How to Choose Your Homeschool Philosophy

Homeschooling is as much a lifestyle choice as it is an educational
alternative. Your beliefs about child development, learning theory and life in general will influence the homeschool philosophy you embrace. Many parents begin homeschooling with a particular style and shift to other methods as they gain experience.

Difficulty:

Moderately challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need

• Desk Chairs
• Desks
• Internet Access
• Library Cards
• Personal Organizers
• Computers

Unschooling

1. Believe that children learn best when they follow their interests. Unschoolers often follow no formal curriculum, but they do include workbooks, textbooks, and other structured aspects if the child's interests lead to them.

2. Expose your children to a variety of people, places and experiences and involve them in everyday life. Help them explore their areas of interest.

3. Keep in mind that learning opportunities are everywhere - in doubling recipes, divvying up cookies, writing thank-you notes, exploring the backyard, and visiting the zoo, museums and historical sites.

School-at-Home

1. Subscribe to the belief that learning occurs through the transfer of knowledge from teacher to student. School-at-home adherents, like formal educational institutions, follow structured lesson plans with set curricula.

2. Involve the student in lesson planning as appropriate.

3. Take advantage of the growing number and variety of school-at-home prepared curricula. When choosing a curriculum, keep in mind your child's interests and learning styles. Remember that you can adapt, supplement or discard any curriculum as needed.

Other Philosophies

1. Choose Eclectic Homeschooling if you believe that learning occurs best when children are given a variety of materials and options, but some structure is necessary. Explore options such as textbooks, math units, and workbooks, and allow the child's interests to influence choices of materials and methods. Try the approach that seems the most likely to work, observe your child and modify as needed.

2. Select the Unit Studies approach if you feel children learn best when they are given clear connections under each topic. For instance, a Pioneer Days theme might include reading and writing about the times and people, making a craft representative of Pioneer times and gaining skills by cooking a meal from Pioneer recipes and learning Pioneer songs. Purchase or create unit studies, each of which covers several subject areas with one theme. Choose which units appeal to you, and allow children some say in which units to follow. You may enjoy using prepared unit studies programs such as KONOS or Five in a Row.

3. Educate your child using the Classical method if you acknowledge that there is a definitive body of knowledge found in the great books that have been passed down to us through the centuries that one needs in order to be educated in our society. Research the various methods of Classical homeschooling, such as those of Charlotte Mason and Dorothy Sayers, and purchase or create your own classical curriculum, adapting as you see fit.

Tips & Warnings

• Learn more about this philosophy at Unschooling.com (see Related Sites).

• Process and product are of equal importance in unschooling; how learning happens matters just as much as what is learned.