at ARGH at Roan Mountain, TN!

Charlottesville - Where should we eat lunch?

2010-04-10T15:36:00.000-07:00

On Monday, we will be heading to the Frontier Culture Museum from 10-12 noon. After that, where should we eat lunch together? Staunton has a lot of really cool sounding farm-to-table restaurants, but most of them (e.g. Staunton Grocery, Zynadoa, Mockingbird) are not open mondays. So here are the choices for monday lunch that I found are:

The Depot Grille
Cranberry's Grocery and Eatery (we have actually eaten here but their web site seems to be down)
The Dining Room

There is of course a wide variety of chain restaurants and various fast food types of places, mostly by US 81.

Slight change of plans! - Charlottesville

2010-04-10T08:49:00.000-07:00

Ack! It was gently pointed out to me that the Dogwood Festival Carnival does not start until monday! I know it was different when I planned the Charlottesville MUGS event, but things do change :-) So now, let's try this:

Sunday afternoon: Let's meet up at the Charlottesville Downtown Mall. This is an outdoor, historic, pedestrian mall with lots of cool things to see and do. If you have young children, there is a children's museum: Virginia Discovery Museum and Sunday April 11 is their Pay-What-You-Can day. Live music at The Southern Cafe and Music Hall by the Honey DewDrops (tickets $10) begins at 1:30 pm. There is a movie theater and here are the show times for Sunday. And there is a plethora of shops and places to eat.

We can also check in at the campground starting at 1 pm, so at any old time we can go to the campground, play, and get ready for dinner!

Charlottesville, VA Gathering

2010-03-03T06:12:00.000-08:00

Updated: 3/12/10 @ 8:35 am

We are heading to Charlottesville, Virginia for our next unschooler gathering. We will be playing, camping, and learning together for two whole days! Here's the plan:

Sunday April 11, 2010: attend the Charlottesville Dogwood Festival's Carnival from 1-6 pm [tickets are $1/each or armband for $20]. We will meet at the carnival (bring the cell # list!) around 1 pm.

Sunday evening: potluck dinner and open fire cookout; we encourage you to bring games or other activities to share; we have the use of a large indoor gathering room at no additional charge; game room and basketball court also available

Sunday Night Lodging: Cabin or tent camp at the Misty Mountain Camp Resort in Charlottesville; tent sites are ~$33/nt; cabins require 2 night stay; available cabins are #5 (sleeps 8, $119/nt), #9 (sleeps 8, $119/nt) and maybe more

** When you make your reservation - be sure to ask for a space near site #49 and cabin 6.

Monday: Campground checkout time is noon. We will visit the Frontier Culture Museum in Staunton, VA then eat somewhere TBD before heading home. At the FCM, we have the following plan:

Arrival @ 9:30 am
Early To Rise Program from 10 am - noon
First Hour: Frontier Settlement where there will be hands on activities and tools to experience.
Second Hour: West Africa including the unique opportunity to participate in Puddling, a method of home construction. Students will need to wear clothing that they don't mind getting dirty/staining. Shorts are suggested clothing. With their bare feet students will mix mud. Once mixed to the right consistency, students will roll the mud into balls, form a human chain, and pass it along so it can be thrown into the wall. Once done there will be water to wash off residual mud but only a bath/shower really helps.

Care to join us! Email me

Lasertag!

2010-02-21T13:24:00.000-08:00

Join unschoolers for an afternoon of great fun. On Tuesday March 2, 2010 from 12-3 pm we will play lasertag at Shadowland Adventures in Chantilly, VA. After that, for those who don't want to beat the traffic home, we can head over to the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center for some airplanes, space shuttles, airplane watching, and maybe an IMAX movie. I am sure that at some point there will be eating involved as well. Feel free to RSVP so we know who to expect. A core group of families with kids 6-13 will surely be there, and maybe teens as well!

Enjoy Life Unschooling Conference!

2009-07-25T08:55:00.000-07:00

Have you heard of the Enjoy Life Unschooling Conference yet? This September for a cool 2 days, come and Enjoy Life with unschoolers of all ages in the mountains near Frederick, Maryland. We will have fabulous speakers, chat sessions, and funshops to fill your days. In the evening, there will be a campfire with music, s'mores, and storytelling while inside our coffeehouse will feature an open mic, a service project to help animals enjoy their lives, henna to decorate your body, crafts, and games. Registration is quite inexpensive for a conference, so come on and join us!

Hosts Review of Weekend #1

2009-03-26T03:56:00.001-07:00

Well, our first Unschooler Weekend Gathering is over and my houses is mostly back to normal. I wanted to write about the weekend partially to encourage folks to attend these types of gatherings and also to provide info to those who might be willing to host a weekend. So here goes ...

Friday (3/20/09): Bethani and 3 year old Elyce arrived around 12:30 pm. They are local to LaPlata and we have done various activities together in the past. We talked, cooked, and let Elyce get adjusted to being in a new place with people she did not remember (but had met before). Elyce was just getting comfortable when someone new arrived - Samantha with her daughters Allison (9) and Amanda (11) from Ashburn, VA. Her son (13) had opted to stay home in his comfort zone. Maia and Evan gave tours of the house to all guests upon arrival. By 4:30 pm or so, our friends Danielle and Rob from Bowling Green, VA arrived with their 3 girls Amber, Amalie, and Amaia. My husband arrived about an hour later and the pot luck dinner was mostly ready. We enjoyed spinach and artichoke dip, homemade herb bread, homemade mozzarella cheese rounds, shrimp and rice noodle wraps, cream cheese and raspberry salsa with crackers, applesauce crisp, and orange-y turkey bites. Everyone ate, shared stories, and the kids played inside. We taught some folks a new board game - Ticket to Ride. By about 8 pm, these families were all gone - one to a hotel and the rest to their homes. Around 8:30 pm, Tamara, Jim, Andrew (9), and Rosalie (4) arrived after a long day of work. We chatted, the boys played Halo, and Rosalie was her busy young self. This family stayed with us friday night, so we got them set up in the available spaces. My family decided to go to sleep around 10:30 pm but I understand that our young guests were up till midnight or so.

Saturday 3/21: I started off the day by making homemade waffles - some plain and some pumpkin flavor. I like to serve them with homemade yogurt and maple syrup (not homemade ;-) ). Folks got up over a several hour spread so the morning was fairly quiet and slow with just my family and our 4 houseguests. Samantha called late morning to say that her youngest daughter was feeling ill so they were headed from the hotel to go home. Emily came with Lawrence (1) and Simon (4). Rosemary and Jeff and their kids arrived just after lunchtime and boy was Evan happy. He had met Rosemary, Jeff, Zach and Josh (11) and Bekah (9) at a turnpike rest stop in Ohio on our way to UWWG in February. They all brought nerf guns so the shooting of little foam things began. After about an hour of an all ages nerf war, we opted to head to the indoor swimming pool. Everyone located their suits and towels and a few were borrowed from us for those who left theirs at home. We headed to the pool (and in one case Target for a quick swimsuit purchase) and swam and played for hours. Emily's crew fell asleep on the way to the pool, so they kept on driving home. We returned and ordered 5 pizzas - yum!. Bethani and Elyce returned and Elyce and Rosalie enjoyed playing to together. We got out some more games like Set and Quiddler. Evan invited Zach and Josh to spend the night at our house instead of their camper so they did. The boys were equipped with popcorn, nerf guns, Halo and plenty of xbox controllers, the Dark Night movie, and pillows and blankets to crash with (and beds too should they want to move there). It was Evan's first time with friends sleeping over, so he needed a bit of help figuring out what to do when he got tired and the others weren't yet. So I went to sleep around 12:30 am after providing some assistance. When I got up at 2:30 am to check on them (they were of course saying they would be up all night) - they were all asleep. All was well.

Sunday morning: All 3 boys got up right after 8 am. They went right to playing and frozen waffles. Rosemary, Jeff, and Bekah arrived somewhere around 10:30 and we had a great conversation until it was time for them to head home just after noon. All the guests were gone. technically the weekend was over now. We still went to the rail trail and took a nice long walk/ride and enjoyed the sunshine. We reconnected for the rest of the day and cleaned up from having a young person in the house again (wow is my house not baby/toddler/preschooler proof anymore!).

We found some things left behind and some of our things that went for a trip to Rockville. We are trading back this week. We made new friends and strengthened a young friendship. We still have a fridge full of food! Evan was happiest when their were kids for him to hang with and lots of people to talk to. Maia felt that she could have used one girl or boy to play with that shared her interests. She also thought the house was too full and noisy. Opposites of course. We will do it again. We hope you host an unschooler weekend too.

Service Project

2009-03-02T06:18:00.000-08:00

As part of the MUGS weekend #1, we are arranging a service project to help our local Humane Society. They are making up "stuffed animal adoption boxes" and are in need of empty boot boxes and beanie babies that would be typical pets like guinea pigs, hamsters, dogs, cats, fish, snakes, lizards, birds, etc. If you have any of these items that you can bring, we can collect them and drop them off together (tax deduction receipts are available).

Radical Unschooler Weekend #1

2009-02-26T07:37:00.000-08:00

At the recent Unschoolers Winter Waterpark Gathering in Ohio, I got some sage advice from Live and Learn Conference Goddess Kelly Lovejoy. She said the best way to get together with other unschoolers is to give them a reason to get together. She mentioned that she has tons of unschooling families regularly visiting their home. When I asked how she made that happen, she smiled and said "I just invite them!" She advised me to do the same. So here I am - inviting all you radical unschoolers to my house for the weekend...

When? March 21/22, 2009 and a few days before or after as you wish

Where? The Conner/Roscello house in LaPlata, Maryland - south of Washington DC, a rural setting (1.5 acres) on a quiet neighborhood road

Who? Unschoolers of all ages - bring the whole family since this gathering is over a weekend

About your hosts We have been participating and encouraging our children's individual learning since they were born. We stopped trying to get them to learn what someone else thought they should learn about 2 years ago. We embraced the radical version of unschooling over a year ago. We went to our first unschooling conference - Live and Learn - in September 2008. We were hooked and happily attended the UWWG at the beginning of February 2009.

Our family consists of Zoa (the mom), Walter (the dad), Evan (10 year old boy) and Maia (5 year old girl). Zoa is into green living, cooking local & organic food, and is currently watching the entire season of West Wing. Walter is a cyclist, a physicist, a reader, and loves his quiet space. Evan loves kicking butt with nerf guns and games like Halo and Call of Duty, watching videos of all sorts, and physical stuff like ice skating, gymnastics, etc. Maia is a writer, a gymnast, and a lover of all things green.

Where can we stay? We want this to be a low cost gathering for everyone. We have several rooms for guest families and several beds. You are welcome to bring sleeping bags; we have plenty of room in the house. You can camp outside (we have 1.5 acres). We can direct you towards the local hotels (2 are less than 10 minutes away). There are three campgrounds with electric hookups within about 20 minutes of our house. If you are local enough to drive home for sleeping, please do join us during when you are awake!

What will we do? The options are almost endless ... come hang out, chat, eat, play board and video games, fight in a Nerf war, play outside, jump on a trampoline, knit, expose us to your musical tastes, take a walk in the woods or on the local rail trail, play soccer, create some art, take a bike ride, and anything else you'd like to do with some new and old friends.

What's the schedule?
You choose what to do and how long you can spend with us.

Friday 3/20
noon-2 pm -- possible ice skating ($7 each including rentals)
6 pm -- pot luck dinner
8-10 pm -- possible Rock N Skate (ice skating - $12 including rentals, games, prizes, etc.)
Saturday 3/21
late morning Artist Trading Cards party
afternoon Potomac River beach visit or indoor swimming ($3 or $4 each)
pizza dinner (everyone pitch in towards cost)
Sunday 3/22
morning Bike Ride (weather permitting)
afternoon Nerf War
dinner plans TBD
Monday 3/23
possible Smithsonian Museum visit (Natural History?)

If there is interest, we can arrange a group tour of the Dr. Samuel Mudd House (the doctor who patched up John Wilkes Booth on his escape from assassinating President Lincoln).

What do you need to bring?

A pot luck dish for Friday evening dinner

Pizza money

Food contributions (your choice) towards breakfasts and snacks that will be available

Lunch will be planned each morning based on people's desires. I will try and have more space than usual in the refrigerator (no 2nd fridge).

We have an xbox (not 360) with 4 working controllers, a Wii with 3 controllers, and a TV for each (one with DVD player). Feel free to bring more systems or your favorite games.

Empty boot boxes or beanie babies for a service project to benefit the Humane Society of Charles County

Who will be there? I am sure you will want to know who will be coming. I will let you know as I hear from people including the dates they expect to join us...

RSVP Requested Looking forward to seeing you all in March. Don't forget to email me to RSVP or ask questions

Radically Yours,
Zoa

Welcome!

2009-02-26T07:31:00.000-08:00

A few other unschoolers and I have been talking about arranging an unschooler get-together or a non-conference for a while now. This blog was created as a way of communicating information about various get togethers in the Mid-Atlantic area including Maryland, Washington DC, Virginia, Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and any other areas who think they could be included. If you are having an open gathering for unschoolers or radical unschoolers - let us know and we will post about it here!