On the heels of my planning posts (High School and Seventh Grade), I find that I am asking myself these questions. And wondering what it would look like for each of my children. What do they think of when they imagine how they want homeschooling to be?
Is it really all just a mishmash of various books and curriculum plans, or is it more?
So when I close my eyes, what I see is...
Reading and sharing books
Active discussion
Watching videos that involve our minds and make us think
Seeing my children explore avenues and byways of interest
Creating art (and other) projects that explore what we have learned without busy work
Finding connections between subjects, not putting them into neat little boxes
Exploring the world around us, through actual interaction, or books, or movies, or however it can and needs to be done
I have a number of friends that have very successfully unschooled their children all the way through high school. And I have friends that are, like me, on the cusp of high school, and are suddenly worried that what they, what we, have done, isn't enough. That we are somehow failing our children. In my real life, I know no one that has made a plan and stuck to it for each year, though I am sure those people exist somewhere nearby, not just on the internet.
I've planned today to sit down with my children, and see what they want, what they see when they close their eyes, what they enjoy, and what they find tedious.
We basically unschooled/relaxed schooled for extra topics like history, science, etc. Doing random curriculum different each year, reading and videos and movies, various classes, etc. I never worried much about those things. But I always stuck to a strict plan for math and English particularly writing from about 4th grade onward. I am glad now because my daughter started college courses this year for 10th grade (she is 15) and she was able to pass the placement exams like a breeze and is now able to write 4-12 page term papers for her college courses without (much) stress. She has even needed to write papers for "simple" classes like art history. So I am glad we did some type of formal instruction for the basics or she would be having a much tougher time right now. Just my own experience to take or leave. :-)
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