Unschooling

[MelanieMC]

Ok, I don't want to seem dumb, but could someone please tell me what exactly this means? I'm just curious as to what it entails. Thanks! :smile

[booboo]

From how I understand it, unschooling is child-led homeschooling. It's teaching what your child is interested in.

You can say I'm doing some unschooling. We are doing the important stuff: phonics, math, etc. But since we finished up her history book, she's very interested in learning about the states and past US Presidents. So we are forever going to the library picking out books on these subjects. So far her biggest fascination is Theodore Roosevelt. And don't call him "Teddy" in front of her since she learned he didn't like being called that! :) I'm teaching her things she's interested in learning.

Anybody else have a better explanation? :shrug

[erinee]

I'd say it's just learning from life. Learning math by cooking and counting out change at the grocery store, science by cooking and going outside, reading by just reading lots of good books together, history by reading and going to museums, music by providing access to instruments and CDs, art by providing lots of materials and letting the child decide what to create. Like the PP said, it's also letting the child decide what they want to learn, when, but it's also learning from *everything* you do, even when the child isn't necessarily aware that learning is taking place.

[arwen_tiw]

Also it's a pretty wide category. Some of the Unschooling families don't suggest topics or deliberately try to steer what their children learn and when. Some families work mostly like that but either put ideas in front of their kids or insist on some subjects or work from a curriculum part of the time. Some families work mostly from curriculums but spend some time exploring outside those. I think it's fairly broad - some families consider themselves to be *partially* unschooling. :-)

"Learning from life", and "child-led learning" are good ways to describe it. :tu

I like this site. http://www.unschooling.com/library/faq/definitions.shtml It is a compilation of quotes - people's ideas of what Unschooling means to them.

[MelanieMC]

Ok, now I get it. Thanks so much!