homeschooling is nothing new to us. we homeschooled for a number of years until we had a family catastrophe that caused the children to have to enter public school. when i began to rethink how our lives were being played out, bringing the kids back home was at the top of my list. kamrynn and kassidy having typical junior high angst was the straw that broke the camels back on that topic.
in our former homeschooling life we used a very popular literature based curriculum. it was this particular curriculum's catalog that i immediately requested when the decision to bring the girls back home was solidified. as i was pouring over the catalog, i quickly remembered my particular school at home achilles heel.
i LOVE the idea behind using books to teach. i love to read. i love to read aloud to my kids. my kids love to listen to me read to them. perfect fit, huh? here's the kicker, i am HORRIBLE at consistency. i have the worst time ever at following a laid out plan, even the ones already scripted for me. i also struggle with keeping a daily schedule. i am a very free spirited person. i also have adhd (no, i don't medicate, adhd is what makes me uniquely me). schedules, lesson plans, scope and sequences, scripted lessons, and just about anything that resembles traditional learning is not for me. i abhor any kind of busy work, workbooks, research papers, penmanship for penmanship's sake, and repetitive drills of any type.
then god himself opened the sky above and allowed me to see through unfettered eyes exactly what he had in mind for our family. tim and i were watching tv one evening and came across "radical parenting" on discovery health. to be honest, what got us watching was the promise of a segment on attachment parenting (ap). we are an ap family and were glad that the positive message of ap was getting some media time. what intrigued me most though was the portion on unschooling.
my curiosity was piqued. up until that fateful night, i had only heard about unschooling and i hadn't heard that much. the next couple of days i googled all the info i could on the subject. i ordered some great books and perused unschooling blogs. and right now i am gleaning all the information on the process (or lack there of ) of unschooling. the unschooling ethos matches our family/parenting philosophy very closely and because we already embrace ap, we are pretty much already unschooling.
i can't wait until the kids are done with school so we can begin to begin de-schooling.
