Roll-Call: Relaxed/Unschool

[Lillyma]

If you consider yourself relaxed, delight-driven, spirit-led, unschool, etc, please tell us about your style and what inspired you to this lifestyle?

Thanks! :smile

[Lillyma]

To answer my own question: I am currently delight-driven trying to let myself unschool. It's been a long-term goal of mine (ours) to have a totally unchool lifestyle, & it's been a process of taking 2 steps forward & 1 step back. I've been inspired by all the other families I know & know of that live a learning lifestyle free from the restrictions of "schooling".

[2ds1dd]

we are verrrry relaxed hsers. not sure how we got that way as we started the school year as strict hsers. *lol lol*

[arymanth]

I'm an extremely relaxed unschooler! :lol I started out trying to do "school at home", but over time we found that it just wasn't necessary. Now we just take one day at a time, learning at every opportunity, and just enjoying life.

Stephanie

[Iarwain]

We are unschoolers. As my children have gotten older we have found a place for some textbooks as a tool used in a child-led manner but we are very much unschoolers still. We have unschooled from birth. It just kind of grew that way.

[erinee]

I *think* I will be able to call myself relaxed. I want to follow their interests and I won't have a set curriculum, but I will have a plan and some things I definitly want to see happen.

[MomTo7]

I would say we are very relaxed but with a plan. We don't get hung up on time frames or grades but we do have goals.... We do use some workbooks and text books but when they fit into what we are doing. Actually I would like to be doing more and might use a curri next year.

[fourbygrace]

We are relaxed home schoolers, but I am using Sonlight curriculm as a base.

I am currently reading about a lifestyle of learning and delight-driven learning. What I would really like to be is a Spirit-Led homeschooling family, allowing the Holy Spirit to lead us in what we should be learning, when , and helping my children to learn to rely on the Holy Spirit to lead them into a lifestyle of learning. I believe every child is different and no one approach will work with every child. Some children prefer a more structured approach; other would be stifled by the same approach. I want to meet my children where they are and meet their individual needs, just as God does with His children.

I am trying to spend more time in the Word and prayer so that I can hear His voice and walk in wisdom.

Blessings,
Mary

[ServantofGod]

I'm a relaxed hser. I have a plan, but I also deviate from it as needed. I use "real"curriculum for Math and Language Arts. I put together my own Sonlight-style plan for SS and Science. I don't grade or test, though when my kids get a perfect page done in math, I tell them they "got an A+!".

[prayerbear]

Well we are delight led and relaxed unschoolers who do delight in learning.

Our kids love the books on the shelves and the work books in the draws

People are always saying how they are so clever and articulate !!!!! not from me there not! :wow

but we do study the Bible using the Jewish PaRDeS and are going through P'shat as they are young. P'shat is the simple meaning and context the literal meaning of the text. So other than that we really just encourage them to do things and do things practical and as we need to use them... ie math and writing.

Love learning hate routine I think you could say!!

I wonder if anyone has a routine cos we 'feel' we need to being a simple daily routine now as we have sooooo much to do in each day and the kids seem to need that structure for their sanity and health!

prayerbear

[Chris3jam]

How we became relaxed/delight driven/unschooling family. . . . . .


Imagine shining faces, dancing eyes, bouncy steps, and hungry minds -- "when are we going to do school?", "can we do more?", "can we do this one?". Starting “school” was SO exciting! Then, there was a gradual dimming and clouding and slowing down, to "aw, do we HAVE to ?" accompanied by dragging feet. This escalated into running away when the workbooks came out, yelling matches, bribery, and downright refusal. I didn't think that all the nagging, crying, begging, fighting and general misery was very conducive to Christian family life (or any life, for that matter!).

So I just started living with them. I do have what I personally call an "olde-fashioned, classic montessori-type" of set-up in the
house, with little areas of "discovery", baskets in corners with different things in them, lots of paper and crayons, glue and
scissors, books, musical instruments, games, etc, etc, etc. In the book that I read, that was basically how Maria Montessori set up her
original classrooms (child-directed learning, I think). The teachers were there only to help with what the child became
interested in (this was what I read -- I could be wrong). Now, I believe, Montessori schools are much more structured (again, I could
be wrong).

Yes, I DO have MANY more "messes" to clean up. I DO have "science" experiments sitting all over the house (to the chagrin of dh, who is
constantly asking if the salt growing experiment is over yet, if the butterflies wouldn't be much happier if freed outside, and if the frog tank REALLY needs THAT much space. :lol But I make a list for myself (and dh) of all that is being learned in just this one activity/experiment/whatever. It's absolutely amazing what can be "learned" using a simple cardboard box! Sometimes I make suggestions or ask a question that expands an idea (sometimes not). Sometimes I put things where I know they'll see it, we go to the library, and we go on "field trips".

One day, my littlest (2 yo) was playing in the sink with water and soap bubbles and cups and such(again). I was a little bit tired of
having cleaned up the mess (again) and dh saw it on my face (I didn't say anything). He said, with a twinkle in his eye, "You SAID
it was all part of homeschooling!" And imagine my surprise when my 7 yo shows me a page of multiplication equations and asks me for
more. Or my 6 yo show me a "story" he wrote (and asks me to help him in the spelling). This was not happening before.

This is a few of the things we do. So, are we unschooling? Or are we relaxed homeschoolers? Eclectic? Insane? Out of our minds?

You make the call!

Note: Sorry about the slightly off-topic flavor. But this is what I wrote about a year ago, in response to someone else's question.

PS -- and it is ALWAYS changing and challenging!!

[nomadic_mama]

Well dd is only 3 so I guess we fit into the unschooling since birth catagory ;)

[Lillyma]

Thanks Chris for the detailed post! :)

[jennifer2boys]

We are relaxed homeschoolers. We do workbooks for Math and practice handwriting, but other than that we do a lot of reading and following interests. I showed the kids mad libs today and they love them , they have been doing them most of the day.

[Krystyne]

We are now very relaxed homelearners. We have stopped and started with both K and 1st grade My Father's World. While both a great, they are not great for *us*. I have realized that having this bone disease and having days when I can barely make it out of bed to do bookwork with the kids let alone pee that having the fact that I am way behind on "schoolwork" really really eats at me. I had often felt like a failure, like my kids would be better off in school, like my kids deserve better than me. Through much prayer, i have heard "God say Let Go and trust me, They are mine, let me lead". Once I let go of following curriculm and paryed about setting goals and what they would be, life has been so much better and eaier. My kids are learning so much more. My DD has learned the multiplication tables just by playing yahtzee along with her manipulatives. (She would be going to kindy in the fall if she were in PS. My DS can do much of the yahtzee math in his head. I am very impressed. My kids and I enjoy reading together about things and learning to use our resources to find out information. My bookshelves are brimming with books instead of textbooks and that is great. It has sparked a great love for learning for me. With some goals for each child prayerfully set for them, it opens doors to so much in life. The list of what they need to learn (skills to accomplish things in life, like learning letter shapes for reading, learning how to calm down when angry so you are able to calm down to do something else etc.) is much smaller and more manageable than a huge scope and sequence.

[ReadingMommy]

We're unschooling right now, oldest is almost 6. We'll probably get into more things and be "relaxed, identity directed" in a few more years. I love the Charlotte Mason method, so we'll glean some of her methods to use too, like we do now, lots of good books and nature walks not talks.

It just seems natural, it's real learning, that's the point, not teaching. It's a lifestyle. Elijahco helped us come to these conclusions.

[UltraMother]

We're unschoolers too. I met a midwife who had older, unschooled children, and I really admired them. I've always been impressed with most hsers anyway, but I knew a long time ago that school-at-home would not be for me. And, of course, I've never liked traditional schooling, either, so when I learned that this option existed, it was just what I wanted.

[mommyTay]

I am a wanna-be "relaxed / unschooler". Unfortunately, I am also a perfectionist and people pleaser. :( We have our curriculum and do enough of it to keep dh and my mom happy. This year I have finally found curriculums that the kids have really been enjoying and I am learning a lot from too.
Beautiful Feet History of Science, Around the World in 180 days, we are sending "Flat Stanley" to check out the continents for us! We are using Singapore Math, this is the first program my daughter is finally interested in for math.

We love using "literature based" studies, if you know of any other programs like those, please share!

[Mother of Sons]

nt

[Kaz]

WOW! I just want to say that I really admire you homelearners. I am thinking seriously about it already myself, even though my daughter is only 8 months old. I read a little of John Holt's stuff on how children learn and it has really turned me off the whole notion of competitiveness and testing and rigidity. So I am really interested to read comments from those who unschool, to get an idea of how its working.

Can anyone recommend some good stuff to read? And how did you get into the whole idea? To me , it seems like a natural extension of how I have been trying to mother my daughter so far anyway..ie, trusting in God, letting go, natural type stuff. Its hard to articulate it all quickly. ..

I read a really interesting book lately called 'BabyTalk', and while I think its got lots of faults, I thought it was fascinating the way this speech and language therapist recommended avoiding any sort of 'teaching' your baby. Apparently its detrimental if you are always trying to correct them, getting them to repeat what you say etc. You've got to just let them get on with it, and basically just love them (my words) ..she calls it the BabyTAlk Programme, I reckon its all just stuff any loving parent would do, ie spending time with your babe, talking to them etc and avoiding trying to hurry them up etc. But I found it fascinating how well her research tied in with an unschooling approach. KWIM anyone?

Oh I'm probably not making much sense with all this waffle-on.

Anyway, I look forward to learning from you all

Kaz

[Teribear]

I have always been an unschooler at heart...but being the product of public schools and the wife of a college professor each year I buy curriculum and each year it sits unused while we explore the world, read REAL books on what interests us, even use the TV and computer and call everything learning. I began to realize that my child is incredibly resistant to being "taught" she has an inate need to figure things out her way. If I had continued that power struggle I know I would have killed that desire to learn.

I'll be honest, it's hard when your child is "behind" in certain subjects even when she is several years "ahead" in others. Family doesn't understand. Friends often don't either. They hear homeschooling and they think "school at home" and when she tells them "I only go to school on Mondays (she calls our co-op school)" it really causes me to have to field some concerned questions.

Add to the mix having been a gifted child in the areas where my dd is "behind" and the stress level can get pretty high around here. I'm learning finally, after three years, that what works, works. And its worth the 6 or 8 dollars to me to buy an x grade complete curriculum at Sam's that I know will largely be unused just to have something to show the relatives and keep them off my back.

We school year around because we live LIFE year around. We just got back from Disney, where everyone assumes we were on "spring break"...my husband was on spring break...WE were having school. She learned more "social studies" in a day at the world showcase at Epcot than she would have in 6 months of conventional social studies curriculum and she had a blast doing it. This week we're going to press flowers for science/nature study/art...but that's not what she thinks. She thinks we're just playing and having fun. Which is how it should be.

[Mother Duck]

Hi

I'm a radical unschooler ATM :D

We started out very relaxed, doing the odd unit study (which my daughter still remembers :D) then we moved to Australia and were influenced by my SIL and bought the ABEKA Curriculuum. DD#1 became a very reluctant learner/worker. :hissyfit She'd rather sit all morninig at the dinning room table then pick up her pen and do any work!

After a term of this, I gave up on it!!

We have been uschooling ever since. It took DD at least six - 12 months to write on her own :(

I do worry sometimes, but over all it seems to be working well for us.

[Mamatoto]

This would be us...schooling begins at birth and is lived out every day.

The method is Waldorf but since Waldorf is so creative and relaxed, it is more like unschooling. I provide the wooden toys, the fairy tales, the finger rhymes, the watercolor paints, the books, and dd does what she wants with them. I am amazed at how much she learns without me ever having to teach her. (By the way, what are bananas made of? :shrug These are the types of things I have to answer every day. :lol)

[RadicalMom]

I thought I had posted here once before, but can't find it, so I will post again...

I am a totally Radical Unschooler. I have a 15yodd, a 13yo ds, and a 7yods. My daughter is a very gifted artist and plans to go to cosmetology school next year and then on to the Corcoran School of Art, my 13yo loves to cook and build things and read manga. My 7yo is an awesome gamer, and someday when he learns to read and program, he will probably create incredible games for game systems. He already creates really neat games with his figures and toys.

My Radical Christian Unschooling website is: http://radicalchristianunschool.homestead.com/index.html

[shilohmm]

I started out with a more Classical curriculum, which worked fine for eldest son, but after a year or two eldest daughter was stalling and would take all day to do next to nothing and it was a nightmare. It finally dawned on me that she was coming to hate home school as much as I hated public school :wow and I asked them how they'd feel about unschooling for six months. Daughter was gung ho for the idea; son agreed to it rather reluctantly. After six months I could see they were still learning, and daughter wanted to keep going as we were going while son wanted to have more structure. But it turned out what son liked was getting his work done before his sister - if she wasn't going to do the assignment thing, he wasn't too enthused about it either. :P

Second daughter's never had any formal teaching but reads pretty well - she's eight and just started reading the Harry Potter books, and I expect she'll finish them by the end of the year. Eldest son (10) did have formal teaching and has been able to read in the sense of decode for some time, but I was getting worried because, like his dad, he refused to reread anything, ever (the girls will read the same thing ten times if they like it, which IMHO functions as reading drill), and I didn't think his reading was advancing as it should. About the time I was starting to think unschooling was a failure in his case, he discovered that his best friend and his best friend's little sister were both reading the Harry Potter books. He was not about to be left behind and has read all five HP books through once and is reading them again. ;)

I've been telling them from the first that they have to go through the E.D. Hirsch books ( What Your Kindergartner/First-Grader/etc. Needs to Know ) once they hit their teens, if not sooner, even though they'll probably forget all of it just like I forgot most of my schooling. That's my symbolic gesture toward giving them the public schooling my mom would prefer. :rolleyes :mrgreen Now that eldest is 12 she gets a few assignments a week. She has a serious block against math, but I've got her doing Quarter-Mile Math every day and she doesn't mind that. She's also writing a story and both the older two have gotten into computer graphics lately. :cool

I want them to be life-long learners and to not associate learning with school, so once I really started looking into it, unschooling sounded terrific. It is, after all, the way hubby and I still approach life. ;)

Sheryl

[Maggie]

I'm pretty sure we will be relaxed homeschoolers. I lean towards unschooling and dh leans toward a little more structure, I think, but definitely child-directed learning - learning with the seasons, introducing different types of materials and seeing which she responds best to, etc. I'm really looking forward to homeschooling Katie! It will be interesting to see what Brian's parents have to say about it. His dad's a retired college professor and his mom has also taught music.

We both hated school and didn't like being put in a box. I love to learn, but always felt an enormous amount of pressure in school felt very restricted. We both want Katie to love learning and to do it in a way that compliments the way she learns.

[Vipers_Princess]

we are more relaxed than unschool, since we still use workbooks and practice tablets and the like. We don't use them exclusively, or follow any certain order really. More than anything we just go with what peaks their intrest, and mix in basic skills as we need/want.

Mostly, we do this because it's the way that feels right. It is also a big help because our six year old has sensory issues, and sometimes even mental stimulations get to be too much. By moving at her pace we avoid most of the meltdowns, and are still able to keep her intrested and learning...

[mom2_AthruZ]

We are unschoolers. We started out schoool at home and then I tried unit studies based on my oldest dd's interests. That would have been great except I was too focused on making the unit perfect and when we started it I wound up totally killing her interest. :doh So needless to say we were both frustrated. :banghead Our journey to unschooling began with a friend who unschools answering my 1,000 questions and ended with God asking me if I trusted Him enough to let my dd "go" so she could learn the way that fits her.

I have moments where I worry about the girls being behind but I remind myself that we are not on the public school's time table. The girls are where they need to be. Like another mom who posted my oldest dd hated writing and would not write for well over a year. Now she is writing poems and stories and has 2 pen pals. We visit the library once a week and read a lot. We do take field trips and explore the great outdoors. Instead of curriculum we buy tickets to plays, or museums, yearly zoo passes etc. Not that those who don't unschool don't buy those things as well.We just wouldn't be able to if I purchased a full curriculum as well.

We do have a routine so the house doesn't fall apart....any worse than it already is. :O :laughtears This is a must for both my girls but especially for the 6yo who is spirited. It is not on a time block rather it is just the motion of our day. Despite my worries at times I wouldn't change our approach we were just meant to be unschoolers. ;)

[phathui5]

We're going to end up relaxed homeschoolers. We've been homeschooling for about a year and a half (really since birth though, I guess). Our official start will be this September when we have to register with the county as homeschoolers. What I'm trying to figure out before then is how to strike a balance between The Well Trained Mind and The Unschooling Handbook, which are my two favorite homeschooling guides.

[Moon]

lol pathui, you totally just described us. I was thinking as I read this thread... "they'll consider classically unschooling/relaxed an oxymoron." :lol

We are incredibly relaxed. Yet we are very classical. We don't hold to the WTM schedules at all, but we're covering basically the same materials. We do chronological history, grammar, yada yada, but it's by no means shoved on them. :)