We are eclectic homeschoolers. And while that means we pick and choose what works best for my daughter, we try very hard not to be scattered, or disorganized.
We do use a core curriculum, called Time4Learning, which is an online, interactive, student paced curriculum. It contains the core courses of Language Arts, Math, Science and social studies. There is an also an art appreciation course which can be included as part of the curriculum.
In addition to Time4Learning, we have several other subjects that we add to my daughter’s homeschool education. She is learning Spanish as her foreign language, she is taking piano lessons, and she is taking an additional art course, online.
We use Vocabulary and Spelling City when she needs more practice with spelling. We do actually use workbooks for word ladders, a spelling and vocabulary exercise, and logic, which we just started this year.
We also do something we call special studies. This is studies in things that interest my daughter, and I will mention how it works in our homeschool in a later post.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Unschooling
There is one other method of homeschooling that I wanted to mention, though it is not a method I use because I am, in my daughter’s words, a control freak! That is not very nice, is it?
So, what is unschooling? For most people, the picture the name conjures up is kids laying around on the sofa, playing video games. There is an idea that unschooling is not-schooling. I would suggest that unschooling is not nearly as undisciplined as that.
The basic idea of unschooling is to let the child’s natural curiosity guide what he studies. The job of the parent is not that of teacher, but that of facilitator. It is the parent’s job to make sure that the child has access to the materials and resources necessary for the child to learn about those things that interest him.
I have noticed, in my five years of homeschooling, that unschoolers may be as far from homeschoolers in philosophy as homeschoolers are from public and private schoolers. This is not a judgment on unschooling, just an observation.
I guess I am a control freak, as my daughter states, because I just can’t let go that much. It is important to me that my daughter take courses in traditional school subjects, because I need her to be able to take the SAT and get admitted to college at some point. In my own opinion, if I fail to act as teacher, to ensure that she studies courses that she is not good at, or holds no interest in (like math!) and she pays for that later in her education, it will be on my head. So yeah, I’m a control freak!J
So, what is unschooling? For most people, the picture the name conjures up is kids laying around on the sofa, playing video games. There is an idea that unschooling is not-schooling. I would suggest that unschooling is not nearly as undisciplined as that.
The basic idea of unschooling is to let the child’s natural curiosity guide what he studies. The job of the parent is not that of teacher, but that of facilitator. It is the parent’s job to make sure that the child has access to the materials and resources necessary for the child to learn about those things that interest him.
I have noticed, in my five years of homeschooling, that unschoolers may be as far from homeschoolers in philosophy as homeschoolers are from public and private schoolers. This is not a judgment on unschooling, just an observation.
I guess I am a control freak, as my daughter states, because I just can’t let go that much. It is important to me that my daughter take courses in traditional school subjects, because I need her to be able to take the SAT and get admitted to college at some point. In my own opinion, if I fail to act as teacher, to ensure that she studies courses that she is not good at, or holds no interest in (like math!) and she pays for that later in her education, it will be on my head. So yeah, I’m a control freak!J
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