has anyone ever "un"schooled thier children? and through what grades?

Question

What is the diffrence between "un" schooling compared to homeschooling?

Answer 1

We do a little of everything.

Unschooling means pretty much no textbooks, no curriculum programs, no set hours of paperwork and desk time. There are LOTS of sites and books from the library on unschooling.

Personally, we impliment some unschool where it is the best way to learn. For example, to teach my son fractions, we baked cookies and made dinners. He learned fractions by MEASURING. Its' the way I use fractions now, so it made sense to show him what 1/2 is or how I can use two 1/4 cups if I can't find my 1/2 measuring cup. :) Kwim?

It can also include lots more hands on, like farming to learn, museums to learn art/history, volunteering at a place to learn..etc. etc.

Answer 2

yes i have started with my daughter she is 2yrs and 4 months old. she can knows her ABC's sight and sound English and Spanish. numbers to 20 - English and Spanish. colors, shapes, addition. counting objects and can read some words only in English. she is young so it hasn't gotten hard yet. i just let her decide when and what she wants to learn. we watch sesame street too and that's all i allow her to watch. we do our ABC's on the potty and colors and shapes in the car. that is my definition of unschooling. but what works for some doesn't work for all. just try different things and let the kids guide you that's the best thing about homeschooling or unschooling you can learn things they don't teach in school.

Answer 3

I don't unschool my kids, although I know people who have unschooled their kids all the way through high school. It simply means, in broad terms, that the kids are in charge of their learning and there is no imposition on the parents' part as to what to learn.

Answer 4

You could say we've been unschooling for 13.5 years.

When our child was very young, we read him lots of books, devoted lots of one on one time to his adventures and to walks in the woods, and discussions with him about anything that interested mom and dad and then, him.

By age 3, to help him fall asleep, I started reading Homer's The Odyssey outloud. I wouldn't get far each night, because I would stop every few stanzas and talk about what the words meant, and later, we talked about what the symbols meant, how phrases (like 'rosy fingers of dawn') were repeated over and over. It took 18 months to finish as a bedtime story. At some point in there, he said "Now I know how Odysseus felt when he landed on the beach in Ithica. " His interest in myths spread to Jesus Christ Superstar and from their to comparative religions and miltary history. For literally years, he has had nearby "the History of Warfare" and has an astonishing knowledge of western history.

At one point, he got interested in vikings. He ended up devouring thousands of pages of Norse Sagas. From there, he got interested in Russian history, and from there, an in-depth study of WWII. He's read several memoirs by soldiers on all sides. The books he reads are for adults, not kids.

He knows enough math to pass the required test every year - and math we've taught all by cooking, gardening, building, banking, monopoly! His reading, as you can imagine, is superior, and we never sat down and taught him how to read - except that i would often point out a letter, mention the sound it made, etc. Over the years, this added up to reading.

If your child has already been to school, they often need to 'de-school' - get out of the mode of having all their learning planned for them and limited and structured by others. Some kids need months to just read, unwind, play, discover themselvs. (I would strongly limit ninetendo style games and tv time, but allow great computer games like Age of Empires and Civilization and Sid Meir's Pirates, because there is solid info there that kids really learn from. Some unschoolers say they don't limit any media, and my husband says they're unparenters, not unschoolers.)

Anyway, the model also works for our 9 year old, who has a very different personality than our oldest, but who is amazingly bright and is a strong reader, too. It's a great way of life.

I think mom and dad have to have enthusiasm for learning and some interests of their own, to inspire kids.

Answer 5

Yeah, I do it with my kids. Every day, after school, I force my daughter to sniff glue until she forgets everything she learned at school that day. In this way I am unschooling my child

Answer 6

definite....there are some human beings on my checklist of contacts i might decide for to grant hugs to......and that i do think of of that fairly plenty. a lot of them have been there for me on many activities to make me smile whilst i in my opinion necessary it....i'm optimistic a number of them be responsive to who they are!