Homeschooling may conjure the image of siblings hard at work around the kitchen table with mom lecturing and correcting, but the real variety of homeschooling cannot be distilled into this image.
Take my children, for example. If you peaked into my house, you would often find my kids around the kitchen table, hard at work, with books and supplies piled around them. We have to clear their projects to make room for meals. You might even find me hovering around, giving an explanation, or helping a child to solve a problem.
However, my kids are unschoolers. Any assignments they're doing are by their own choice and the assignments weren't given by me. They come from Girl Scouts, 4-H, and any number of personal projects the children have taken on in pursuit of their own goals.
Homeschooling Methods
For my part, I look to various educational methods and homeschooling approaches for inspiration and ideas on helping my children meet their educational needs.
- The Charlotte Mason educational method appeals to my family for its focus on hands-on learning, nature study, and living books written first-person by authors who are passionate about their topics.
- Classical education, the way John Taylor Gatto describes it, appeals to me for its focus on nurturing and honoring independent thought and for providing real-world experiences not available in classrooms.
- I like the constructivist theory of learning because it views learning as necessarily an active social process.
- I like holistic homeschooling for its focus on the whole child.
- Online schooling, or learning through interactive educational websites, appeals to my children because they enjoy the fun and games, the help mastering academic skills, and the convenience of the computer. I made them a homeschool learning website for this purpose.
Homeschooling Tips and Practices
Aside from homeschooling philosophies, I gather ideas such as
- wall and refrigerator homeschooling,
- creating learning nooks in the home,
- using Wikispaces for Teachers,
- creating a daily rhythm for balanced homeschool days,
- making lapbooks to support and commemorate our learning, and
- the many helpful tips in home tutoring.
It's important not to generalize when it comes to homeschooling. It's not really just an at-home educational method. Like unschooling with its negative prefix, homeschooling can be anything that isn't school.
Unschooling works for my family. It suits our style of living and appears to best support my children's styles of learning. Homeschooling comes in many forms. Some families do follow structured programs, but not all. Homeschoolers can utilize tips and practices in any educational approach.
Sara McGrath - Sara is a veteran homeschool mom of three, Usborne consultant, and the author of Unschooling: A Lifestyle of Learning.
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