Our unschooling adventure begins...now!

  We have made quite a few changes in our homeschool journey over the years. This is our 9^th year homeschooling and like most we started with a set curriculum and did school-at-home. Each year I would change a few things to fit our needs better and over the years I became more comfortable making my own lesson plans and eventually planned most all the lessons, though I still used a math curriculum for the kids and a few workbooks here and there to fill in or to get ideas from. The last year or two we have moved into a very relaxed unit study style of homeschool and it has done very well for us. Though in the last few months we have felt burned out and in need of a change, and a break. It has been a long rough year and we are now feeling the full effects of this last year.

I have been feeling pulled or maybe lead to make a drastic change in how we homeschool. So after a lot of research, talking with hubby and the kids, and some more research, we are making the move to an unschooling style of homeschool. Though, I haven't figured out all the details of how this will work just yet. I want to embrace the unschooling life as much as I can. I’m afraid it may somewhat limited because of my personality, but we're going to give it a go anyway.

I'm not the best one to explain what unschooling is just yet as I am still researching and trying to figure out exactly how we will do this. I have found a few posts that explains unschooling quite well and a blog that has many wonderful posts on their unschooling adventures. The first link, “Zen Habits Unschooling” will take you to a great post that describes much of what we are looking and hoping for.

Zen Habits Unschooling
The Natural Child Project
Stories of an Unschooling Family

 I realized after deciding to set the curriculum and school books aside for now, that letting go of the traditional way of thinking about learning opens up opportunities in ways I never imagined. The kids and I have talked about what we each would like to do, what projects we plan to work on, and things we'd like to work into our daily routine. I have to say that I was quite happy when the kids all said they wanted to keep our couch cuddles and reading time. We would read together before, but we often ended up putting it off until after our other work and workbook pages were done. Which of course was more often that I liked, and would mean we missed reading together that day. The kids still did their own reading, we just weren't always able to get our family reading done, which I feel should have been a priority. But I’m excited that it is a top priority now.

For a long time, I was too worried about having pages in a workbook filled out or having each and every single math or English lesson done. I was more concerned about making sure my school planner had enough “schoolish” assignments listed and checked off, and making sure we did enough to appease what others would expect a proper homeschool family to do. Even though, I knew it wasn’t what we needed to be doing.

Looking back, it was clear even then that the kids learned far more when we were out on one of our adventures, working on a hands-on activity, spending time with grandparents and great-grandparents, or reading about and exploring places the kids were interested in. Very few if any workbook assignments have been remembered, yet all three kiddos can tell you every detail of each of our adventures and stories we’ve read or activities and projects we’ve done. I’ve known this for a long time and have tried to adjust things as much as I thought was right.  I have come to a point when the tears over a math lesson, or frustration with diagraming a sentence (not necessary until late high school or college level) and stress over concepts one is clearly not ready for, is not acceptable to me anymore. Homeschooling is not something we do between the hours of 8am and 3pm, it truly is a life style and when that lifestyle or something within that lifestyle begins to affect the family harmony and relationships and ability to move forward, a change is needed.

For us, that change is not giving up on homeschooling, it’s taking a step back and looking at the bigger picture. The bigger picture I see, is not a race or competition to finish on top or first. It’s the journey of exploration and learning how to learn and to love learning. This is why we are making the change. I want for my children to have an absolute love of learning and exploring, not a long list of memorized facts or formulas. I want them to be inspired to investigate and dig deeper into what they find interesting. I don’t want them to trudge through what a school book says they are required to do. I want for them to have the freedom to pursue what they wish, and to have the freedom, support, guidance, and resources to do so.

I am making a leap of faith into what I truly feel is right for all of us. Don’t tell, but I’m also keeping my fingers crossed in hopes that this journey I see play out in my head, will be everything I think it will be.

You’re welcome to join us on our journey as we jump in with both feet and see what happens.