I am a unschooler unfortunately my kids are not so much, they like structure and guidance. This year, with the Monkey being 8 and the Bean turning the big 0-5(!), was the year I knew I would have to pull up my boot straps and get on the ball.
In the past I have tried a couple of curriculum’s in an attempt to be a schooly homeschooler, which is what I thought I was supposed to be. Oak Meadow was our first try. It is a loosely structured Waldorf/Montessori, but was just too loose for my attention span. We made it through a few weeks before I bailed. At the time I tried it I was working nights while my husband worked days so prep time was limited. With this in mind I decided to try something much more structured.
My next curriculum was Sonlight. A heavily reading based and very structured curriculum. Instead of buying the package deal, with all the books used that year included, from the company I decided to do it economy. Which meant figuring out what books I could get from the library or inter-library loan, then see who had books I could borrow, finally I bought the remaining books online used at half.com. This was quite an undertaking but monetarily I think it worked out ok. We made it through maybe a week before I realized it was way too much for us. I was drowning in notebooks, post it notes, bookmarks, books, and to me it just seemed like chaos (mind you chaos that I was creating most likely from lack of organizational preparation time)
At this point I was pretty fed up with curriculums. I found the excuse of having a second child who was running head first into the depths of toddler-dom along with me working a lot to be sufficient enough for me to lay off the curriculums and truly unschool for a couple of years.
Unschooling has been a great experience and remarkably easy. One of the greatest accomplishments in this time was the Monkey teaching himself how to read. This truly taught me that kids do not need to be “taught”. I really believe that since we were so free the past couple of years he felt more comfortable and at ease with his relationship to reading. He was a reading with tears kind of kid early on in the days where I tried to “teach” him. Being able to see it as a relationship that is different for everyone and that grows at its own pace was a very important lesson for me to learn.
The unschooling years also allowed me to de-school myself a bit. To let go of my preconceived ideas of learning and get over the 12 years + of educational programming. I must be very honest here I am still struggling with this daily. I am also struggling with letting go of my ideas of “being a grown up” but that is another post.
This summer I was trying to figure out what we were going to do this year. I got a better handle on my work schedule. I found a great system for managing the house. All that was left was what to do about homeschooling. A friend introduced me to this great into to science book Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding by Dr. Bernard Nebel. searching on the internet for and about this book I came across this website Brining Up Learners. It is awesome! The best part is that they have a downloadable FREE curriculum. How exciting is that? Especially after I have spent hundreds of dollars in teaching materials in the past.
It is just enough to satisfy my kids desire for structure and introduction of new ideas. It is also structured but minimal to meet my unschooly style. As always things may change but for now it is all going grea. Everyday is a challenge but if it were not I would be concerned.
Book Suggestion:
Parenting a Free Child: An Unschooled Life by Rue Kream
"Parenting A Free Child: An Unschooled Life presents a radical approach to parenting and education in a way that seems logical, obvious and natural. I use the word “radical” because Kream’s approach is very different to mainstream parenting, even within the homeschooling community. It is built on an incredible and absolute trust in her two children and aims to give them control over all aspects of their life."
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