Obviously, our kids are still young. We are still figuring this whole homeschooling thing out, and I can definitely see that we are leaning in an unschooling direction. Molly went to public preschool and started full time public kindergarten in the fall of 2013. We made it halfway through the year, and made the decision to pull her out of school after one week back from Winter break. It's astonishing how your world changes when you go from questioning nothing to questioning EVERYTHING! Everything that we had accepted as just how it is and what you do, all of a sudden seemed completely ridiculous. What do you mean, my 5 year old has 20 minutes to eat lunch and 55 minutes a day to play? And next year, she will only have 40 minutes of recess? Why does my full time kindergartner have HOMEWORK!? What in the world happened to graham crackers, apple juice, and naptime?
And so, I dove into the rabbit hole. I pulled my husband in with me. We deschooled. We signed up for activities. We started trying to do "school at home." We were miserable. I remember telling her, "we can't just play and have fun all the time!" Then one day, I was setting up a new printer, and the kids were playing with the box. All of a sudden, it occurred to me that what they were gaining, playing with that box, was so much more valuable than anything we could get out of any curriculum or instruction.
So we read. And we're still reading. We're still figuring all this out. We're still a little afraid of the big scary Unschooling. But not as afraid as we are of big scary public school. What we know for sure is that the less we force, the happier we are.
I admire the fact that you can do unschooling. I'm admittedly a control freak and I just need to check off some boxes. We homeschool, with a great online homeschool curriculum, we do a lot of reading,and my daughter does have a lot of child led education time (for example, she is learning equine and barn management since she got her horse in September), but along the lines of education should be fun, and engaging, and exciting we added a heavy dose of educational games. One of our favorite sites for elementary educational games is Learning Games for Kids. (www.learninggamesforkids.com) We have been homeschooling for almost 8 years, and I just can't imagine a better way to educate my daughter. I'm glad you have the flexibility to choose how you educate your children. Enjoy the time together, enjoy watching the world unfold before their eyes, and best of luck!
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