Join us around the Virtual Kitchen Table

About Us

Chellie, Host

Chellie is a married mom of two. She loves to read, bake, and write. She has always homeschooled, but began unschooling after reading the work of Sue Elvis. She has a passion for sharing ideas and resources, and welcoming children into the community, either as members or collaborators with youth and family content. She keeps the flow of reading going in the community with her Spotlight Book of the Week and partners with community contributors in offering space for kids and adults alike to share their interests and accomplishments as well as both short and ongoing learning opportunities.

Erin, Host

Erin has been living and learning alongside four wonderful kids (who are now young adults) for many years. She enjoys chatting with other parents about what parenting, home education and/or unschooling look like for their individual families and also loves exploring and life learning as an adult. Erin lives in Ontario, Canada where she has also worked in facilitation and coordination with families who have a member with a disability. Some of her past work has also included customized job development and support and birth and postpartum doula services. She blogs at Ever Learning and co-hosts a podcast about unschooling, home education and family life, the Virtual Kitchen Table.

Hayley, Host

Bio coming soon

Hayley blogs at Taking a Kinder Path and co-hosts the Virtual Kitchen Table.

Ashley, Host

Ashley lives with her family in Ontario, Canada. She is a former teacher and Non-profit Executive Director now unschooling her own kids who are 11 and 8. She enjoys connecting with others about consent based learning, children's rights and conscious parenting. She shares a bit about their lives on the Virtual Kitchen Table podcast as well as on IG @ashleyasmama where she also shares adorable photos of their family cat, Eloise! As a family they enjoy read alouds, podcasts, movies, meeting up with friends and playing games. The kids enjoy gaming, lego, imaginative games, animals, listening to music and making playlists, swimming, drawing and much more. She enjoys yoga, watercolour painting, reading, podcasts, getting into a good TV show and having good discussions with others. She looks forward to connecting with you!

Photograph by J. Gilmore

Welcome!

We are a group of home educating parents sharing ideas and experiences and encouraging one another in our intention to live and learn respectfully and curiously with our children. 

This community has emerged from the original community, Stories of Unschooling Family,  and then Unschooling Together. Several members chose to stay together and maintain some principles and activities that have served us very well. 

What are they?

Pondering 

We ponder a question each week, usually in relation to parenting, family life or home education.  We don’t worry too much about exact answers but find richness in the wondering with one another. 

Lifelong Learning

We post regular books, articles, blog posts or podcasts for recommendation or discussion about parenting, homeschooling, unschooling, general educational and life experiences.  These often help us consider and dive into  the “why,” the “how” and the “what” of home education, family and community life. 

AND 

We post and pass along to one another an abundance of child, youth and family resources in the form of books, board games, video games, unit studies, printable, movies, online resources and so much more 

AND 

We value kids and adults as co-learners as we share interests, accomplishments and offer ideas with help by one of our contributors, Anne from Eclectic Kids and @obytheby, for people of any age to be part of in our Family Corner. 

Sharing 

We share experiences through our stories and questions which give us all an opportunity to reflect and consider. 

We connect with each other on the common ground of living lovingly and respectfully with our children.  We want that for one another and the world at large, understanding that we also have differences and can learn from those. 

We dig into what living and learning looks like in our families with weekly examples from one of our contributors, April from @modern.homeschoolers. 

Supporting 

We support one another with our presence, ideas, experience and encouragement. 

We have two monthly discussions over the Zoom platform in the style of informal visits around the “kitchen table,” with people attending and popping in and out as works for them, and often opportunities for individual or smaller group connections as requested. These take the form of discussing a particular topic combined with checking in about our lives as wished. 

In the words of Sue Elvis from Stories of an Unschooling Family when welcoming people into her original online community: “Our community is a place of gentleness and acceptance where we enjoy slow conversations. It’s a place where you can ask questions as well as share your experiences.”

Does this sound interesting to you? We'd love you to join us around the table! 

Join us below or message us at [email protected] with any specific questions. 

Join us!

You’re welcome to join the Virtual Kitchen Table Community. Just hit the Choose a Plan button!

We hope to see you soon!