What kind of Homeschooling are you doing? (explain what it is about)?

Question

What kind of Homeschooling are you doing? (explain what it is about)?

Answer 1

We do a combination of "school in a box" (boxes actually) and "unschooling".  My son has formal academic work for about 3 hrs/day, and the rest of the day is independent, self-directed study.

We use:

http://www.k12.com (as independent HS'ers, not through a virtual school)

http://www.teachingtextbooks.com

http://www.power-glide.com

http://www.cosmeo.com

http://www.explorelearning.com

http://www.cybered.com

Answer 2

We are slowly going from work books to unschooling.

A little about us first:

My son is currently 5 and can read my college text books. He chooses to read between a third and seventh grade level.

Math comes harder and we've tried 8-9 different programs this year and our next is in the mail.

writing is hard for him because it requires sitting.

Our son loves reading, computers and talking, but can't sit for 5 min. for the life of him.  

I feel even at five he has a huge say in his education because it makes it easier for him to learn .

We have worked with work books this year because of our state portfolio requirement, it looks more like traditional school, cost and I'm "new" to home school. Most his work books have come from the dollar store. Work books to me are the easiest, cheapest way for k-6 to make the portfolio. However workbooks require sitting down and doing them. This is something that's a struggle to him. You may say reading requires sitting but more often then not he's spinning, or pacing.

so why are we transitioning? He is a discussion based kid, I feel that learning is 24/7, I've learned no matter what or how I want him to learn he'll learn it when he's ready, the way that's best for him, as long as I keep offering options.

Unschooling- unlike popular belief is not lazy.

my job as an unschool mom-  looking up curriculum, field trips, thing other home schoolers are doing, educational games, co-ops, home school groups, look up educational movies, local activities, and take my son to the library. I have to show him all these things, offer everything to him, buy educational games to play with him, and find interesting ways to approach things that I do feel are really important. I need to show him how to research, for thing that he doesn't want to talk about but wants to learn. I need be able to research very fast to be able to have very long, very in depth conversations about things like "What would happen if the earth had 60 moons?"  With this type of schooling he likes that we are able to keep up with him and change topics as fast as he can spit the questions at us.

Answer 3

Relaxed eclectic is our style.  

We are doing World History using video from Annenberg Media online.  We back this up with Abeka World History and 3 text books.

We are doing Biology using 3 public school text books backed up by online websites.

We are doing math in a public school text book backed up with the publisher's web site with online activities.

We are using a public school text book for Literature backed up with online audio books.

My son recently changed his goals and has decided he wants to go to a 4 year college.  The previous plan was to graduate from homeschool high school and go one year of Bible College followed by Community College.  

He has started studying Spanish using online and library resources.  There are several Spanish programs on TV that teach English and he can use those in reverse.  

I think that my goal for him to be self-directed and self- motivated may become a reality.   I am a life long learner and hope that he will understand that education is more important than a diploma and that learning does not end when you 'graduate'.

Answer 4

Autonomous (aka Unschooling). The best and most productive learning happens when a child WANTS to know something. They learn by adding to their existing knowledge in a way that is logical to them rather than being told that a fact or idea, in isolation needs to be understood and memorized. This is how everybody learns from birth and as a methodology it's amazingly powerful. It's how you learned to talk, without anyone drawing up a curriculum and trying to teach you the rules. Suddenly when a child reaches school age someone has decided that this method, which has achieved so much, gets scrapped. We're told that it's not REAL education.

I just make sure dd has lots of resources (books, DVDs, materials, equipment etc.) available and suggest visits, and activities and projects so she's always got lots of things to do if she feels like doing them. I answer her questions and we look in books. We discuss things and do things together like gardening, cooking and looking after her tadpoles.

Yesterday she asked how water gets into the river, I explained and then when we got home used sand to make a simple model for her to pour water on to see how it soaked through and filled the 'river'. Today she replicated the experiment herself and explained what she was doing while playing in the garden so I'm pretty sure she got the concept.

Answer 5

We are "unschooling" through a virtual charter school that uses the k12 curriculum company. I like the structure of the k12 program and I like the fact that the online school tells me exactly what objective is covered in each lesson.

I prepare for the weeks lessons by getting all the materials ready the weekend before. The program allows my daughter to move at her own pace. She is in first grade but working in third grade math, second grade language arts, and first grade history...science....music. She also uses the power glide language program.

My daughter's educational abilities are skewed across several grade levels. This would not be possible to nurture this in a traditional school setting.

On Friday we did school entirely outside. The night before I drew several hopscotches on the driveway where I put a multiplication facts in each square. She was able to play hopscotch and as she landed on the fact she had to solve it...tell me the related multiplication fact and both division facts.

For example:   2x3=   6   therefore  3x2= 6  and 6 / 3=2 and 6 / 2=3 . This is called a "fact family" and is used to learn the inverse properties of addition / subtraction  and  multiplication and division. It a wonderful way to practice "unschooling".  We were able to drill the facts she was having difficulty without being stuck in a boring classroom.

We talked about Ancient Greece in Art class and she was able to create her own Grecian Vase by tracing...cutting then painting outside.

We were studying the weather in science....particularly cloud formations. It was a perfect day to look in the sky and watch the clouds change from culumus to cirrus. And then we set up our rain gauge, (because it was going to rain last night) This morning we were able to look at the rain guage to see how much rain we recived.

And as we sat in the grass we I had her practice her spelling words for the unit. And then she read for independent reading "The Spiderwick Chronicles".

It was a GREAT day full of sunshine...fresh air and learning!

Answer 6

We unschool. It's a life-based learning, without all the artificial nonsense created by schools in order to systemize children.

I could explain, but this is so much better

http://www.unschooling.com/library/faq/d...

Answer 7

I homeschool my child with the help of a virtual K-12 academy.  Takes the cost and the time consuming lesson planning out of the instruction process.