Honestly, I never considered homeschooling my kids before I had my own. I remember having a conversation with my husband when I was pregnant with my first where we talked about public school vs. private school vs. homeschool. The homeschool portion of the conversation took about 5 seconds. We both agreed it was too weird and moved on.

At the time, we were both adamantly on the side of public school. We’d both done very well in that setting and went on to great colleges. Private school was moderately attractive, but also expensive and more uncertain in terms of quality. We felt that public school offered more of a real world environment and we didn’t want them to grow up feeling too “privileged” or “sheltered.” Our kids were DEFINITELY going to public school.

Then we had kids. When I decided I wanted to send my 2 and half year old to preschool to learn to interact with kids his own age, our town didn’t have a public preschool. However, there was a little Montessori school about a mile from our house and I fell completely in love.

The more I read about Montessori education, with the interest-led learning, the lack of grades and tests, the hands-on material, and the freedom kids have to make their own decisions, the more in love I became. I was convinced that our kids would go to Montessori private school instead of public school.

The only problem? My kids didn’t particularly want to go, especially my second child who cried at drop off for months. We’d made plenty of friends with other families by that time, so socialization no longer seemed like an issue. My kids were on track or ahead in academic areas. I couldn’t help wondering why I continued to send them.

That was when I started to read more about homeschooling. At first, my husband thought I was crazy. Homeschooling wasn’t even on our radar. However, I was convinced that I could keep all the aspects of Montessori that I loved, while making sure my kids were well enough integrated into society through friendships and extracurricular activities. Best of all, my kids would have such a big role in shaping their own educational path, that I felt certain we could keep the spark of curiosity and love of learning alive.

My 4 kids are still relatively young. The oldest is currently going into fifth grade. I HOPE that this homeschooling journey lasts a long time, but I don’t know what the future holds. At the moment, homeschooling is going really well. My kids are learning, creative, and curious. They have a lot of friends. We are presently sheltering-in-place during a global pandemic, but normally, they each have a couple extracurricular activities that they love participating in each week and we socialize with friends regularly.

Best of all, I feel like our family is a cohesive unit. I love all the time I get to spend with my kids and watch them play and learn and grow. Also, they have such varied and interesting relationships with each other. I can’t imagine them being so close if they went to school. Do they drive each other crazy from time to time? Absolutely. But they also know that at the end of the day, we are all on the same team. Plus they have built-in buddies and partners-in-crime for whatever crazy adventure they decide to pursue on any given day.

People sometimes ask if I’m planning to homeschool all the way through high school. I don’t know. All I know is that I’m willing to experiment to find what works for our family and right now, homeschooling is working really well.

Related Links

A Guide to Homeschooling
General Homeschooling Articles
Learning Activities for Kids

The post Our Path to Homeschooling appeared first on ResearchParent.com.

The flexibility to homeschool how we choose is why many of us chose to homeschool in the first place. We did not WANT the cookie-cutter, factory-style education that institutional learning offered. Homeschooling represents freedom. I don’t believe there is a wrong way to homeschool any more than I believe there is a right way. There are benefits to all the different methods. (This post shares a summary of many different styles and what I incorporate into our own personal homeschool from each.)

However, I do feel like there is some homeschooling advice that is universal. Whether you are a classical homeschooler, an unschooler, or even an after-schooler, I think these suggestions are relevant and important. They are tips that are backed up by science and veteran homeschooling moms alike. Much of this advice will feel obvious, but when you are in the trenches, I hope these gentle reminders will be helpful.

1. Put Relationships First

There is no educational goal that is more important than your relationship with your child. In any homeschool, just as in any home, there will be disagreements and hard feelings, frustration and resistance. The trick is to know when to push forward and when to allow your child to push back. As Julie Bogart says, “When the tears come, the writing is done.”

I’m not suggesting that knowing when to push and when to back off is always easy. What I do know is that your relationship with your child matters more than academics. Nobody’s sense of well-being is high when they live in a state of detente. The goal is not to simply get along, but rather to actually enjoy each other’s company. A child that knows deep in his core that you are his ally will both trust you and work harder to achieve goals that together you deem important. Studies show that kids who feel safe and secure perform better at academic tasks. Children who are emotional and upset are not learning.

Yesterday, I was helping two of my children complete assignments at our kitchen counter. My older child was getting frustrated with his math worksheet. I explained to him where he messed up and went back to helping my daughter. He still did not understand. Having to wait for me to finish helping her was adding to his frustration. By the time I got back to explaining to him how to do the problem, his math abilities had regressed a couple of years. He was throwing out random guesses and was unable to hear anything I was saying to him.

As my frustration level began to rise to match his, I said, “Okay, we’re taking a break. Just walk away and come back in 10 minutes.” He stalked off to my room where he likes to be alone from his siblings and slammed the door. After a few minutes, I took him a plate with a snack on it and set it down on the table. “What’s that?” he asked. “A peace offering,” I said, then left the room.

Later he came out and we chatted about something completely unrelated. Knowing that he was in a much better mood, I said, “Hey, let’s finish that problem before we forget.” We did it together on the whiteboard. When he was calm and able to listen, he understood the material quickly.

There have been scenarios in the past when I have not handled building tensions so gracefully. There have been times when similar frustrations led to tears and shouting and crumpled-up papers. However, none of that is necessary. In fact, it is counter-productive. Even if we get behind by a day or two on the schedule, in the long run, preserving the relationship and the trust that we’ve built together leads to better educational outcomes, not to mention a happier home life.

2. Read to Your Child

According to folklore, Albert Einstein said, “If you want your child to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.” There is no question about the power of stories in our lives. Books teach us about realities we could never imagine on our own. They build vocabulary, creativity, and moral character. Stories help us develop empathy. They are escape hatches and links to the rest of humanity all at the same time.

Studies have shown how important access to print is to a child’s reading skills and how important reading ability is to future life success. No one questions the significance of literacy. The main question is not how we teach children phonics and the mechanics of reading. What is really critical is how we develop children who want to read for fun. In the quest to raise readers, what I feel is undervalued is the importance of reading aloud.

Reading aloud has so many benefits. A child who learns how to tune into and enjoy a good story is well on their way to becoming a lifelong reader. If they learn to enjoy stories, then they know the value of reading for pleasure. Once they are captivated by the written word, your child will be motivated to learn the skills necessary to become a reader. Even if the mechanics of reading are slow in developing, children can still develop on an intellectual level from hearing complex, fascinating, and enjoyable tales.

Reading aloud or listening to audiobooks also allows children to hear stories above their reading level. Rather than limiting beginning readers to simpler stories, allowing them to listen to books opens up a whole world of literature for their enjoyment. Reading aloud levels the playing field. One of my children is dyslexic, but he has “read” and enjoyed so many books through listening to them.

Even once your child is a proficient reader, even once they are already reading for pleasure, there is still value to reading aloud. Families which read together build bonds that will last a lifetime. They have a common reference base for conversations, inside jokes, and even understanding the world. Stories stick with us. They can change us forever. Sharing this life-altering experience is an amazing way to bring families together.

If you are interested in learning more about reading aloud and finding suggestions for family read-alouds, I recommend following the Read Aloud Revival website and podcast by Sarah McKenzie. Also, be sure to check out the Read Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease. This classic, engaging book is full of helpful tips backed up by scientific evidence.

3. Spend Time Outdoors

As a fellow busy homeschooling parent, the last thing I want to do is add to your to-do list. I am not saying I think you need to invest in field guides or plan elaborate hikes or camping trips. I don’t think you need to break out the watercolors and journal with your budding naturalists. If you want to do these things, hats off to you. They are no doubt worthy endeavors.

What I am saying is that for as much time as you can manage each day, you should unplug your kids and send them outside. Let them run barefoot in the grass and sink their hands in some dirt. Better yet, take off your shoes and join them. Nature is good for your soul. Study after study shows that time spent in nature helps alleviate depression and other mood disorders.

If you happen to live in an urban location where “nature” consists of a concrete sidewalk next to a busy street, take advantage of what you have. Go for a walk with your kids in the sunshine. Take a stroll under an umbrella while it rains. Sit in some lawn chairs and watch the clouds. You will feel better. They will feel better. And they will learn better too.

In his widely loved book, Last Child in the Woods, Richard Louv explains how time in nature promotes not only health, but attention, focus, and learning. Alleviating symptoms of what he calls nature-deficit disorder by spending time outdoors leads to more creativity and better critical thinking skills, as well as higher GPAs and test scores.

4. Praise Effort Over Outcome

Do you believe that some kids are naturally better in certain areas than others? Maybe one of your children is good at math and another is more artistically talented. Scientific studies pioneered by Carol Dweck at Stanford have shown conclusively that what matters more than our innate abilities is our mindset. The growth mindset movement is on the rise and kids will no doubt benefit from this new way of thinking.

Some children might be faster learners than other at certain areas. However, this does not mean that slower children should be excluded from these fields. What matters more than any child’s current ability level is their belief in their ability to improve. Knowing that you will get better with effort is having a growth mindset. Feeling as if you are innately talented or doomed to fail in a certain area is having a fixed mindset.

To set our kids up for success, we want them to have a growth mindset. One of the ways we can help foster this mindset in our kids is by praising their effort and not the outcome. If a preschooler draws a picture, instead of saying, “Wow, that’s such an amazing picture! You are so talented!” it is better to say, “Wow, I can tell you worked really hard on that! Tell me about it.”

This distinction of praising effort instead of outcome extends to older kids and even adults as well. If your child feels like they are just not good at a subject, particularly math, I high recommend anything written by Jo Boaler. Her research-based work is convincing, highly readable, and filled with strategies that are easy to apply.

If you are less interested in the research and just looking for a quick and easy way to promote a growth mindset within your family culture, be sure to check out Big Life Journal. The company has developed a number of products, including a free podcast, which are developed specifically to foster growth mindsets in children and teens.

5. Enjoy Your Life Together

I think what most of us want for our kids is to help them grow up to be adults that live happy, gratifying lives, filled with security, meaningful relationships, and the freedom to pursue their own interests. Many of us believe that the way to accomplish this goal is through giving them a strong education that will prepare them for college, the workforce, or whatever path they choose.

However, it’s important that we not lose sight of the present when we focus on the end goal. We are able to give our kids happy, fulfilling lives, filled with security, meaningful relationships, and freedom right now. We are able to claim those things for ourselves and role model for our kids what it means to be a thriving adult.

Education is important. At some point, your child will probably need to memorize their times tables. However, play is just as important to intellectual development, if not more so. The book, Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul, explains how important play has been over the course of human history for survival. Humans and animals alike learn social skills, problem-solving, and creativity through play.

While the word “play” might conjure up images of Barbie dolls and dress-up, I’m not asking you to get down on the floor and play Hot Wheels with your kids. (Though if you want to, go for it!) You don’t even have to play board games with your kids if that’s not your cup of tea. Play is whatever brings us joy. Whatever is so pleasurable that we lose track of time.

While we should allow our children time to play and pursue their passions on their own, we should also try to find time to “play” with them. For one family this might mean hiking together on the weekend. For another, it might be having a family game night. Maybe one family likes working on old cars, or jigsaw puzzles, or building computers, or birdwatching, or painting landscapes, or golfing.

There are so many ways to “play” and we should never consider these activities a waste of time. Science shows that achieving a state of “flow” in which we become completely absorbed in our activity leads to peak human performance. Let’s show our kids what this feels like. What it means to be having so much fun, you don’t want to stop. Not only will the happiness in our family lives increase, but we will be building our children’s brains at the same time.

Related Links

Learning Activities for Kids
Technology and Engineering Activities for Kids
Best Books for Kids

The post How to Homeschool appeared first on ResearchParent.com.

While I have modified this system to better suit our family, I did not come up with it. Several years ago, a friend showed me this post where a mom designed a homeschool crate system to plan out and organize every single day or her children’s homeschool year. My friend thought it was brilliant. I thought it was INSANE. Even as I agreed to try it, I kept saying, “This will never work.”

I was right. It totally didn’t work. That first year, I pre-planned all 144 days of our homeschool year. (One day is left open each week for field trips). I got super excited about all the awesome curriculum I found and got carried away. As a result, I added WAY too much to our folders.

We ended up doing maybe a third of what I had planned. Two thirds of it just got put straight into the recycle. We also skipped days when we were busy doing fun stuff and would then try to make up by doing 2 or 3 days at a time. (I should point out that I think my very organized friend had much more success following her plan.)

However, there were a few great outcomes of this giant experiment. First, since I had carefully divided up curricula over a year, we actually *finished* entire curricula. By this, I mean we made it to the end, not that we completed every last element. There were busy days when I would just do the reading associated with what my kids were supposed to have learned that day, while skipping the activities and written work.

Second, in future years I was comfortable planning a lot less. Seeing how much paper I wasted that first year left me feeling really guilty. I learned to be really careful about what I decided to include and really cautious against planning too much.

Lastly, by over-planning that first year, I got to try lots of different material. This allowed me to discover what worked well for us. It made it easier to know what I wanted to include in the following years’ folders and what I felt comfortable skipping. Since then I have tried not to print an entire years worth of a curricula unless I know for sure we will stick with it.

To be clear, none of the items I threw out that first year were bad, per se. It’s just that unstructured play time is very important to me. Even if an activity is educational and beneficial, I had to weigh that benefit against the lost free time. If I felt like we were covering the skill in a different way that I liked better, or if I felt that knowledge could wait until older grades, I threw it out.

As of this writing, I have been using a modified version of the crate system for 5 years. Especially now that I have 4 children to homeschool, this method has become indispensable to me. I spend several hours over the summer ripping out pages or printing curricula and dispersing them into each child’s folders. During the school year, I know EXACTLY what needs to get done each week for each child.

I’ve learned to not over do it. I don’t waste anywhere near as much paper as I did that first year. I try to spread the folder work out over the week, but honestly, everything that I put into the crates for one week could get done in a single 8 hour day, including breaks. (Note that my oldest is currently in 5th grade.) That leaves my kids plenty of time to pursue their own interests, participate in a myriad of extracurriculars, and still have time to play.

The biggest change that I have made from that first year using a homeschool crate system is that I no longer have my folders list the days. I didn’t need to change the number of folders. I still use 144 folders per child. However, instead of listing days 1 through 144, now I list Week 1 – Language Arts, Week 1 – Math, Week 1 – Science, Week 1- Social Science, and so on for all 36 weeks of the school year.

I prefer this week/subject format much better. I always know what week we are working on. Many times I like to focus on only one academic subject per day (plus fun stuff). Mixing subjects for each day was way too much for my brain to keep track of, especially when we fell behind. Now I can just remember, “Oh, we forgot to do our science experiment last week,” and know right where to look.

If you choose to have your child do something like math or geography daily, you would just put five days of work into that week’s folder and know right where it is. The frequency with which I lose papers (such as my children’s writing samples or math worksheets), has gone WAY down since implementing this system.

I know this system might seems crazy. However, if you find yourself wishing that you could get through a whole curriculum for any given subject in a school year, I highly recommend giving it a shot. Just to reiterate, there are things within curricula I end up skipping. I don’t dot every “i” and cross every “t.” However, in terms of getting to the end of the book by the end of the year, my homeschool crate system has made it not only possible, but inevitable, for every subject.

Homeschool Crate System Instructions

Recommended Age Range: Kindergarten, Elementary, Middle School, High School
Time Required: It took me about 2 to 3 hours to label all the hanging folders and file folders for 1 child. An additional hour was required to write the labels for each additional child. It is definitely a time investment, but you only have to do this step once over your entire homeschool career.

I spend several hours filling the folders each summer, which is fun for me. I like to have my kids do lapbooks and pre-cut out all the pieces over the summer while I watch movies. If you decided to go the more straight forward route of just ripping the pages out of workbooks or printing digitial curricula and sticking them in the folders, this would take much less time. However, I would still plan for at least a couple hours per child to stick all the paper in the appropriate folders.

Difficulty: Easy
Cost: I spent about $100 to acquire the supplies for the base system plus one child (crates, hanging folders, and file folders). Each additional child cost about another $15 in file folders. I provide affiliate links to Amazon below, but if possible, I would check a local store with office supplies for possibly cheaper prices.

How to Set Up Your Homeschool Crate System

Supplies:

• 3-4 stacking crates (I could get by with three crates when I was using it for 2 and 3 children. I was on the fence, but I ended up adding a fourth crate when I added my fourth child to the system to give us more room. I think 4 crates would be plenty for 5 or 6 children as well. If you only have 1 child, 2 crates would probably be sufficient. I recommend buying as many crates as you think you will eventually need. I had trouble finding a fourth crate years later that would interlock nicely with the ones I already had.)
• 144 hanging folders/6 boxes of 25 pack hanging folders (This allows you to have a folder for 36 weeks of school for each of four subjects: math, language arts, science, and social science. If you wanted to add a fifth subject, like “electives” or “latin”, you would need 36 more folders. Personally, I choose to do our electives on an “open and go” looping approach. Therefore, I do not include them in this system.)
• 144 folding files for each child (Note you will need two 100 pack boxes for one child, 3 for 2 children, 5 for 3 children, etc. If you choose to add more hanging folders to include more subjects, you will need more folding files per child to match this number)
• a pen

Instructions:

1. First, make the labels for your hanging folders. I recommend making a folder for each of the four core subjects: Math, Language Arts (L.A.), Science (Sci.), and Social Science (S.S.) and for each of the 36 weeks of school. I choose to write my labels as follows:
   
   • Week 1 – L.A.
   • Week 1 – Math
   • Week 1 – Sci.
   • Week 1 – S.S.
     
     through
     
   • Week 36 – L.A.
   • Week 36 – Math
   • Week 36 – Sci.
   • Week 36 – S.S.
2. Put the labels into your hanging folders and divide the hanging folders evenly between your crates. If you have 3 crates, place Weeks 1 to 12 in the first crate, Weeks 13 to 24 in the second crate, and Weeks 25 to 36 in the last crate. If you have 4 crates, place Weeks 1 to 9 in the first crate, Weeks 10 to 18 in the second crate, Weeks 19 to 27 in the third crate, and Weeks 28 to 36 in the last crate.
   
   Note that I chose to stagger my labels to match the 3 positions on the file folders. You could do this any way you choose.
   
3. For each hanging folder, make a file folder for each of your children. You could just write the name of the child to save time and place it in the folder. I was worried that the folders would get mixed up. Therefore, I included the week and subject on the file folders as well, but this was probably overkill.
   
4. Place the file folders into the appropriate hanging folders.
   
5. Make week labels for each of your crates, if you desire.
6. Next you get to fill the crates with your curriculum for the year. If you have workbooks, simply rip the pages out of the workbooks and divide them among the 36 weeks. When it isn’t possible to divide the work evenly, I like to front load the year with the extra work. That way we do more when we start out and are motivated and less at the end of the year.
   
   Personally, I am a fan of digital curricula. With four kids, it is the most economical. You simply print and divide the work among your folders. Now that I’ve been doing this awhile, I am able to print selectively. I do not necessarily print every page if I feel like it is repetitive and will be too much work for my child. I can always go back later and print extra pages if I feel like my child needs more.
   
   Lastly, if you are planning to have your child do lapbooks, you can use your summer months to pre-cut out all your pieces. This basically ensures that the work will get done as you have already invested so much time in the process. At least while my kids are young, I do a lot of this. My kids like the finish product and I like that it holds me more accountable.
   
7. Finally, find a place to store your stacked crates so they are convenient to access all year. I choose to keep mine in my the “office section” of our dining room between my desk and printer.
   

That’s it! Now you can feel great knowing that your homeschool year can run on autopilot.

Related Links

Learning Activities for Kids
Technology and Engineering Activities for Kids
Best Books for Kids

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Please know that this list of homeschool styles is not exclusive. They are many, many other ways to homeschool. Some people follow a school-at-home style in which they try to replicate the traditional classroom at home. Gameschoolers make learning as fun as possible through playing games to cover each subject. Roadschoolers take a lot of road trips. Worldschoolers travel the world. Carschoolers learn through audiobooks and playing games in the car. Forestschoolers let nature guide their education.

Whatever your lifestyle, there is a way to build your homeschool around that life. Also, odds are good that there is already a community of homeschoolers that are following similar practices. There is no right or wrong way to educate your kids at home. Do what works for you. Hopefully this brief description of a variety of popular methods will help you see that whatever homeschool style choose to do, you are not alone.

Classical Homeschooling

Classical homeschooling is a style pioneered by the esteemed Susan Wise Bauer of the beloved tome, The Well-Trained Mind. It advocates a very thorough, rigorous educational philosophy. Among the suggestions are that children study Latin and learn history in 4 year cycles. A child that completed all the recommendations in this style would have been exposed to absolutely everything a public-schooler would have seen in their educational career, and then a lot more.

We are definitely not classical homeschoolers. Our days are far too unstructured to ever be mistaken for a classically homeschooling family. However, if you listen to talks given by the Ms. Bauer, I’m not sure even her family could have lived up to the ideals laid out in the Well Trained Mind. I do own a copy of the book and enjoy perusing it from time to time to get ideas.

Our family actually does follow the 4 year history cycle. Just this year, we completed the full Story of the World series written by Susan Wise Bauer. I ended up skipping nearly all the associated activities in favor of a more laid back approach. However, I am glad that my kid have at least been exposed to the full course of human history. We also study Latin by watching the videos and listening to the songs in Song School Latin. (Though we don’t do the written activities in the workbook.)

Unschooling

At the other end of the educational spectrum from classical homeschooling is unschooling. Fundamentally, unschoolers believe that everything a person needs to know in order to live a satisfying life, they will learn through going about their daily lives. There are no curricula, no worksheets, no tests, no forced learning.

At its worst, unschooling could be considered a form of neglect. Anyone who has read Educated would definitely not have a positive view of unschooling, despite the author’s academic success. However, most unschooling parents are in fact very intentional about what they do with their children. They are active participant in their child’s education. A better representation of unschooling in my mind is Free Range Learning. This is actually the book that convinced me to try homeschooling.

I could not be considered an unschooler either, because my kids do (loosely) follow curricula, especially for science and history. Also, they do (very occasionally) do math worksheets. However, I do firmly believe that children that learn through this unstructured, self-directed, hands-on style, are likely to retain a passion for learning. I also believe they retain information just as well, if not better than their traditionally schooled counterparts. That is why I try to keep my structured learning to a minimum.

Charlotte Mason

Charlotte Mason was an educator in England during the late 1800s. She advocated for a very gentle, respectful style of teaching. The series of books she wrote have grown into a very popular homeschooling movement. This style of learning promotes nature study, narration, copywork and a focus on the arts, including music and poetry. Rather than reading textbooks, she encourages learning through what she calls “living books.” These are stories about real people written by people with a passion for the subject.

I believe there is a lot of value in what Charlotte Mason had to teach us. I definitely try to teach my kids through living books whenever possible. My kids do copywork to learn grammar, spelling, figurative, language. Informally, we practice narration by having our children tell us about what they are reading. We are a family of nature lovers and spend a considerable amount of time on music and art.

If you are looking to learn more about Charlotte Mason, the original works can be a little hard to read. I recommend A Charlotte Mason Education by Catherine Levison for a more gentle, concise description. The author has also written a follow up companion guide that goes into even more detail.

Montessori

My older children attended a Montessori preschool before we began homeschooling. Maria Montessori was an Italian educator who taught in the early 1900s. She believed in giving children the capacity to perform tasks themselves though “meaningful work.” In preschool, my kids would practice skills such as pouring, washing their hands, and wiping down the table.

She also believed in child-directed learning. They would “choose their own work” from a variety of prepared activities. The classroom leader in a Montessori classroom is called a “directress” rather than a teacher. With the exception of a few highly motivating, stimulating “Great Lessons,” a Montessori teacher does not stand up and teach in front of a class of students. Rather, she observes each individual child’s strengths and weaknesses and directs them towards appropriate work to round out their skill set.

If you would like to learn more about Montessori’s methods, I highly recommend Montessori: The Science Behind the Genius by Angeline Stoll Lillard. It explains in very convincing, science-backed detail the advantages of a Montessori approach to education.

Although I no longer follow it, initially I tried to pull the many positive aspects of a Montessori educational philosophy into my homeschool. With 4 kids, I have moved away from planning out educational opportunities to put in my children’s path and hope they take the bait. If I take the time to plan an activity, we do it. Our structured learning is not child-directed. However, I have maintained a few aspects of Montessori. I encourage my kids in life skills. We do not have tests. I use a lot of hands-on material, especially to teach math. Also, they are still free to choose how to spend the majority of their days.

Waldorf

Waldorf education was pioneered by the Austrian philosopher, Rudolf Steiner, in the late 1800s. With a focus on imagination and creativity, it seems like a very whimsical way to be educated. Waldorf classrooms do not push academic learning, but rather incorporate many elements of nature. Art, music, and movement are a big part of their lessons. A Waldorf classroom focuses on educating the whole child rather than just his intellect. I recommend reading Understanding Waldorf Education if you are interested in this style.

My very first year of homeschooling, I purchased a boxed Waldorf curriculum from Oak Meadow. I loved it for about 2 months. I still think they provide great material and I loved the gentle, art and story-based nature of the activities. However, as I found my feet and gained in confidence, I left my boxed curricula in favor of a more unschooling approach. We no longer are Waldorf homeschoolers, but I still believe there is a lot of wisdom to be gained from learning about this style.

Unit Studies

Unit Studies allow you to cover a wide variety of subjects while learning about one topic. For example, suppose you decided to spend the next month learning about the ocean. You could watch documentaries about ocean creatures or do an art project to learn about different ocean zones for science. You could read together about explorers that navigated the ocean like Columbus or Magellan or check out a Titanic museum exhibit for history. Have your child calculate the best time to visit the tide pools by reading tide tables to practice math skills. Encourage journaling about the entire experience for language arts.

The point is not necessarily to cover every subject when you do a unit study, but rather just to learn as much as you can about a given topic. In doing that, you will be surprised by how many areas of learning you naturally cover. If you would like more structure, I have a friend that loves Gather Round Homeschool, which provides complete unit study curricula for a full range of grades. If that is too much structure and you prefer to be more free form, Lazy Unit Studies provide a fun way to follow a child’s passions.

I am not exactly a follower of the Unit Study model, but I do like to allow time to go down rabbit holes if we start learning about a topic that interests us. For example, my son and I became Hamilton fans and learned everything we could about the American Revolution for a period. The main value I take from the Unit Study model is to find educational value in everything you do. Don’t stop learning about a subject just because your curricula says you should move on. If your kids are interested, dive deep!

Related Links

Learning Activities for Kids
Technology and Engineering Activities for Kids
Best Books for Kids

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