Learn About Unschooling Options
Unschooled: Raising Curious, Well-Educated Children Outside the Conventional Classroom by Kerry McDonald is useful reading for anyone interested in learning more about self-directed education.
Homeschooling for Families who can’t Homeschool
Over 20 years ago, Kenneth Danford started North Star: Self-Directed Learning for Teens, currently located in Sutherland, Massachusetts. Even before I began my homeschooling journey, I would see the tagline on bumper stickers: “Learning is Natural; School is Optional.” That tagline, which is the title of Danford’s new book, made me question what I thought I knew about education. In… Read more →
How to Be a Brave Learner
Julie Bogart is the well-known creator of the Brave Writer curriculum and founder of the Homeschool Alliance. In her new book, The Brave Learner: Finding Everyday Magic in Homeschool, Learning, and Life, Bogart shares how to take a “kind, gentle approach to parenting and homeschooling.” In the Foreword, Susan Wise Bauer, author of The Well-Trained Mind, reminds us that despite… Read more →
Unschooling from a Christian Perspective
In God Schooling: How God Intended Children to Learn, Julie Polanco offers faith-based Christian reasons for pursuing an unschooling approach to homeschooling. While there is certainly no one “right way” to approach education, Polanco shows how listening to God’s will for her family brought her peace as a homeschooling mom. The Scripture passage she uses as a guide is Galatians… Read more →
What Happens When You Ask Unschoolers ‘What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?’
My daughter is a baker. When people ask her what she wants to be when she grows up, she responds breezily: “A baker, but I already am one.” You see, with unschooling there is no postponement of living and doing. There is no preparation for some amorphous future, no working toward something unknown. There is simply life. There Is No… Read more →
How to Homeschool When You Are Mentally Wiped Out
Mental and physical exhaustion can happen to any homeschool parent. Whether it results from trying to juggle too many family obligations, adjusting to life with a new baby or adopted child, caring for a sick child or coping with one’s own illness, helping aging parents or grandparents, trying to balance work and homeschooling, dealing with unemployment, buying and moving into… Read more →
Natural Math: 100+ Activities & Resources
by Laura Grace Weldon “The essence of mathematics is not to make simple things complicated, but to make complicated things simple.” ~Stan Gudder Today’s children are much less likely than previous generations to learn through play, exploration, and meaningful work. Concern about the math scores of the nation’s youth should instead turn to concern about the manipulation of childhood itself…. Read more →
Book Review: Homeschooling with Gentleness
Homeschooling with Gentleness by Suzie Andres Hillside Education, 2015 – 2nd Edition I came to “Homeschooling with Gentleness” after reading Andres’ more recent book, “The Little Way of Homeschooling” which tells the stories of many Catholic unschooling families. “Homeschooling with Gentleness” is Andres’ own story. Subtitled “A Catholic Discovers Unschooling” it describes her journey to unschooling as well as offering… Read more →
How to Think Like An Unschooler
No matter our “homeschool style,” most of us center our homeschool on our children. Our common goal is to graduate children who are prepared for the world in their hearts, minds, and souls. In a child-centered education, your child’s learning style, special interests, and academic and physical capabilities are all taken into consideration. Even a parent using a strict scope and sequence… Read more →
What should Unschoolers do about High School Transcripts?
Here is an interesting set of articles on unschooling, creating high school transcripts, and getting into college: http://sandradodd.com/teen/college.html
