Are you a guerilla? No, I don’t mean one of those large, ape-type creatures, although you might feel like one some of the time. I mean someone who doesn’t quite believe in the structure of institutional learning that school provides. Perhaps your children go to school, or maybe you’re homelearners. Whatever your children’s educational situation, Grace Llewellyn and Amy Silver’s classic book Guerilla Learning: Giving Your Child a Real Education With or Without School can help guide you. Learning should be part of a child’s entire life, and it is part of a child’s entire life, whether we remember this … Continue reading →

She loves skating, swimming, birds, playing with languages, and snuggling in the bed reading books. She dislikes playing the violin (so far), jumping into water, and being asked to do any structured learning activity that doesn’t seem like fun at the time. She’s getting into reading, although this falls into the middle ground between snuggling with books and structured learning activities that sometimes seem hard. She’s my daughter, and like all children she is a wonderful mix of interests and deep dislikes. Schooled children may or may not find their passions in school. Maybe your child adores math. Then again, … Continue reading →

I started out the school year with grand intentions. I would go against my inherent desire to unschool and we would do sit-down phonics and math and all of those very important subjects. We would do them on schedule, with great regularity. We would track our learning very well, so that everyone could see how well we were doing. It started out well. Sure, I work part time, so topics into a formal schedule is more difficult than it would be if I was home full time. It’s harder to balance down time and scheduled time when I am home. … Continue reading →

I was told by a fellow homeschooler many years ago when I began homeschooling. The prospect of my kids approaching me saying teach me about A, I would like to learn more about B, or buy me a book about C, really excited me. Over the years, however, I began to give up hope that it would ever happen. I have tried many times to turn a simple question into a teachable moment. The kids however never fell for it. If the asked me to distinguish types of clouds for them, I would try to get them to look it … Continue reading →

If you haven’t been following the series, I’ve written several articles on unschooling, our experiences with it and how it can work. But just like not all of the 2 million home schooling families in the United States have phenomenally educated children so do some unschoolers give unschooling a bad name. You’ll notice that the majority of my experiences with unschooling have been very positive but I have met one family in my years as a support group leader that I think might make anyone question the validity of an unschooling method. They begin their day whenever they want. The … Continue reading →

In my last two blogs I have covered the basics of what an unschooling philosophy is and I’ve also talked about our own experiences with our own son. But we are not really unschoolers by any stretch of the imagination. In this blog, I will look at some of the elements of successful and unsuccessful unschooling. Children Deciding What to Learn When The Jones are unschoolers that I know who live in Connecticut. At the beginning of every month they ask their kids what they want to learn about. They have four children and as a group they sit down … Continue reading →

Mary Ann Romans, asked me in the forums about unschooling and what it was exactly that children learn. How is it that kids will get to being the brilliant and capable people that they can be–if there’s no curriculum? Our Experience With Unschooling The longer I homeschool, the more towards unschooling I lean. Unschooling is not practical where we live and I’ve mentioned before that I in fact have yet to meet someone who lives in this state and unschools. The regulations are simply too demanding and not even creative wording can sneak in true unschooling. However, I’ve written before … Continue reading →

In my search for blog ideas, I turned to the forums to ask readers for topic suggestions. Mary Ann Romans asked about unschooling. She says she’s a little worried about unschoolers and how they get educated without an educational plan in place. I have a few answers to that, but first I must confess that we are not unschoolers. One reason is that our state’s laws are prohibitive towards true unschooling. However, I’ve watched a few successful unschooling families and one very unsuccessful unschooling family so I’ll share some of my insights from those experiences. The Unschooling Philosophy Explored The … Continue reading →