What is unschooling?
This is a term throw around in the homeschool world and it is one of those words that there really is no right answer as to what it is. Ask 20 homeschool parents and get 20 different answers! Some people think it is just taking time off from ALL schooling so that they and their child can decompress from public school, clear their minds from what has been drilled into us by the public school system and be fresh and clear to start the homeschooling adventure. For some people, this can be a few days, a few weeks or as one woman told me....1 month off for each year in the public school system. For other people, unschooling is a way of life. They abandon traditional teaching methods and either fly by the seat of their pants, teach their children what they deem fundamental or even teach something daily that pops into their head.
None of these is considered wrong! The joy and benefit of homeschooling is the adaptability to make your homeschool day what it can and will be to work for you and your family!
I love that part of homeschooling!!!
We used unschooling to be take a short break for 1 of my sons from public school, approx. 2 weeks and this was more so Mom had time to get a plan together!LOL He was an accidental homeschooler and basically, I felt he had been beaten down in public school and lost his way. I felt that taking a short break would let him get his head together and let Mom decide what the heck we were doing! With my other son, we did not do unschooling at all! He LOVES school and had already played around with the homeschool program we use, Time 4 Learning and jumped right in on a Monday after we had pulled him from public school.
Even during our breaks and holidays we still do not really unschool. We still do spelling printables, free reading, science experiments that need to be tended and PE using those new bikes Santa brought them!
Even before we homeschooled, I was a firm believe in an idle mind is a wasted mind. We used Summer Vacation to read, practice math drill and spelling practice because I felt that 3 months off from ALL learning just let kids mind go to waste and most teacher's worked too hard to get my child working to let it go away.
So, in our house unschooling is a short break that we debrief from either public school or homeschool but we still manage to squeak in some sort of learning.
What does unschooling mean to you?
2 comments:
Hi Katrina,
Just listening to you on the conference call and looking at everyone's blog. Yours looks good.
What's with the nine chickens? And the "Pacman frog?"
john (Logged in as Jenn)
See you on the parents homeschool forum
Ummm, I have a chicken addiction!LOL
We have 15 now and being that Spring is around the corner... it could be more!
Pacman frog didnt make it, we tried 2 and they both died.
I need to update my info as now we have a chameleon and a bearded dragon!
Glad my blog looks good John, thank you!
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