Homeschooling
We are very new to homeschooling, but it is an exciting journey we are undertaking. I have barely begun homeschooling, but I have already realized that I will probably end up learning more than I will ever teach them!
I hope you will find some helpful links or at least some things to think about while you peruse this page!
The Short Story: Our homeschool is a self-teaching, literature-based, loosely Classical approach. Our core curriculum we have chosen is Robinson Curriculum, and it is self-teaching and literature based. As far as the Classical style is concerned, by far the best book on a Classical education that I have read is The Well-Trained Mind by Jesse and Susan Bauer. I highly recommend it to anyone considering this method of teaching.
The Long Story: After much research and prayer, we finally came to some conclusions about how we want to approach homeschooling our children. My husband wanted to incorporate the Classical approach to education, but I was hesitant at first. I thought it was over-achieving and manditorily included Latin. If you're familiar with Classical education, you're probably laughing right now. After I did some research, I realized I agreed with my husband and wanted to at least roughly use the Classical education model.
I was pretty terrified for years at the prospect of teaching my children everything they will need to know for the rest of their lives! Again, after much reading and talking to homeschool moms, I came to believe that after the initial instruction of phonics and math facts, the only thing I need to teach my children is how to think for themselves. Classical education is designed to achieve this, but I also believe that learning through self-teaching is especially effective in teaching someone how to reason and think independently.
The curriculum we have chosen is not only self-teaching, but it is literature based as well. Afterall, once someone is out of school, any continued learning is almost always done through reading. If you give a child superior reading and thinking skills, they can learn anything they want. Our math text will also be used primarily as self-taught, though I am not as thoroughly convinced about the success of this and am still doing some research.
In summary, I never wanted a "school at home" type of learning environment where we follow what the public schools do, only we do it at our kitchen table. We are definitely not "unschooling," but we are trying to create an environment of learning that is best for each of our children and will allow them to learn in a manner that best suits their unique needs and abilities.
