Sharing our homeschool journey...

A few years ago I decided to be much more open about our homeschool journey. I posted more about our homeschooling on my blog, I shared many of our adventures and things we have done on my Facebook page, and I talked openly with all that asked or commented on our choice to homeschool.

I did so after spending the first years of our homeschool journey worrying daily about what others thought and trying desperately to live up to the standards of others. I tried to make our homeschool something others would expect of a "good" homeschool family. But along the way I realized I was spending too much of my time trying to appease others and accomplish what I thought was expected instead of focusing on my kids, their needs, and what truly worked best for them.

By opening up our homeschool journey to others I found that not only did I have more confidence in what I was doing and the choice we made to homeschool, but more people, family and friends, began to join in on the fun and help us along the way.

Of course there are still many that do not share our view on education and homeschooling, and that's ok, but I have felt that opening the door to what we do and who we are has given those we know a better idea of what homeschooling is, or least what it is for our family.

I have really enjoyed sharing our homeschool journey, as I really do love and believe in what we are doing. I have greatly appreciated when family and friends have offered their support, advice, encouragement, and supplies or field trip ideas. I like to think that being more open about our homeschooling and what we do, has given those we know another view on homeschooling, and helped give positive thoughts and feelings when they think about homeschoolers.

Everything I share about our homeschooling, I do so because I like to share and of course as a mom, I love to show off my kids and what they do. It is never meant to shove our choice in anyone's face or compare our journey to another's. Everyone and each family needs to decide what is best for them and their needs, their wants, and situation. Our way is just that, Our Way!

Creative learners...

It might be better said that we explore, experience, and enjoy life and the opportunities with the freedom to follow our interests and creative ideas, than to say we are unschooling. As we still parent our children and require them to do chores, follow rules, and be respectful, with consequences when these are not done. I still instruct my children to take showers, clean their rooms, to use their manners, and to respect their elders. I also ask them to read and write a each day.  Many unschoolers do not ask their children to do these things, they trust the children or teens will do what’s needed when necessary.  I’m sure many that in many families that works wonderfully, but I am not quite there just yet, and I honestly do not know if I’ll ever be able to completely let go in that way.

  The term unschooling has a variety of thoughts and assumptions tied to it, though I believe most do not understand what it is truly meant to be. In most circumstances unschooling can be a wonderful way of life, and a very natural way to raise children. 

 

 I am just beginning to understand what it means to be truly unschooling. At the moment we would not likely be considered “real unschoolers” in most circles, and that’s quite alright with me. This is where homeschooling can be anything you make it, whether it has an official name or not. I guess for us a better term for what we are doing, which is still very much “unschooling” in my mind, might be, “Creative learners.”

I am so used to trying to fit everything into a nice neat little box, though with my kids and our crazy life I should know better, that I sometimes forget that life doesn’t have to be divided into boxes and be neat and tidy. One also does not need a proper title to what they are doing, how they are learning, or who they are. It is quite enough to just be you and to live the life you have, however you see fit. No set rules or checklists required.

 

Our first official day in our unschooling journey...

 I'm not sure if it would be considered and official start to unschooling as unschooling is not set by rules or boxes you can check, but if so, we have officially started unschooling. I am excited and nervous at the same time as I am tossing us into uncharted territory, without a map, checklist or rules.  Yet, I am looking forward to going and doing on a whim, to explore as the inspiration hits, and to do what I believe will truly work best for us. I have checked out multiple books, looked through many web sites and blogs, all on unschooling, and still feel as though I'm jumping ship and joining "those" people...and I'm completely thrilled about it.

I do not have everything figured out just yet, or know quite where this journey will take us or if it will even last the next six months. But at the moment we are all excited and ready to jump in feet first with everything we have.

The kids made me laugh yesterday morning as they wandered around for a time, asking what they should do, as they are used to having set assignments or a list of things to be done for school each day. They did enjoy having more time to relax and wake up in the morning before they began their morning responsibilities. After breakfast and more asking of what they should do and my reply of "What would you like to do?" they each decided on a project and jumped in.

Lady Bug decided to spend time working on corrections to a story that she and her youngest brother have been writing together, then she decided to start a new story of her own. She has always enjoyed writing and I love that given the opportunity to pick what to do, she chose to write. She even ended up so involved in her writing that I had to work to pull her away so she could eat lunch before we had to go pick up her little brother from his enrichment program on time. In the end, I think she spent a few hours working between the two stories.

Wild Thing, my middle son, decided he wanted to work on making his corn-cob pipes. While reading, "Frosty the Snowman" to the kids this Christmas, he decided he wanted to make corn-cob pipes just like Frosty had. So he took it upon himself to research how to make them and watched a few videos and read different articles often enough that he now has the instructions on how to make a corn-cob pipe memorized. He enjoyed picking ears of corn for us to eat and then cleaning them off and setting them in the window to dry. Then yesterday, he finished cleaning them off and cut them into smaller pieces and drilled the necessary holes. Now he only has to find, buy, and add the bamboo sticks to the pipes. In case you're wondering, cutting dried corn-cobs is much harder than you'd think, or at least harder than I thought it would be.

He is making one for his grandfather who does smoke a tobacco pipe, but as he doesn't want anyone to smoke Wild Thing said he is only making these pipes for decoration. He is very concerned about the health of other's, and often tries to find ways to encourage people to make healthy choices.

 He has always enjoyed hands-on activities, and is quite creative when it comes to finding projects to do. As soon as he gets an idea in his head, it's nearly impossible for him to change direction until he has had a chance to try, or build whatever it is that he is wanting to do. This is where letting go of the traditional "schoolish" thoughts are going to give him an open door to learning. 

After lunch, the kids both decided to work on some crafts they had going. Wild Thing worked on painting a wooden model of a pirate ship, or Black Pearl if you ask him, and Lady Bug made some cute picture frames out of popsicle sticks. Of course after all these projects were done, there was corn dust and paint everywhere, but there was also peace in the house and we all enjoyed the day. For that, I am very thankful.

While on the drive to pick up Little Man  the kids and I talked about our day and what they thought. We discussed what they thought unschooling was, what they would like to do or add into our unschooling journey, how they both felt they learned best, and what benefits unschooling may have long term. I was glad to have their ideas and thoughts on what they were interested in doing and how they may go about learning what it is they wish to learn. I also was pleased to hear how they thought unschooling may be a good fit for our family.

Every day and through every conversation, I feel more and more confident that this (unschooling) really is the best thing for us all right now. I watch my kids and see the spark in their eyes, and hear the excitement in their voices when they have the freedom and opportunity to follow what they are interested in, and it gives me the courage and faith that this will work out, somehow.

I have decided that to help me to be able to truly let go of the old thoughts on what homeschooling should be and the worries of what others may think, I am taking this month to focus on us all having fun and exploring what's around us. Lots of field trips, crafts and fun activities, reading just for fun, and making time to just enjoy each day and being in each other's company, that's the plan.

At the end of each day, as I have done since September, I journal about our day and add photos when possible, showing just how much the kids have done, learned, and experienced. After looking back through the journal so far, I see that the most memorable and educational moments are those in which we were away from the text books and "schoolish" things and involved in exploring and trying new things, reading for fun, and being creative.
I'm look forward to reading our journal at a later date and reading about the adventures we've had this year.

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.